Thursday, March 20, 2014

Foot, meet mouth

My 2:00 patient yesterday was obviously blind. She had the long white cane, and a guide dog. Mary filled out forms for her. She held onto my arm as I led her back to my office.


Dr. Grumpy: "So what can I do for you?"

Mrs. Two: "I was at the emergency room this weekend. I had a seizure on Sunday, and bit my tongue."

Dr. Grumpy: "Good heavens. Have you ever had a seizure before?"

Mrs. Two: "No. They told me I had another one in the ER after I got there."

Dr. Grumpy: "Where did the first one happen?"

Mrs. Two: "I was in the car."

Dr. Grumpy: "Were you driving?"

Pause.

Dr. Grumpy: "That was a really stupid question, wasn't it?"


She cracked up. It was a few minutes before we could start again.

20 comments:

ER's Mom said...

Awesome. Sometimes we have a script that we use in medicine and this was obviously one of yours.

Looks like she took it well.

Matt Turnock said...

don't get it...why couldn't she be driving?

peace said...

Easy Dr.G. You are human after all. Plus we are programmed to look for certain things(ask certain questions) in each scenario. That was your hardware taking over for a moment. LOL
Cool title by the way.

skidmark said...

Considering they have Braille on the drive-up ATMs it is not really such a stupid question, now is it?

stay safe.

Kim said...

Ha. Reminds me of the other day when I was grocery shopping. The cashier said 'Please shop with us again soon!' and I said 'Thanks, you too.'.

brent said...

The story would have had an awesome ending if she had replied-"no, the dog was driving."

Dies Irae said...

You know, we attorneys actually get paid to ask questions like that.

Jono said...

She certainly could get a Florida drivers license.

Ronald Steury said...

Reminds me of a few weeks ago when I was doing the mono-filament foot exam on a blind diabetic patient and blurted out "OK, now close your eyes and say 'Now' when you feel this." As I blushed at my stupidity, he smiled.

Packer said...

I hope to be able to laugh again tomorrow, today is too soon.

Mary-IVT said...

Thanks for sharing. It's good to have a laugh at our moments of brain lapses. And nice to know that many patients have a sense of humor too.

Mary-IVT said...

Thanks for sharing. All of us have had this moments of brain lapse. Also nice to hear when patients share in the humor of the moment.

Steeny Lou said...

Love it, Doc!

Kim's comment made me laugh...

"Ha. Reminds me of the other day when I was grocery shopping. The cashier said 'Please shop with us again soon!' and I said 'Thanks, you too.'."

THAT reminds me of when I was at the grocery store with my 20-year-old daughter recently. The cashier, one we'd never seen before, said, "Thank you. Bye!"

My daughter said, "I love you!" And then she shook her head as we were walking out the door, saying, "What did I just say?"

I couldn't stop laughing for weeks.

But, yeah, around here we say "I love you" all the time when a family member is going out the door, so ... habit.

Annie Law said...

In reply to Matt Turnock,

She couldn't be driving without a seeing-eye dog sitting beside her.

Anonymous said...

Cows! Cows! Cows!

- Gene Wilder to a blind Richard Pyor in "See No Evil, Hear No Evil"

WeeBoy said...

My mum has regular fights with the self-checkout at the supermarket.

Self-chek: Please take your items.
Mum: I am! give me a minute!

foffmom said...

OK, so you feel better.
Patient goes to a new psychiatrist. Patient has anxiety issues and social phobia, uses a therapy dog and has best friend come with her to this stressful appointment with a new doctor.
New psychiatrist walks in, sees dog and friend and asks "So can you see me at all?!" Patient had totally normal vision, and I suspect an eye roll clued him in!

Lin said...

Don't feel bad, one time I was talking to a friend of mine who is blind online. She was saying how nasty the weather was near her that day, and I said how beautiful it was where I am. And offered to show her a picture...

Anonymous said...

Lin,
is your friend able to see when not on line?

Lin said...

My friend is unable to see, whether online or not ;) She's been blind since birth.

Being blind will definitely prevent you from driving, but not from using a computer. There are braille keyboards if needed but she just has the order memorized in her head. She uses a program called JAWS which reads out everything for her. Unfortunately, you can't read out a photo! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAWS_%28screen_reader%29

 
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