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Our shower is leaking. Our sink is now backed up. I spent the better part of last evening under the sink trying to "snake" out the plug in our system. I got lots of stinky water on me, lots of grime, but no satisfaction of a working drain. I hate plumbing.
One would think that someone in my profession would have some aptitude for fixing things around the house. After all, a plugged drain is not nearly as complex as a low sodium, a child with a fever, a person having a seizure, or telling a person how to deal with anxiety. Yet something about home repairs makes me feel very insecure.
Part of it may stem from the fact that my father – now 81 – can still fix anything or make anything. He once made a grandfather clock from scratch; with wooden gears. He fixed anything and everything in the house. When he comes down to visit, we have a long to-do list for him. I must a deletion at that gene. I clearly did not inherit it.
Probably the hardest thing about home repairs for me is that you must live with the result. I fix something and any imperfections are always there, letting me know how imperfect I am as a handyman. The door still doesn’t shut just right; the shower is leaking again. I fixed them both. Both are taunting me with their imperfection – proving once again that I am just not cut out for that kind of thing.
How does this relate to being a doctor? While some of my frustration with home repairs comes from just not being patient enough to get the job done, some comes from the fact that I must live with my work. As a doctor, I can figure out what I think, and say "try this for two weeks and tell me how you feel." The person then leaves my office and I don’t see them for the next few weeks. I can say, "Sorry, Mrs. Johnson, I don’t know why your baby won’t sleep at all. She looks just great." I don’t have to then be kept up all night by infants screaming." I don’t have to live in the Johnson household.
This is part of the reason I don’t take care of my family. I do little jobs – helping with blisters, deciding if that leg pain is serious, figuring out if cortisone is right to put on a rash – but nothing at all big. I get to live with their doctor’s work and that suits me just great. Their complaints are not an indictment against me like that dripping shower.
I still wish I had inherited that gene of my dad. Yet perhaps that would have suppressed something else that I am good at. I don’t know. I just know that my arms are sore and my sink is still plugged.
Time to call the plumber.
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{ 9 comments }
It’s like the answer to the question of “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”
“Practice, practice, practice.”
Much of the nuts and bolts of plumbing and also the practice of medicine (why do you think they call it practice?) is OJT – on the job training. And one of the characteristics of plumbing and other OJT is making mistakes.
You simply haven’t made enough plumbing mistakes yet. You’re comfortable with medicine because you’ve already made your share.
My husband is not good with home repairs either. I do think skill is involved but I agree that patience and also persistence is part of it.
We both have uncles that like your father can do ANYTHING. I asked my uncle how he knew how to do so many different things. He said that when you don’t have money to pay for someone else to do it…you figure it out and if you don’t get it right, you keep trying until you get it right.
Your father and my uncle would have grown up in or around the depression era and that probably affected them too, know they should make the most out of the resources they had.
I asked my husbands uncle why he was so good at so many different things and he said all you have to do is read…if you can read you can do anything. I think that one still has to have the ability to coincide with that reading. But this guy could do even more than my uncle in that he could fix anything mechanical, furnace a/c,auto, plumbing, build a house, etc, etc. Actually, he did more than my uncle.
AN ER Doc once told me that anyone could be a doctor. He said “You just need a good memory. If you have a good memory ,you can be a doctor.” Somehow…I think it might be a bit more involved in that.
error-I repeated myself in paragraph 4-oops!
The only thing is it cost effective if one has to keep buying materials to “get it right”?
The main problem in home repairs for me is “having the right tools”.
Every time I try to do something I have to make a trip to Lowes.
Most of us simply don’t have the right tools and equipment to finish jobs in a professional manner.
Of course, I now have more tools than I’ll ever use in the future.
See, you’ve just expounded the difference between surgery (home repairs) and primary care (come back in a week or two.) And why the plumber charges so much.
i sleep with a great plumber! how close are you? i have a few college tuitions to pay for in the near future.
seriously i hope you get your plumbing issues solved soon.
The woes of household plumbing..It wasn’t too long ago I had an old piece of plumbing go and water was everywhere in the basement. Luckily, Fireguy is pretty good with anything to do with water or fire; we were soldering in a new pipe at 6:00am or some such, on a Sunday morning. Ugh.
I feel for you . . . My child keeps plugging my toilet. And I’m no plumber either . . .
Hey there Dr. R.,
The genetics of home repair talents? Household fix-it aptitude is so unfairly distributed! Wish I had inherited it too. Maybe it skips generations? You are raising a big crop o’ kids. You could turn them loose with the plumbing snake and see who succeeds with it!
Trying to pretend the dripping tub in our upstairs bathroom is a soothing, whitenoise water feature but it is hard to ignore. Harder to fix.
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