Free How I Got to Be Whoever It Is I Am by Charles Grodin Page A

cardiologist, who said, “You have a negligible murmur which isn’t even worth mentioning.”
    Rather than go to another allergist about the sneezing, which
was
worth mentioning, I decided to continue to sneeze. I figured there were a lot worse things than sneezing, and I’d just experienced
     one. Oh, yeah, the allergist wrote me a letter about six months later that I tore up without opening. What goes around really
     does come around.
    In fairness to the allergist, I’ve since been told by a very good source that he has an excellent reputation, which just proves
     again there’s always at least two sides to everything.
    I can’t end this story without saying a few hundred words about the cardiologist, who also concluded, “You have a negligible
     murmur which isn’t even worth mentioning.” (That’s probably why my regular doctors chose not to mention it.)
    First, I met with the guy. He didn’t examine me. We had a pleasant chat, and he scheduled me for an echocardiogram, which
     reveals if a murmur is worth mentioning or not. His was a big cardiac practice, and I assume he just didn’t get my message
     that I needed to change the appointment because that was the day my eighteen-year-old son was to have his first scene in a
     movie. I wouldn’t be on the set, but I’d definitely be somewhere in the building.
    Evidently, the cardiologist only heard I had changed the appointment, not the explanation. Although it’s a busy office, he
     shouldn’t have sent a letter, which I received on a Saturday, citing several reasons why I might not survive the weekend!
     It was such a frighteningly provocative letter, I chose to share it with no one, not even my wife—
especially
not my wife.
    I called the physician on Monday and made an attempt to put a little lighter spin on his letter, but he interrupted me by
     asking, “What’s the first part of the paper you read every day?” I said, “The front page.” He said, “I read the obituaries.”
     We scheduled an appointment for the next day. It turns out, as I’ve said, that I have a negligible heart murmur that isn’t
     worth mentioning. I hope he reads this and takes a good look at himself. I think that’s good advice for all of us.
    He called me about four months later, but I told his secretary I wouldn’t take his call and explained why.
    I don’t ever recall not taking someone’s call to that point, but I was provoked to do it again within the past year. The son
     of a girl I went to high school with reached out to me. He’s a journalist and wanted me to see some things he’d written. He
     sent them to me, but I found them so hateful toward women that I had my assistant e-mail him that my experience with women
     was so different from his that I was really not his audience. Obviously insulted, he e-mailed back that he didn’t need me
     to be part of his audience, because he already had a huge audience. Then he e-mailed and asked if I would call a big speaker’s
     bureau head on his behalf. My assistant e-mailed him that to me that call would indicate support.
    He then called me, and I didn’t take the call. Even for someone who likes to say yes to people, enough is enough.
    The only other weird experience I’d ever had with a doctor occurred a few decades ago when I went in for a checkup and the
     doctor asked me how many women I’d been with. I asked him the relevance of the question, and he absolutely couldn’t answer.
    He just stared at me and said, “There are a lot of weird people in your profession.” I looked at him and said, “There are
     a lot of weird people in
your
profession.”
    Most recently, I went to a doctor to treat an ear infection and he wanted to operate on me for a brain tumor that an MRI at
     Yale revealed I didn’t have. Actually, I had no tumor anywhere and easily got rid of the ear infection with antibiotics, needless
     to say prescribed by another doctor.
    Several years ago I was seated next to a Harvard scholar at a