Alva Review-Courier -

I always like having a doctor that I consider “mine” – someone to go to anytime I have a medical issue. But in an emergency, any doctor will do!

I began feeling sick one day when I was working out of town. Soon, I found myself in the office of a doctor I had never seen before.

He was perhaps 40 years old, nice and quite helpful. He sympathized with my being sick and wrote me a prescription for some pills.

I filled my prescription and drove home, feeling miserable. Before long, I took one of the pills and went to bed, worried about whether I would feel good enough to finish my work week.

I had another day of collecting money on my insurance route and then I had to make a 90-mile round trip to the district office – if I was well enough to work!

When I woke up the next morning, a Thursday, I felt better than I expected. My work that day was in my hometown, so that helped. I made a few house calls but did not run the entire route.

On Friday, I decided that I could go to the district office after all. On Saturday (not a normal work day for me) I collected from customers I had not seen on Thursday.

Meanwhile, I took all of the pills the doctor had given me and made a complete recovery. Inevitably, however, I got sick again a few months later.

Back in those days, I apparently didn’t have enough sense to eat properly and wrap up when the weather turned cold. I used to get some form of upper respiratory trouble – usually bronchitis – several times a year.

So, in preparation for seeing my family’s regular doctor, I copied down the name of the medicine my out-of-town doctor had given me earlier.

I was, of course, going to ask my doctor to give me some more of whatever medicine that was. But things did not work out the way I expected – as we will see next week.