I had to take a new medicine prescribed for me for acid reflux. The gastroenterologist told me years ago that I really did not have the ‘real’ acid reflux because he had patients who had it and were very sickened by it.He said that mine was nothing at all and he prescribed something for it and I have taken it for over twenty years and it helped. Maybe, the gastro doctor was right, because a few weeks ago, I ‘really’ got it badly.
Finally, I had to give in and got a prescription for something stronger and newer that is on the drug market. I tried it last Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I was brave in my own mind. I am a pharmacist’s wife and I do not like taking new medicines, new for me, not necessarily new on the drug scene. By the third afternoon, I felt sicker than before taking it and stopped. I spoke to my physician assistant Dennis and he said we will try something else on my Friday visit about this problem.
On Friday, he prescribed something he has been taking himself and I promised to get it filled and to try it. I did not want to start using it on a weekend and especially on a Sunday, because we were going to visit the younger grandchildren out of state and that is a long and tiresome trip and if you do not feel well, it is a difficult trip. I had the reflux so badly that I decided to take it on a Sunday and I texted Dennis and we spoke on the phone after the text and he urged me to try it and everything would be fine. I promised I would as soon as I hung up on the phone call. I had great trepidation in thinking about it, but popped in the small white pill before I could change my mind. We left for our trip about two hours later and had a nice ride there, plenty of traffic and cars jockeying back and forth between lanes. I was fine and he also told me to take a new antacid before I came home from there.
Find out what's happening in Fairfax Stationfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
It was like magic (so far) and the magic pill worked and lots of the anxiety of taking it disappeared and I felt better within two hours in the acid reflux event. We had a nice time with the grandkids and our son and daughter-in-law and I was glad I had spoken to Dennis and had his encouragement and not to wait until Monday to start with this new medicine.
Sometimes, in our life, we are fortunate to meet a special person or persons and they can affect and influence our life in significant ways. Dennis is one of them and I have written before about him; this was indeed for me, a special moment. I had been sick with this reflux for about a week and even though it is not a life happening event, it is surely quite an unhappy feeling and sensation, as anyone who suffers from it will confirm its unhealthy symptoms and characteristic, conscious throat manifestations. All medicines come now with a paper stating the possible side effects. If you read them and you should be informed about them; you feel doubtful, if you want to even try them. Dennis instilled in me the faith that I should try a few days with this new medicine (new for me) and see what happens.
Find out what's happening in Fairfax Stationfor free with the latest updates from Patch.
So sometimes a little bit of talk over the phone, a few lines texted, or a note emailed can have many benefits to the person. In this case, I was the lucky recipient of this advice from this special, knowledgeable, medical person-Dennis H.Myers and this helped me to be able to visit my family and to have a great time and most of all to feel better than I have in a few weeks.
Without his conversation to me at about 1030 A.M. on this Sunday morning, I would not have had the courage to try it just before taking an out of town trip. Bravo to people like Dennis who care about their patients even on their day off-Sunday- to speak for about eight minutes and to make someone do something and this something made me feel better and healthier than I have in two weeks from suffering with this problem. Perhaps, after a week or more on this medicine, I will be able to go off of it and the problem will be healed. This happened only because Dennis is patient with the patient and you do not find that with lots of medical people now days. I am lucky in my life with my medical doctors to have discovered this fine, compassionate, knowledgeable, dear, devoted, smart, kind and willing to be my friend person, to take care of me even on a Sunday. There was a movie about fifty years ago and its title was Never On Sunday. In my case, it was Even On Sunday and God bless this person who did what he was taught and that was to take care of the patient and even on Sunday or even Saturday, they are yours via the internet, the email, the text to help you.
I quote Emily Dickinson a lot. She wrote:
Who has not found the Heaven below
Will fail of it above
God’s residence is next to mine
His furniture is about love
This nice thing happened to me, because I was able to have ‘courage’ to take a new medicine, to feel it’s good affect (so far) and mainly to have a man on my side to give me the reassurance and support I really needed. God’s residence was next door to my home and Dennis H. Myers was my wonderful visitor in my life.
We can all be a visitor in someone’s life. We can visit a neighbor who may not receive many people coming to see him/her and it would brighten their day. When my mom was living about ten minutes from my home (she is gone almost twenty-eight years now) and I would bring her home to her apartment after spending the day with us; she would stand in her balcony window and wave to us as I pulled out of her parking lot. She was elated to have spent the Saturday with us and now that we were leaving to go to our home, she smiled, but I knew she was a bit sad to be alone again.
She had nice neighbors who looked in on her though they were seniors themselves, she had my brother and me to visit and in my case, bring her to my home to spend the day with her grandchildren. She looked forward to Saturdays with great anticipation to spending many hours with us after I had taken her to the hair salon to get her weekly hair done. She worked five days a week for the State of Maryland and had a very nice and interesting job in the children’s work permit department helping kids trying to get jobs and then they needed their work permits to make sure they were sixteen before applying for the work.
She looked forward to going to work every day, she was about almost sixty when Dad died and she returned to the work force. She was fortunate to get this job, though when she had a physical before being hired, the obnoxious doctor working for the state, told her she really would not get the job because she had in her records that she had a heart attack about ten years before and they would not hire her. So she persevered even with his recommendation that they not hire her; she got employment there and stayed to mandatory retirement which was about twelve years later. Interesting thing, the obnoxious doctor died a few years after saying that to her, from a heart attack. She was a good and intelligent worker and was always on the job, on time, doing her day’s work and everyone liked her. She met a nice friend there and she and Sylvia went on many trips together. They went to Spain and California and she and my aunt went on a cruise and she went with a group to Israel. So they were hard trips and she did well and enjoyed life even though the nasty doctor said she would not get the job at all.
God’s residence was next to mom’s and his furniture was his love for her and for all people, regardless of their age, their maybe heart attacks or other illnesses. Persons like mom, Lea Weinstein Sohmer who was a good soul all her life to us kids, her grandkids, to Dad and to her friends and family and to Dennis H. Myers who is a delightful, kind and most of all caring person in his daily life and in his profession; they are special and they should receive the beautiful respect of all of us who know them in life and we remember their spirit forever. You could call this a visit of love. Dennis gave me his knowledge, encouragement and help on a Sunday, I gave mom her visit usually on a Saturday and all of us can visit someone on any day of the week that is good for them and us. We will be the beneficiary of our visit of love if it was done in person or even over the phone, internet or text.
