Dr. Allan Horowitz, published newspaper article, The Liberal, Copyright December 19, 1990
Dear readers:
This is the time of year when I clean off my desk, toss the ads from the real estate people who want me to buy a condo in West Palm Beach (I never will), file away the ads from the photocopy and fax salespeople (I will one day) and crumple up and mutilate the information trickling in from our government telling me how much I am going to love their new Goods and Services Tax.
The middle of December is the time when I only see the patients who really are in urgent need of treatment. The others always put their treatment off until after the holidays. (I know I can’t stand up straight, and yes I am in severe pain, but I’ve got to decorate the tree and take the kids to see Santa at the mall.)
Patients bake cookies for the office staff and buy us flowers and chocolates. We get many cards from patients thanking us for our help over the past year.
FINISHED SHOPPING?
I get asked if I’ve “done all my Christmas shopping yet” despite the fact most patients are aware of the fact that I am Jewish and I celebrated Hanukkah last week. I answer “almost, but I’ve still got a few last-minute presents to get for the kids,” because that is what they are expecting to hear. Deliveries stop and it becomes difficult to book patients with other specialists or contact their family doctors because so many people are away on holidays.
The same patients who have demanded late evening appointments for the last 50 weeks are now free to come anytime, except when they have to do some more “malling.” (This is a term I have used to describe the inane activity of wandering aimlessly around a shopping mall spending huge sums of money which one doesn’t even have. Fatigue, back pain, irritability and poverty usually result from this activity.)
This is the “holiday season” and welcome to it. I have been hearing it for two months. As I was entering a restaurant on Thanksgiving weekend in October I was asked by the hostess if I wanted to book my Christmas reservation at that time because they were “filling up quickly.” (Christmas reservations guarantee higher prices for the same food. A bit more rushed, red table cloths and definitely some flowers on the table. Bing Crosby will definitely be singing somewhere in the background.)
I don’t want to sound like a grumpy old chiropractor. I love this season. It means that people who hate each other for 50 weeks suddenly are supposed to love each other. How could you not enjoy a time like that?
RELAX
This is a season which forces us to sit back, relax just a bit, look around and epjoy some things that we sometimes never get a chance to see or don’t have time to see and enjoy, like family.
This season gives me a chance to take a few evenings off work and take my kids visiting. I don’t have a big family and I don’t have friends or relatives coming from out of town, but there are lots of people to visit.
I take them to hospitals (Sick Children’s for a sense of reality and York Central for a sense of community) and we visit the ill children and adults. We sometimes buy presents, but the kids feel better when they bring something from their own toy collection to give away.
We visit Baycrest Hospital to see the very old and very sick and the kids learn that old people are not to be shunned, but they are to be used, and they want to be – as a source of knowledge, warmth and even fun.
I then go to downtown Toronto, sit in an antique store (owned by a friend) and watch the characters walk by. The kids know what poor means and what rich means. They know about drugs and booze and they know that some people, most people, are not as lucky as they are.
This knowledge will, I hope, mean they will be more tolerant, understanding and a bit more compassionate to everyone who is not as lucky as they are. Not just at this time of the year. The entire year, for ever and ever.
That is what this season means to me.
Allan Horowitz, D.C., is a chiropractor practising in Richmond Hill and writes this public service column. He will attempt to answer readers’ questions on a variety of topics including headaches, back pain, nutrition, sport injuries and preventive medicine.
Address your questions to Allan Horowitz, care of The Liberal, Box 390, Richmond Hill, L4C4Y6.