I don't take into consideration their personal problems, as long as they don't carry it into the office. The only thing about their personality that matters to me is that they be up front and truthful with me. Most importantly, I want them to fully listen to my needs and pain and take them into consideration while deciding a course of treatment. I want them to respect me as a human being and respect my opinion of my own body.

I am blessed to have three outstanding doctors. They got off easy though because there is no cure or treatment for my type of illness (rare form of familial amyloidosis). When I go in for a check-up on the progression of my disease, it's more like a social visit.

With my eye doctor, it's a chance for him to show me off to his colleagues, residents and medical students. They all line up to look into my eyes and oooh and ahhhh over the site they see due to lattice corneal dystrophy. They should see it from MY end, lol. My doc gets to tell the story of discovering the first known patient in the U.S. - my mother way back when. As painful as the exams are, it's fun listening to him talk. He reminds me of an old man sitting on a porch telling stories of back in the day. I'm thankful he's passing on what he knows to future generations of doctors.

With my internal medicine doc, we compare aches and pains to lab work. Then he sits back in his chair and asks me how I'm doing, as if he has all the time in the world.

With my neurologist, I rarely see her - but she was very instrumental when I needed help with disability. She spent hours with me on my first visit, along with a pharmacist - to discuss options in pain medication. I rarely see her because I've opted out of taking any type of narcotic medication or pain med to treat my pain. At my pain levels, only morphine could knock it out - I don't want to spend the rest of my life on morphine. I don't need to see her to know the neuropathies (peripheral, autonomic, trigeminal) are getting worse.