Road Doc
Chapter 1
Theresa sank down into the blankets covering her bed and sighed.
“I can’t believe it’s over” she said, cradling the phone in the crook of her neck.
“So now what?” Theresa’s friend Sue asked.
“Hell if I know!”
Sue laughed. “You can’t tell me you don’t have everything planned out. You, ‘Miss I
schedule my bowel movements around my work schedule’ don’t know what you’re going
to do now that your finished with your residency?”
Theresa laughed and then was quiet for a moment. She did know. She had it all planned
out. She was going to move back home, start up a family practice just like she’d planned
to do since she was a little girl. But there was something missing.
“Tee?” Suzy said quietly.
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
Theresa sighed. “Yeah. It’s just...I don’t know. I’ve had my whole life planned out for
so long. I’ve been working so hard the last 12 years to get where I am, that....I don’t
know.”
“Talk to me” Suzy said in that comforting voice that Theresa had grown to depend on
during the wild years of college, the hectic years of medical school and lately, the sleepless
years of her residency.
“Do you ever feel like you’ve missed out on life?” Theresa asked.
“Who me?? Now THAT is a funny question!! Hello! I’m the one who got married right
after high school, who started having babies while you were out living it up at sorority
parties, who was divorced before you even started getting interested in boys.” Suzy got
quiet. “What’s up Tee, it’s not like you to ask such deep questions”
“It’s just...” Theresa sighed again. “It’s just that I’ve been in school forever, I’ve been
working so damn hard to be able to become a doctor, and now that all of the hard work is
over and I should be able to enjoy having my own practice, all I want to do is get away
from it all”
“You don’t want to practice medicine anymore?” Suzy asked, confused.
“It’s not that. I’m just burned out. I feel like I need to get out of the house, get away
from the patients and the hospital and spend some time doing something else.”
“Sounds like you need a vacation” Suzy said.
“Yeah...maybe I do.”
2