"In the World of Doctors, First Dates Matter"
February 25, 2006

By Laurie Edwards

Laurie and husband John

When I was 24, I met my future husband John and my ideal doctor within a few months of each other. As anyone with chronic illness understands, I consider the latter just as much a feat as the former.

After all these years, I am finally satisfied with the men in my life. Lest you think I sound too self-righteous, too much of a “Smug Married” a la Bridget Jones with a heavy dose of hospital savvy, understand it was a painstaking process of elimination and, at times indignation, that led me to this point.

Turns out, the world of dating and the world of doctors have a lot more in common than I’d considered. After all, who else has such access to the most intimate physical details of our lives?

Since I have almost as many conditions as there are systems in my body—bronchiectasis, celiac sprue disease, thyroid disease, and adrenal failure, to name a few—I’d long since abandoned the fanciful notion that any of this would be easy.
Like most twenty-somethings, I’ve amassed my share of amusing date stories. There was the guy whose outfit cost more than my entire wardrobe, and made sure I knew it. And of course, there was the guy who thought I’d find extended tales of his restored convertible as interesting as he did—I didn’t.

Arrogantly Inaccessible and Smugly Defensive
But it is my list of missed connections with doctors that had more at stake. For example, the doc I’ve nicknamed Arrogantly Inaccessible let me know right away (and over and over) where I stood in the rankings of his otherwise rich and famous patients: squarely at the bottom.

My all-time worst experience ever belongs to Smugly Defensive, a chief respiratory doctor whose method of isolating out why his treatment didn’t work was to immediately blame me—I must have skipped my medications, I couldn’t have followed through with his instructions, etc. His diagnosis couldn’t be wrong, so clearly I must be doing something wrong.

So what makes the difference between a comically bad first date and a serious relationship, or between a physician who sees you as a chart and a list of symptoms and one who sees you as a whole person, distinct from a itemized list of meds or past surgeries?

Not surprisingly, it boils down to a question of compatibility and communication.

It's All About the Chemistry
Like matters of the heart, matters of the chronic body are almost always nuanced. The things associated with illness I normally try to hide from the outside world—namely pain, fear and frustration—are the very details I can’t escape confronting if I want either of these relationships to work.

A first appointment with a new doctor really is the medical equivalent of a first date. It’s all about the chemistry, that intangible sense that this person is worth another look.
Think about the ways we’re trained to evaluate first encounters of the romantic kind: Was he (or she) polite and engaging, or brash and curt? Was the other person merely hearing the words coming out of our mouths or actually listening to them? All of these litmus tests apply once you step into that exam room.

Obviously my doctor can’t adequately address my medical needs if I’m not thorough and honest about my symptoms. If I don’t feel at ease enough to do that (think of Arrogantly Inaccessible), then we will never be able to work as a team. No collaboration, no relationship.

Fighting the Fear and Opening Up
Even when I do feel instinctively that I can open up, I still have to guard against my ingrained tendency to keep quiet for fear of sounding whiny. I tell myself that I wouldn’t be here if I had nothing to discuss. A doctor doesn’t—or shouldn’t—view what I say as a laundry list of complaints but as necessary tools to guide him or her towards better treatment. The more I disclose, the more we both benefit.

Holding back the realities of my chronic life for fear of being written off as a complainer or too overwhelming was something I worried about when I first started to date John. I vowed to myself I’d be open with him, but feared the consequences of that.

It’s not sexy or romantic to talk about suppressive antibiotics, infected phlegm, or respiratory distress, but when I spent half of our dates coughing, needed to schedule our plans around my daily chest physiotherapy, or underwent surgery, those were exactly the kinds of conversations I needed to have.

So, Tell Me About You
I knew early into our relationship—when John shyly asked if he could learn how to do my chest physiotherapy—that I was onto something. Not only was he not scared away by my daunting array of conditions, he was actually asking to be a part of my reality. More than that, I was willing to let him.

At the same time, I knew there was something special about my newest lung doctor when he shoved my hefty pile of records to the side at our first appointment and said, “So, tell me about you. What do you do, what do like, and how I can help you get there?”
He was brilliant, he was involved in cutting-edge research, and his diagnostic acumen was right on, but that’s not what drew me to him. Our relationship was sealed during our second appointment, when he told me we’d go over all my blood and lab work in a minute and then discuss treatment options, but first he wanted to hear what was new with me. How was my schoolwork going? Was I enjoying teaching? And did I have any new writing projects in the works?

He remembered, I thought. He really had been listening.

I went home from that second appointment with a sense of relief and excitement I hadn’t experienced in years. I’d refused to settle for a so-so relationship, and that paid off in the end. My first instinct was to call John and let him know the newest man in my life was definitely here to stay.

About the Author
Laurie Edwards is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree at Emerson College, where she is also an adjunct writing professor. She is a freelance writer whose work appears in such places as the "Boston Globe Magazine," Body1.com, and GlimpseAbroad.org. She is working on her first book, narrative nonfiction dealing with chronic illness.

Reprinted with permission of ChronicBabe.com.
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