My husband and I have gone to the same family practice doctor for 31 years. He has had an ideal balance being conservative about running tests and performing procedures yet staying up to date with the latest medical developments. I have found him to be wise and intuitive. He has weathered several crises with us, and delivered both of our babies. While he did not believe the Blood Type Diet, he admitted that it had worked for me, and he did not discourage me from following it. He is about the same age as my Honorable Husband. When we moved, we planned to make the long drive back to his office until he retired.

Recent political developments caused us to change our plan. HH turns 65 in the fall, and is mandated by our insurance company to go on Medicare. We have been warned that in the small community where we live, it is hard to find a primary care doctor that is accepting new patients, and almost impossible to find a primary care doctor that accepts new Medicare patients. We decided that we might be better off to establish ourselves with a local doctor now, before the big birthday.

HH began calling doctors that accept our insurance. The rumors were true, most doctors were not accepting new patients. Of the ones that were, some of the phone interviews revealed attitudes that HH did not like. The list got pretty short. Yesterday we had an introductory appointment with a potential doctor.

I could not be more pleased and more excited. She is as conservative as our previous doctor. She is an empathetic listener. When I got to the part of my medical history that dealt with GERD, I told her about all of the tests I had had, and how none of the medications had worked. I said that the first week on the BTD led to dramatic improvements, and that my pain was gone after two weeks.

She listened with great interest. She was familiar with the concept of the BTD, but didn’t know the specifics. She has been researching milk and immunity problems, and wanted to know what the BTD said about milk. She looked at my cholesterol numbers and observed that my bad cholesterol was very low, so the only way to get my total cholesterol (215) down would be to reduce my good cholesterol, which would affect my outstanding ratio. Obviously, she said she didn’t want to do that. She encouraged me to keep eating and exercising the way that I am.

The funniest moment came when she pressed the skin on my ankles to see if I was retaining fluid. She said, “The bottom half of you does not match the top. Your wrists reveal very small bones, but your ankle bones are large.” I told her that I was very much aware that I had two conflicting body types and that my daughter was built the same way. I decided not to go into the GTD and how the conflicting body types had made it hard for me to settle on a GenoType and impossible for DD to figure hers out.

Her meeting with HH was every bit as successful as mine. We left the office with a new local doctor, who assures HH that she will not kick him out when he turns 65. It’s hard to leave a doctor who knows us and our history so well, but I think we are going to get along with our new doctor just fine.