They have to be my age . . .

There has been a retirement in my family. MY DOCTOR! That's what it feels like anyway. My primary care doctor has decided to retire, big jerk . . how dare he. I have been going to him for 28 years, he has some good years left still and he is going to spend them retired. . . hmmpfff. It's the next worse thing that could happen to my hairdresser moving or retiring. I tell her repeatedly, "If you move, I move with you, anywhere, anytime!" I guess I have trust issues. So I began my search a few months ago for a new doctor. I have a good friend who works for Providence Health System, so I asked her to do some research for me.

Please find me a physician who meets the following criteria:

1. Is female . . nothing against male doctors (I've been seeing them my whole life) but I'm ready to make the switch.
2. Someone that has an office on the westside of Portland.
3. Someone that is close to my age (I want them to understand me at this age now, it's a personal bias)
4. Specializes in Internal Medicine (that way I have one stop shopping, no more OB/GYN office with pregnant women and crying babies, been there . . done that)
5. Positive feedback from her patients.

So she searched for me and one name came to the top. Dr. Rebekah Trochmann, MD. Her office is located in The Portland Clinic Beaverton office, she is an Internist AND she's 52! yeah! Lots of positive feedback from patients about her. So I call to make a new patient appointment (back in November). She is so popular I wasn't able to get in for my appt. until March. I can appreciate that she likes to keep most of her appointment slots open for her established patients, I respect that. We meet, we chat, I love her, we completely connected! She totally understands me (that's huge). I decided at the beginning of the new year to start taking better care of myself. I haven't been really, seems my busy life gets in the way and I want/need to change that. First, I started to do some things with my diet on my own, to help me lose a few pounds and now with a new doctor I had some questions about some issues. I've been hearing alot about bone density testing. I asked her if all the chatter about being tested around this age is true, and she said yes, especially with my mom's history with osteoporosis. I'm trying to be proactive, that's very different from the former me. So next month it's a bone density test, a mammogram, a fasting lab blood workup, a tetanus shot with the whooping cough vaccine and pap. I also learned on my visit that the Pacific Northwest has the highest percentage of people deficient in Vitamin D in the country. This is largely due to our lack of sun (why I need to go to Mexico every year!!ha!!) and our high use of sunscreen to block the few suns rays we do get. So on my new morning routine I will pop a daily Vitamin D tab (my only daily pill so far). Kind of feels like I have been to the mechanics shop, I'm sure it will feel even more like that next month after all my testing . It's important though, and I'm glad I have finally made it a priority.