Well, my sister and one of my sisters-in-law say I should go to the doctor, and I’ve made an appointment for later this morning. Really, though, I couldn’t have gone to the doctor earlier — I thought it was just a cold, and I wasn’t going to take time off work and drive all the way to Murfreesboro and pay $30 copay just for a cold. It’s only now, that it seems to be something else, that it seems like a good idea to do that.

I wish I had a local doctor. We have some excellent local doctors now, and if I were picking a doctor I’d certainly pick one here locally. But my parents had a bad experience with a local doctor treating my youngest brother, who was an infant, soon after we moved to the county in 1972. They started taking us to a pediatrician in Murfreesboro. When it came time for my college physical, I went to my pediatrician’s father, who was an internal medicine specialist at that same clinic. The next time I needed a doctor, I tried to see him again, but he’d retired and I started going to one of his successors. I’ve been seeing that same doctor ever since, even though he’s left that practice and gone out on his own. I like him, and I’ve got a lot of background with him with my blood pressure and thyroid problems. It would probably be a bad idea to up and change doctors now, even though it would be much more convenient to see someone here in Shelbyville.