“Who do you think I am…Tony Randall”

A generational gap conversation

All of my doctors are much younger than me. A few are multiple decades younger. It occasionally leads to discussions like the one held yesterday with my thirty-two-year-old primary care physician. But first, here’s the backstory to the story.

Over the last few months, I've had some problems with kidney stones. If you’ve ever had one, you know it can be extremely painful—usually in your kidney and the groin area. I passed one, but the pain remained, which is unusual but not unheard of. My doctors thought it was only a matter of time until the healing process was done. Okay—I can handle that. The problem was that the pain never went away.

I saw a physician’s assistant who thought I might have a hernia. She set up an ultrasound. But the pain became intense, so I went to an Urgent Care office for help. The doctor did some intrusive testing and he was sure I had a hernia. He gave me a referral to see a surgeon. Oh man!

On Monday, I saw the surgeon and his resident. Of course, they couldn't find anything. They did recommend I go through with the ultrasound just to be positive. Oh man!

We move on to Tuesday. It’s ultrasound time. Hmmm…the jelly is nice and warm. It feels pretty good. I bet it’s a tease. Here comes the probing device. It’s found every painful spot in the oh-so-delicate area. I knew it was a tease. Oh man!

By the time I got home, the results were in. I saw them before the doctors that ordered the tests. No hernia, but there are a bunch of words I had never heard before. It was time to go to Google—never a smart decision. What I thought I found were a bunch of things that were fatal. In reality, it wasn't close to that, but I was told to see my primary physician to go over the results and decide on what to do next.

So that long-winded diatribe is the backstory. That brings us to Wednesday and a visit to my very youthful primary physician.

We went over a few things. She assured me I wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. Then she asked me this question:

“Were you planning on having any more children?”

I was stunned. I don't remember anyone ever asking me that question. When I was done laughing, I responded, “I’m 72 years old. Who do you think I am? Tony Randall?” She giggled but had a blank look on her face. I realized she had never heard of Tony Randall.

I started to tell her about Tony and how he fathered his first child at age seventy-seven, but she was way ahead of me. It was her turn to hit Google. She was stunned to read that Tony had married someone fifty years younger than him—that’s right, 5-ZERO! Then she found that there was a second child a year later and that Tony died a few years afterward.

We were talking for a few minutes about that situation and then I mentioned that he was in the television show “The Odd Couple.” She thought it was a reality show about Tony, his child bride and how they deal with their five-decade age-gap marriage. I started to explain about Felix and Oscar, but decided to leave well enough alone.

As I left, I said to her, “Maybe I should have said Mick Jagger instead of Tony?” I'm pretty sure she knows him. I hope she knows him. Talk about a multi-generational gap…Oh man!