I was called to ER to see a stroke patient.
Dr. Grumpy: "How did this all start?"
Mrs. Folger: "I woke up, and when I tried to get out of bed, I couldn't walk without holding on to stuff. My right arm and leg were both weak and clumsy."
Dr. Grumpy: "When..."
Mrs. Folger: "So, like anyone else, I figured it was because I hadn't had my coffee yet, so I sort-of-staggered down to the kitchen and brewed a pot."
Dr. Grumpy: "Did you call 911?"
Mrs. Folger: "No, I mean, after my 3rd cup the weakness still wasn't getting better. So that's when I figured I needed something stronger and drove myself to Starbucks. Which wasn't easy with the right side problem, believe me."
Dr. Grumpy: "Did you..."
Mrs. Folger: "Anyway, after I got there, the barista called 911. She wouldn't even let me order."
10 comments:
Addiction like this is why I don’t drink coffee. The phrase “I’m not myself in the morning until I’ve had my coffee” infuriates me.
Ya can't cure stoopid!
I've had a longstanding rule: if you are asking yourself if you should get something checked, the answer is not only "yes" but "why in hell aren't you there yet". The trouble with that rule is that one must ask.
After 50 years, I've concluded that denial is the leading cause of morbidity; ignorance is almost certainly second.
"Turns out that I accidentally made decaf."
Anonymous@9:53 AM: Your rule doesn't work for hypochondriacs.
They recognize the subtle differences at Starbucks
Well, I did drive myself to the hospital with a stroke. Knew somenting was wrong, but didn't want the fuss of EMTs.
How about the fuss of killing someone if you had another stroke while driving?
In the summer after my first year of medical school, I made my first real in-the-wild diagnosis while on vacation: the manager of the rental car place was having a stroke. It was seriously hard to convince him that he needed to be evaluated at the ED, sounds like this guy.
For reference my grandmother was taken to the emergency room for what appeared to be a stroke by her coworkers, after several hours and MRI, many other tests, I arrive because I was at work and shift supervisor so I had to stay. I'm listening to the doctor tell me that no signs of stroke on the tests but something was definately wrong. I asked him, in the hallway, was it possible that she was just very drunk ? He checks her inital bloodwork, yes, she was very intoxicated.
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