"The Doctor"

I spent a goodly portion of time this morning doing "other" medical things, ie, visiting Smokin' Dr J and getting my blood drawn at the hospital, nothing wrong, just some regular testing. And may I just brag before we proceed about my excellent blood pressure. We'll find out later about the cholesterol testing - I'm reticent. I'm not eating much, but it all seems to be cheese and eggs.

But that's neither here nor there. I was at Smokin's office this morning. I'll tell you this by way of background information, though it's not really pertinent to the story. Dr J's office is in a big, old house in B'field. It's been redone, of course, to make it office-worthy, but unfortunately, when it was redone, it was in the splendor of the 70s, when paneling was all the rage. So you have the smallish, paneled waiting room, the bigger, paneled reception area, two examining rooms, one larger and paneled, with the really good table and the bathroom offshoot (that's the one where pelvic exams are done - if you're not there for a pelvic, it's a crapshoot as to which room you'll get), and a smaller paneled examining room, with the kind-of-rickety table and no bathroom and where it's situated the light isn't very good in the morning. Then, the biggest room on the first floor (it's a two-story house), is, of course, Dr J's office, which is warm and roomy and smoke-filled. And paneled.

So this morning, after not having to wait long, I was called and taken back. The smaller room, damn. I sat there, not on the kind-of-rickety table but in the chair, and waited for the doctor's arrival. And I looked around.

I looked at what I normally look at: a large framed photo on one paneled wall of a scene. I say "a scene" because I have no idea what it really is. It's nature, I can tell you that. For a long time I thought it was an arial view of Niagra Falls. Then the more times I saw it, the more I realized it couldn't be Niagra Falls because just below where the watery rush was falling, there was a town. I don't really ever recall Niagra falling on a town, I'm sure that would have been on the news at some point, so in subsequent visits, I've looked closer, wondering if it's fog rolling in on a town. But if it is, it's some massive fog. I mean, half the picture is a blanket of white, leading to more white that's tumbling down hard and fast towards the ground. Like, well, like Niagra Falls.

Finally, since the doctor hadn't made his entrance yet, I got up and walked over to the picture and studied it hard. And it think it probably is fog. A massive fog. I mean, it would make sense, only a fog that massive would deserve to have its picture taken, especially in a suitable for framing format. So I decided it was indeed fog, that mystery was solved, and I went and sat back down, which put me facing the picture on the adjoining paneled wall in the room.

That painting was "The Doctor."

"The Doctor" holds kind of a special place in my medical life. This is because it was in the Smokin' Doctor's office the very first time I ever went there, lo those many years ago. At that time it was in the good examining room, and was on the wall facing you as you sat on the good examining table. It was beside a cross on the wall, the cross that's still there, that Dr J always makes you focus on when he shines the light in your eyes. (Dr J is from the Phillippines and he may be a hard-livin' guy, but he's a die-hard Catholic.) Eventually "The Doctor" got moved to the smaller, less nice room and a large, pretty, framed photo of local nature got hung in the better exam room.

Here is the scenario of "The Doctor." It's around the turn of the century. In a dark and dingy room, a very sick little girl is lying on two chairs pushed together. Beside her sits her doctor, consumed with care and concern. In the background you see the parents, the mother bent over weeping onto a table, and the father looking on. In fact, if you'd like, you can go look at it here.

So, for years I've seen "The Doctor," and for years the same three thoughts have run through my mind. And I don't mean fleetingly, they appear and I sit and dwell on them, sometimes after I've even left the confines of the big two-story house. These thoughts are:

1. God, what a morbid painting.
2. Gee, I wonder how many doctors across America (and the world) must have this painting in their offices.
3. Damn, that doctor looks exactly like Ulysses S Grant.

Today, as I sat there looking at the picture, my eyes - and thoughts - started to shift. Shift to the dad, standing there, looking with worry and admiration at the doctor, played by Ulysses S Grant. A fourth thought thundered into my mind.

4. Holy shit! That's John Cusack!

I don't know why I never looked at the dad before. Maybe I'd been focusing on the morbidity of the picture and the doctor's uncanny resemblance to a Civil War General a world away from the painter. But the face of Mr I-Have-A-Sick-Little-Girl was a dead ringer for everybody's favorite nice guy actor John Cusack. I actually got up and walked over to this picture too, to have a closer look. Yep, that's John. (And I know in that link it doesn't look like him, but really. Trust me.)

Now I'll never look at that painting the same way again. And it'll make the little, darker exam room more interesting to be assigned to. But it still amazes me. The painting is from the 1880s, so it's possible the painter could have seen what General Grant looked like. But now, there was no way he could know that John Cusack was going to be a famous actor in the 21st century.

Hmmm. Two more thoughts:

5. John Cusack's looking on, thinking, "Wow. Our doctor's US Grant."
6. We'll never know who the wife looks like, since we can only see the top of her head.