When I went to the doctor as a child.

I have always loved doctors and therapists beyond all reason. From as long as I could remember, I seemed to know that they loved me and wanted me to be happy. There is a gentleness and kindness to going to a doctor that I can't remember experiencing anywhere else. They are my first memory of being touched in a way that was comforting. My first experience of somebody using their hands to help me be well. How I hungered for that touch.

When I was a child I had bronchitis. I was about 7 years old. I'd been to the doctor, taken meds, had plenty of fluids and slept with the vaporizor with Vapo-Rub in the little recepticle. One evening, I had a hard time breathing - enough to really worry my parents. I remember getting out of bed and sitting in the living room in a hand-me-down hot pink chenille bathrobe from one of the Llewellyn girls from down the street. It was probably evening, but in my memory it was late. Then, my mother and I got in the car and drove to the medical office.
It was a group practice, with long halls. At night, everything was dark. I remember Dr. Baker, who was a trim guy with a grey crew-cut who I had never had any particular feelings about one way or the other. He turned on the lights as we walked to the exam room. I don't remember much about the exam itself - white table, stethescope, take a deep breath, let me look in your ears...? But then, he left the room to go get something to give me a shot. For some reason, I still remember that, because I didn't know that doctors could give shots. I always thought it was some special skill belonging to the exclusive realm of nurses. Dr. Baker gave me shot, I reckon he talked with my mother, and the visit ended the way any short term urgent care visit ends. After instructions, prescription, while the kid stares at the wall and tries to figure out what the adults are talking about. None of this is particularly interesting.
But then, he did something I have never forgotten. He picked me up and carried me out to the car. There was no discussion of this, no asking whether it was okay - he just knew that this was the thing to do. He ne as a sick child who needed to be carried, and so he carried me. The memory of this one doctor on this one night makes me cry even now.

Even now, I think usually my doctors who I think on when I need an image to comfort me, something to hole on to.