When I got married 23 years ago, I vowed that I would not lapse into stereotype. I didn't want to give my husband a chance to call me that most dreadful of clichés: "a nag." So far, so good.

Mostly.

I do nag him about his health. It's not that he drinks or smokes or doesn't eat right. In fact, he's still the ruggedly handsome guy I married. But he does have some medical issues, and, when he needs to go to the doctor, it's always an ordeal.

It's never easy to get an appointment with our HMO, but, for some reason, my husband is the designated family member when it comes to ridiculous hurdles that would be humorous if they weren't health-related. Dumb stuff has occurred multiple times in connection with my husband's healthcare. His specialists retire and he never gets assigned a new one. His medical tests are misplaced or misread. If he leaves his mobile phone as a callback number, the doctor's office personnel will call our home line.

It's as if they see his medical record number and say: "Hey, it's that guy again. How can we mess with him today?"

Of course, I'm not so paranoid as to think that's true, but, ultimately, the HMO is to blame for these screw-ups. Still, my husband is the one who needs to step up and be a bigmouth every now and then. I'm not saying he should be rude — but he should politely insist that they take care of the problems. I call for him when I can, but he knows his schedule best, so it's up to him to make his own appointments.

Usually, however, he accepts the unacceptable with a defeatist attitude. They're not going to fix it anyway, he says, so what's the point?

I have yet to figure out why men are not proactive about their own health. It's not just a generalization — studies have been done on this potentially fatal phenomenon. Seems some guys are afraid to go to the doctor, and some, like my husband, simply don't want the hassle. Meanwhile, I and every other wife or significant other gets to shoulder the worry.

Back in December, while working, my husband got a wood splinter in his palm. He thought he'd removed it, but a large piece had lodged itself pretty deep. In February, he finally saw our primary-care physician. That doctor didn't want to dig it out and potentially cause nerve damage, so he set up a referral with our HMO's plastic surgery department. Three weeks later, there'd been no phone call from plastic surgery, so I nagged my husband to call them. His hand was getting worse — swollen and irritated. He finally called plastic surgery and they scheduled him for a consultation three weeks after that. At the consultation, the plastic surgeon said he had no idea what he'd find until he opened up his hand — in about a month. The surgeon was already booked for surgeries that week, and then had to go on military duty.

We rarely yell at our house, but I admit I raised my voice. I was upset. I couldn't believe our HMO would put it off that long, particularly when the plastic surgeon said the hand might be infected — and there'd been no antibiotics prescribed.

I was also a little mad at my husband.

Before the volume turned up too much, he explained that he'd already done a little polite insisting and the HMO scheduled his surgery before the doctor went on leave. He had the surgery last week and he's fine. He's added another scar to his extensive collection, and finally got that prescription for antibiotics. I'm fine, too, except I still worry. It wasn't anything major this time, but what about next time?

Guys, it's not that we enjoy nagging. We just want to keep you around for a while.

— Wendy Dager of Simi Valley writes a biweekly column for The Star.