I got off the phone with Dave.

I answered *50. My friend beeped me again with the ominous "Good luck."

"Tracey... this is (names shall be omitted to keep in regulation with the HIPAA privacy act) and I'm calling because I need to get a message to Dr. Lengle either today or first thing tomorrow morning."

This alone is note-worthy. Dr. Lengle is an interventional radiologist. He, by his very nature, intervenes. He's at the hospitals, not here with me at the office. It's 4:20 on a Friday afternoon -- I'm not going to get this message to him today!

I spent the next 20 minutes with her on the phone.

I tried every trick in the book I could think of to cut her off, and get her to stop talking.

"OK, so I just want to make sure I've got this message right...OK, I will get this to him first thing Monday...OK..."

It took 5 minutes to get a phone number alone. In between the area code was, I'm not lying or exagerrating, a description of the community she lives in that lasted over 5 minutes. Including an analysis of the fact that there aren't really towns but just neighborhoods spread out across the county, that it's the boonies of the boonies, and how the grapevine works. "Nothing gets into the papers until it has exploded on the grapevine first...and it really is a grapevine."

Did I mention, she has the same area code?

After about 10 minutes in, and no sign of letting up from the description of every single diagnostic lab (literally) that she found between Seattle and Beverly Hills, including their name and how they analyzed pleural fluid or didn't analyze pleural fluid; I networked with the other people in my building, begging them to interrupt my phone call and rescue me.

Here is a sampling of their beeping in (they did it 6 times) --

-"Tracey, you're late for your meeting"

-"Tracey" (in very stern and firm tone) - "you're very late for your meeting, get downstairs now."

-"Tracey, you have a phone call on *61" (*61 doesn't actually exist -- it was a joke)

I was laughing so hard.

The patient was saying to me, "Tracey? Tracey? Are you still there?"

I had to reply through muffled laughs.

But finally, I am happy to say that after 20 minutes of lab analysis and descriptions of her being a very pro-active patient, I made it off the phone.

Love, Trace

P.S. And I pray the Lord heals her of all troubles of body or loneliness. Amen.