What you don't see in the office is the hours and hours of charting done after dinner.
     Every.single.night.

What you don't see in the office is 2am phones calls - some legit, others…not so much.
     Can I get a refill on my prescription?
     Can I make an appointment for tomorrow?
     Not at 2am.

What you don't see in the office is him slipping away from the table while we're out to dinner with friends to take another call.
     Or slipping out of the movie.
     Or the show.
     Or wherever we happen to be.

What you don't see in the office is how we take two vehicles most places in case he needs to leave and go to the hospital or meet someone at the office.
     Or that he's left Milledgeville only once in almost a year.
     (Even Macon is too far.)

What you don't see in the office is hours of pouring through medical articles and journals to make sure he stays up to date
     And hours working on continuing education credits.
     And don't even get me started on the finances of it all.

I'm not telling you all this to get sympathy.
I know other people work hard, too.
But I think it's easy for folks to think his day ends at 5 and that's that.
But that is so, so far from the truth. 
He's in the office every day.
He's on call every night and every weekend.
No matter where we are or what we're doing,
He's always ON.

Hell, writing that makes me feel bad because sometimes even I forget just how much it is.
Sometimes I get annoyed when he can't go to dinner with us because he's so far behind
Or when he can't go with me to pick out a couch because there isn't a store within a 20 minute drive that has what I'm looking for
Or when he stops what we're doing at home to meet somebody in the office on the weekend.
Yes, sometimes I do get frustrated.

So I get it. 
You can't get an appointment when you need one
Or he can't get the paperwork returned to you as quickly as you'd like
Or he hasn't responded to your portal message yet.

But all I'm asking - of both his patients and myself - is to show a little more grace.
He's doing the best he can.
And I'm really damn proud of that.