Take Two Pills and Call Me in November

So my wife suggests I see a doctor, and I say, “Sure, fine, I’ll go see the doctor.” But when she turns away, I mutter, “In about a million years,” out of the side of my mouth, the way Popeye used to talk to Olive Oyl. Out of the side of the mouth.

“You’re really calling the doctor?” my wife asks, knowing I sometimes mutter.

“I’m calling the doctor,” I tell her again.

“In about a million years, Dad?” the boy says.

“You be quiet,” I tell him.

Nothing against doctors. I go to them all the time. I went to one when I was born. I’ll go to one when I die. In between, I’ve been a couple of times, mostly to get fish hooks removed from my thumb. The same reason Popeye used to go.

“Welcome to the world,” said the first doctor I ever met, after which he snipped off my umbilical cord and smacked me till I cried.

“How will you be paying for this?” his nurse surely asked.

“I’m insured,” I probably wanted to say, but the guy was smacking me, trying to get my lungs started. I guess at the time I didn’t appreciate doctors. Now, of course, I do.

So I call the doctor’s office, and I tell them what’s wrong, that I’ve had a chest cold for a couple of weeks and I fear that it’s getting worse because I gasp when I cough and often can’t quite get my breath back. Nothing serious. I just can’t breathe.

“The doctor is booked up till November,” the appointment person says.

That’s really what she says. November. Which seems a little distant to me. It’s three weeks away, and I suspect that by November, I’ll either be well again or no longer around.

“Did I mention that I’m having trouble breathing?” I ask.

“I can get you in to see the nurse practitioner,” the appointment person says.

“What about the doctor?” I say.

“The nurse practitioner can see you at 2:30,” the appointment person says.

This seems to be a new branch of medicine. Nurse practitioning. When I call the children’s pediatrician, I always get the nurse practitioner. The illness doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference. It’s almost always the nurse practitioner.

Used to be, you could see a doctor. They’d put you in one of those tiny little examining rooms. You’d wait 15 minutes, then a nurse would come in. You’d wait 15 more minutes, then a doctor would come in. That’s how it worked, back when there were still doctors.

“I’ve never even seen my doctor,” a colleague at work tells me. “I always see the nurse practitioner.”

Apparently, there are no more doctors. They exist only in the directory in the lobby or in nameplates on office doors, though I know someone who spotted one once at a golf course.

Today, we have nurse practitioners. They seem capable. They are always courteous and personable, two things that some doctors used to have trouble with.

“Hurry up, I’m busy,” a doctor once told my wife when he came on the phone. Right away, she felt much better.

So I go to see the nurse practitioner, who works at the same office where the doctors all once worked.

“Ten dollars,” the woman at the glass window says.

And I sit in a tiny examining room for 15 minutes, reading an old People magazine. A nurse comes in, then I read for 15 minutes more.

The magazine has an article on Shirley Jones. Right away, I feel much better.

“You’re a little warm,” the nurse practitioner says when she finally arrives.

“It’s just the magazine,” I explain.

And the nurse practitioner begins to examine me. Her name is Cindy. Very pleasant. Explains everything.

“We’re seeing a lot of this,” she tells me, placing the stethoscope on my back, checking for pneumonia.

“Your lungs seem clear,” she says.

“Yeah, I went swimming the other day,” I tell her.

“Why?” she asks.

“To see how my lungs were,” I explain.

“You guys,” she says with a sigh, “are all the same.”

I tell her the old joke about how guys never use their sick days at work. They just save them all up, then die early.

“I never heard that one,” she says, writing me a prescription. “You guys are all the same.”

Back home, the kids don’t believe I’m really sick. They think it’s a scam I’m pulling in order to sit on the couch and watch sports all day. Like I would ever do that.

“Sit here,” one of them says, taking my pulse.

“Open your mouth,” says another.

“Are you guys doctors?” I ask.

“Nope, we’re circus clowns,” says the boy.

“That’s a relief,” I say.

And they poke me and pinch me and sit on my legs, the way real doctors used to, back when there were still real doctors around.

“Wiggle your toes,” says the boy.

“Wiggle your ears,” says the little girl.

In a few minutes, they are done. They write something in medical records, then talk to me with their backs turned. Just like real doctors.

“You slouch a lot,” one of them concludes.

“And you’re a little bowlegged,” says another.

“At Christmas, you could be a little more generous,” says my older daughter.

“Thanks,” I say, knowing how fortunate I am to get this kind of quality medical attention.

“And how will you be paying?” asks the boy.

“I have no money,” I say.

“Money’s not important,” the little girl says, obviously new to medicine.

“Thanks,” I say.

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Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.