I had the followup appointment with the dermatologist.

After having several months to think things over, I still wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about the whole thing. As I wrote previously, for me it was mostly a several hour inconvenience of having to go across town to see a specialist who in the end merely confirmed that I did not have lymphoma but the original diagnosis of eczema on my upper arms was correct. What I didn’t mention is on the day I went to see the specialist, I waited a half hour in the rain for a bus that never came and ended up calling a Lyft in order to get to the appointment just barely in time. I also took a Lyft home, so there was an outlay of 50 bucks involved. And of course, there’s the matter of the scars on my arms from the biopsies, which annoy me probably more than they ought to.

I told several people about this, and one person predicted that the PA, who set this all in motion by insisting that my regular dermatologist take the original biopsy and who refused to renew the correct medication prescription, would no longer be working at the dermatologist’s office by the time I went back for my followup. I wasn’t so sure.

Anyway, although I was still annoyed, I decided I was going to take a neutral approach, and see what the PA and the dermatologist had to say.

As it happened, there was no sign of the PA. Whether that meant that she was dealing with another patient or was no longer working at the office, I cannot say. I was greeted instead by a nurse who ushered me into an examining room and handled the preliminaries of making sure I was the correct patient (verifying my birthdate, etc.). Then she left and said Dr. Crawford would be in shortly.

One of the things I like about Dr. Crawford’s practice is that he doesn’t keep me waiting, unlike some of the other doctors that I see. By that I mean that generally he arrives to see me within about five to ten minutes of the appointment time; I give doctors a fifteen minute grace period before I consider them late.

On this occasion he was exceedingly prompt. The appointment was for 9:10 AM and I had been ushered into the examining room by about 9:05, and by golly if he didn’t show up right at 9:10. Maybe even a minute before. It kinda surprised me. The nurse accompanied him.

He asked me how the session with the specialist at Penn had gone, and he explained that he hadn’t received a report yet from them, which was unusual.

So I explained. I described how Dr. Chung took biopsies from each arm, and two weeks later called me with the results that it was not, in fact, lymphoma but that Dr. Crawford’s original diagnosis from several years previously of eczema was correct. Oh, and she also had a blood sample taken to verify that, had it been lymphoma, it wasn’t in the blood.

And we had a discussion from there. I repeated that I had not been using the Cobetasol steroid regularly because my arms weren’t itchy and I didn’t care that much about the redness, although I’ve been using it more frequently now, and look, there’s no red.

He said that even though the test for lymphoma was negative, it was still something that we needed to watch out for in the future, though he repeated that it’s not anything to be scared of and it’s not life threatening.

We discussed a few other things and then he asked if I had any other questions. By the way, he was sitting down during this whole discussion. He practically never sits down during an examination, because as soon as he’s finished, he’s off to the next patient. This time he showed no inclination to rush off.

I think he was giving me an opening to express any lingering problems I might have with the way the situation was handled. Given that the PA was apparently no longer on my case, I didn’t see any need to dredge up my dissatisfaction with her.

But I was curious about the building where he has his practice. So I asked a question that I had been wondering about for some time. Was it always a medical facility or had it originally been a private home? 

He explained that it was originally three brownstones and they were not built to the same scale which was why the floors didn’t all line up. That was pretty much what I suspected. He also said that at one time the building housed nuns who helped at the Pennsylvania Hospital. That was a surprise.

And then as he was leaving he took a moment to comment favorably on my cap.

Now I’m not sure what to make of the consultation. Maybe nothing. But— 

The PA was not there. He’s never been quite that prompt before. While he’s always been willing to stay a bit longer to answer any questions that I had, on this occasion he was especially amenable. He was sitting down. There was absolutely no indication of hurrying to get to the next patient.

Perhaps it doesn’t mean anything other than that he was all caught up and not running behind.

Or perhaps it means a little bit more than that.