After making about a hundred innocent bystander travellers wince with swine flu fears, I decided it was time to hit the doctor and Deal With My Cough.

This cough reared its ugly head April 27th. I remember, because the night before I left Halifax (the 28th) I kept waking myself up coughing. It was annoying. When I got home, it grossed my parents out and made my co-workers wary. By last Tuesday, no one at work much wanted to be near me, and my boss sent me home early. I left Wednesday for my cousin's wedding, returned yesterday with no change.

"OK" said my mother, "let's go to the doctor."

I skipped out of work and spent an hour and a half at the clinic and picking up my prescription. No, you read correctly, I left my work, drove in the car to a clinic, waited, was seen, did a lung test to rule out asthma, got a prescription, filled the prescription and went back to work in 1.5 hours.

I used that fancy online wait time checker and went to an Appletree Clinic since I have no doctor. I was prepared for a bit of a wait even though the interwebs told me that the wait was 5 minutes. When I arrived, the waiting room was full of people but I have no idea what there were doing there. No sooner had I checked in ("No, my card never swipes in your machine and I prefer to make sure a real person puts me on a real list") and sat down, wearing one of those face masks you see everyone in China wearing on the news, when the friendly gu behind the counter called my name.

OK, I thought, here is the wait.

He pointed out a room to me, followed me in immediately and proceeded to take notes about my symptoms. "The doctor will be with you in a moment," he said, backing out.

One mississippi, two mississippi...

In walks the doctor. He simulataneously closes the door, pulls the ear-light-thing off the wall and asks me about my cough. It was the quickest appointment ever. "Have a nice life" he told me on my way out.

I was glad to get back to work, but I was sort of sad too. This man examined me, helped me, sent me on my way and I will likely never see him again. What about community? What about living two streets over from a GP who knows my mom and my neighbourhood and asks my dad how I'm doing while they wait for the bus? This is an old-fashioned picture, I guess, all Sepia-toned and corners curling, but I hold on to it. I'm more traditional and old-fashioned than most people would take me for, I think, and this is one of the ways.