In the early 2000s at Bucksport Regional Health Center, I did house calls one day a week. I have written about many of them, for example here and here.
Covering for Galileo’s missing Bangor market provider the other day, I took our mobile unit down to that area and found myself driving through Bucksport. On the Mast Hill road I noticed a house I hadn’t thought about for twenty years. It is where Richard Westman lived. He was the visually impaired man who swore he saw little people outside his window and a family member of his guided me to his diagnosis.
Driving past his house brought back so many memories of my years down there and the many patients I saw in their homes. I have written this before, but seeing a patient in their own environment gives you so much more information and so much better chance of building a relationship than seeing them in an office for a few minutes.
Now and for the rest of my days, driving through Westfield, Mars Hill and Monticello, I will pass houses I will no longer visit after Galileo Maine ceases to exist. But those towns and those patient homes are on the road I will inevitably continue to travel to get from my home in Caribou to Bangor, Bar Harbor, Old Orchard Beach, Portland and all points beyond, more often than I now drive down the back roads of Bucksport.
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