Recently I had an appointment to see my personal physician of more than 20 years, Dr. Kirk Andrus, for my last office visit with him.

This would not just be a meeting of doctor and patient, but of two friends who shared medical truths and new jokes.

Andrus has been in the practice of family medicine, but after 25 years as our town “doc,” he’s migrating his talents and love of practicing medicine to the new Veterans Affairs clinic in Clearlake. He began there on Friday, April 1 – April Fool's Day, an appropriate date.

We were fools to think we would have him forever as our always-vigilant attendant to medical and sometimes emotional needs in our little town of Kelseyville.

Admit it, unless you’re a hypochondriac, no one really likes going to the doctor. No matter how nice they are or how cute the receptionist may be, especially for men in their middle to senior years with that first colonoscopy looming in the future.

There is a bond one hopes to cultivate with a primary care doctor. You hope to find connection and support when a medical condition develops and you can both again agree that “getting older really sucks!”

When I first met Dr. Andrus, it was not in an exam room. It was in the high school library at a meeting talking about passing a school bond to improve the facilities of our schools.

All I did that night was meet a guy who became a friend for the next 20 years or so. The school bond failed miserably, but the friendship succeeded way past my expectations.

Have you ever met someone who, after only five minutes, you found was a kindred spirit? This guy has that effect on a lot of people. Not just as doctor, but as a friend, father and husband.

I always wanted to live in a small town with all the advantages and disadvantages of everyone knowing everyone else and having a close-knit feeling among the fabric of the people. It comes from growing up in an area where outside immediate family and few friends, that feeling generally doesn’t exist.

So when I opened my business on Main Street, I couldn’t help but notice that across the street was a family medical practice that would no longer allow me to ignore the need for an annual physical, even if I hadn’t had one in some years.

So that was the start of my medical relationship with Doc Andrus and his staff.

Over the years I’ve needed medical attention at some inconvenient times. If it wasn’t the Friday he was getting ready for a hunting trip, it was the Mother’s Day episode getting “thrown” by my orchard ladder, chainsaw in hand.

On that day, he was forced to cut my wedding ring off my finger so he could reset a couple of disjointed knuckles. He never offered to pay for the ring repair either.

I have seen and heard similar testimonies from others. He went way above and beyond the call of modern medical practice and duty. There are many of you who will read this, I hope, and know exactly what I’m saying.

Doc Andrus is not a specialist in the medical sense of things. But he does specialize in one big thing, the main thing that matters most: He is caring, compassionate and considerate. He also just happens to be a physician.

We have seen this man not only delivering new life in to the world, and keeping it healthy, but also graciously and compassionately easing his patients into the next stage of life.

Talk about the yin and the yang, the alpha and the omega. He’s there in the beginning, the end and the time in between.

What an incredible perspective it takes to be able to shoulder that responsibility.

We have come to expect and take it in stride. Doctors aren’t gods. We want or expect them to be at times. He’s been there on the sidelines and courtside. He could be heard from the announcers' tower at the high school calling out the play-by-play.

As I left his office after that last visit the reality hit me like a freight train: I realized how my life has been touched and affected by his presence.

Recently during a snow storm, he returned a call to me. Over the years we have traded comical voice mails to ease the pressures of the day. Especially his pressures.

He said he was driving home from seeing a patient who couldn’t get in to the office because of the weather – an elderly patient who couldn’t just wait a few days for the weather to get better. He needed to get better.

So Doc hitched up the buggy, put it in four-wheel-drive and went to do his house call. He’s done this quietly and with conviction for many years, for so long.

I thought, “Who is going to do this when he moves on to his new clinic job?”

It dawned on me like the news of a terminal condition: This is the end of an era. Andrus Family Practice on Main Street is done, over. The good ol' days of a local, country doc are vanishing and going the way of so many things in our modern lives.

Managed health care, PPOs, HMOs, health insurance rules and technology are transforming the medical landscape into one big bureaucratic mess.

There are other kind, caring doctors out there, but, damn it, he is my doc and our relationship is changing forever. It's frustrating, because I know it will be better for him, but not for me or any of his other patients in town. I will try desperately not to compare the new guy coming in to take his office space.

In the future I wish one thing for myself and Doc. I hope he outlives me and is at my side with loved ones, helping me out the back door when the time comes – not as my doctor, but as a great friend.

The folks down at the VA Clinic are in for a real treat. He’s not done taking care of people, just those of us left behind in K-town.

Thank you and good luck, Doc. There is truly a doctor in the house.

Gary Olson lives in Kelseyville, Calif.