Please note: This is fiction.

The doctor intently peered at a stack of yellow, pink and white papers on his clipboard. The clutter vaguely resembled someone's hair after a windstorm. He looked up at his patient, who sat awkwardly in a wheel chair that barely contained him. The patient's body pressed against the armrests as fat subtly rolled over the top.
"You're good to go." The doctor's voice echoed the monotony of an assembly-line worker faced with a countless, almost meaningless task into perpetuity. "Your artery is clear and flowing fine."
The man was wheeled away. The fat rippled beneath his chin in response to the movement.

The doctor walked up to me and again looked at his clipboard. "How do you feel?"
"I'll never be the same," I responded
His eyes moved up to peer at me through the space between his glasses and his rough eyebrows. His face remained pointed at the clipboard.
I felt my legs slide back under the chair I sat on. "I feel well."
"You've been here a while." He said as his eyes moved back to the clipboard.
"How do you decide when to send someone home? How do you know when someone is well again?"
He let his arms drop to his side and the clipboard dangled from his hand. "We do our best to help people, and when there's nothing more we can do, we send them on their way." He sighed and looked up at me, his head tilted slightly and his eyes softened. "Ideally, we help people be healthy so they can live productive and happy lives." I noticed a gray shade that seeped below his eyes, a hint at lost sleep.
"I feel ready to go, but this cost something that I'll never get back."
A group of people rushed down the nearby hallway. White coats and scrubs fluttered behind them as they propelled a machine before them.
"That's the process of growing older. Life and experience is not always free." I looked at the doctor's eyes that sat deep below his eyebrows. His brown irises surrounded a depth in his pupils that extended beyond where he stood and what he said. A lifetime of experiences and memories had passed through them. "I don't want to see you here again," he continued.
I chuckled at the thought of returning. "I don't think I'll take chances with anything that may send me back."
"Don't be too hard on yourself. You can do well, just take your time and be careful." He glanced at his clipboard. "I know I don't need to caution you."
He turned around and briskly walked away down the hall. He slowly passed through a sea of people with white and blue coats until I no longer saw him.