Strange phone call from local doctor's office

For a short while I was a patient of a local primary care physician, but I stopped seeing him shortly after my first relapse in 2007, and here is why.

When I told him that my Dana-Farber doctor, Dan DeAngelo, had suspected relapse when my white blood count dropped and had therefore given me a bone marrow biopsy, the local doctor said that was a good catch and he never would have thought of it. So while he did not miss a diagnosis, he basically said he might have missed it.

Unable to feel confident in him anymore, I switched to another doctor and forgot about it.

Then a few weeks ago I got a message from the first doctor's office. Please call back, the doctor wants to talk to you.

"Maybe he wants to know if I'm still alive," I thought. "Or maybe he wants to know how I am."

I did call but got put on hold so long that I hung up.

I missed another message so called again and this time succeeded in getting through.

His receptionist said the doctor just wanted to know if I was still a patient.

I said, "Well, the last time I saw him was in 2007, so, no."

"That's what we thought," she said.

And that was that.

I am not losing sleep over this but I have to say that it rubbed me the wrong way.

He had obviously looked at my chart and been reminded of our last visit. It's a small town and a small  practice — not a large one where you might think they were cleaning out their files and didn't have time to look. For a minute I thought of saying why I had left, but she didn't ask and I didn't have the energy and didn't see the point.

On with the show.