I have just put this on my favorite list of things to do: hanging out in the D's kitchen. The kids stream through and pick up a cookie, open the refrigerator, tell a funny story. The sun pours through the windows of the kitchen like it can’t wait to get inside. That’s because…after all…the D's house is the place to be.

    Both professionals: Bob is a doctor and Pam is a teacher. Together, they have 4 wonderful kids from the ages of 25 down to 14.

    If you time it well, you just might get to see Bob when you go to their house. He is the most popular doctor in town. Everybody loves him and as well they should. If ever there was a rock, it's him.

    Friends don't get to see him much because he works too long a day. Contrary to the opinion of those who actually believe that doctors golf on Wednesdays, Bob doesn’t play golf.  It is not because he doesn’t know how to play. In fact, Bob, I am told, is an exceptional golfer. That is… when he has the chance.

    That was about 6 years ago.

     A lot has happened in the world of medicine in the past 6 years.  Stop signs multiply daily for physicians. Pam and the kids have watched the toll that bureaucrats have taken on Bob. Over the years, they have seen his manila sized folder of paper work morph into a large canvas bag-ful.

     Each night, Bob trudges home and drops his bag of paperwork onto the floor. Like a bloated albatross, the bag sits there waiting, waiting and waiting for him. It robs him of time with his loved ones, it steals precious hours of sleep; it denies him any open space.

     And, yet, this is the part in Bob’s life where he was supposed to be enjoying himself.  This is the chapter he couldn’t wait to get to - winding down, kicking back with the family and walking along a golf course. Neither he nor Pam could ever have predicted the cruel turn this novel would reveal.

     And, now, they are been forced to read the chapter in their lives where big business reaches its greedy hands into the world of medicine and turns the dial in reverse.