Wednesday morning, 5:45 a.m.

Dr. Grumpy: "This is Dr. Grumpy, returning a page."

Mr. Clock: "Hi, I need to cancel my appointment for tomorrow at 9:15."

Dr. Grumpy: "Your appointment is today at 9:15."

Mr. Clock: "Cool. I'll see you then. And just cancel the one for tomorrow, I guess I don't need it now."

Sentence Structure- It means something

I get all kinds of flyers dropped off at the office. An open house at Dr. Somebody's new office, announcement of a new physical therapy place or MRI facility, etc.

Today a flyer was left about a rescue pets event, featuring a fundraiser and cookout contest. I can't put it up here, because it had too much info in it. So I'll do my best to tell you about it.

We don't go to these. We already have 3 rescue dogs, and if we went we'd want to bring them all home. Mrs. Grumpy and I are softies for dogs.

But it sure caught my eye.

It could have said: "Adopt-a-pet: fundraiser and barbecue" or "Fundraiser for Homeless Pets", or "Local Homeless Pet Shelter Event"

But no.

It said, in big letters, "HOMELESS PET BARBECUE NIGHT".

In other notes, it listed the participants at the bottom, including: Local Greyhound Rescue, St. Bernard Friends, Humane Society, etc. At the bottom of the list was "Local Rat Rescue League".

Fail!

Dr. Grumpy: "What time was your seizure last night?"

Mrs. Etoh: "Around 10:00, as we were leaving the bar."

Dr. Grumpy: "I thought you'd stopped drinking?"

Mrs. Etoh: "I did, but last night we had a round after our AA meeting."

Dear Insurance Company,

I received your letter yesterday that you're raising my annual office policy rates.

I don't know if I'll be able to afford the increase, but will do my best. I know you're doing your utmost to try and keep my rates down, as evidenced by the fact that you spent 44 cents per letter to mail this to several thousand offices across the country.

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In times like these an increase of this magnitude might be devastating, but Mary and Annie have heroically chipped in to pay for the increase, with some money they found in the cushions of the waiting room chairs.

What the HELL does this mean?

The Science Marches on Department sent me this remarkably confusing (and, in my opinion, bizarre) abstract from the Journal of the American Psychoanalytical Association. Don't believe me? Here's the original.


The absence of the paternal penis.

“Girls’ experiences of object loss, in conjunction with female anatomical structure, may lend themselves to a particular genital anxiety regarding openness and emptiness. The relational void in giving up the mother as love object may lead to an internal self-representation of a “hole” to be filled, much as the mouth sucks the pacifier in the absence of the nipple. This image may then be extended to the genital representation. In turning to the father, a girl may find that she lacks a relationship with him in the relational space opened up by the loss of the mother; the penis is symbolically withheld from her in the father’s relational distance. This lack of sexual and relational gratification, it is proposed, may be schematized by a female as her body being empty of something. The father’s absence–the absence of the paternal penis–may lead to an absence of the mental representation of the vagina and to an inhibition of the role the vagina then plays for a woman in sexual desire. Vaginal repression may serve to disguise object hunger that might otherwise be experienced as vaginal longing. An abbreviated clinical vignette, revolving around a masturbatory fantasy, is offered in partial illustration of the thesis.”

I'VE GOT THE POWER!!!

I am now GRUMPY! THE GREAT AND POWERFUL!!!

I was informed by certified mail last week that I've been approved for my state's substance abuse monitoring program, being able to look up ALL my patients' controlled substance scripts from all pharmacies and other doctors.

I activated my incredible new all-seeing powers this morning. And within an hour had fired 3 patients that we were suspicious of.

Mary and Annie are making up wish lists of people for me to check. It's like Christmas, in April.

JUNKIES! YE SHALL TREMBLE BEFORE ME!!! I AM GRUMPY, THE OMNISCIENT!

Tomorrow I'm going to start wearing a cape to work.

Monday Morning

Mrs. Grumpy wanted to go for a carb-laden meal at La Enchilada Grande last night, so I'm very sluggish this morning. And all I could think of while driving in was this.

Interestingly, it wasn't used as an ad. It was done by students in a college film program, and won an award. I actually first saw it in a movie preview, when I took the kids to see Shrek vs. Rocky LXXIIIV.

FRANK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, those of you who follow me on twitter (or read it on the feed down there on the right) know I got woken up early this morning.

Frank had a birthday last week, which as all kid's presents do, involved a lot of cardboard and styrofoam packaging.

Last night, using that peculiar line of reasoning that comes to the human brain in the wee hours, he decided that it would be cool to have snow. Since summer is coming it would have to be fake snow.

And after turning the idea over he realized he could make some himself. Out of Styrofoam.

So in the middle of the night he went out into the garage, dug the slabs of styrofoam out of the trash, brought it into the kitchen, and began shredding it with a butter knife.

At some point he realized he'd covered the floor and table and everything else with little white pieces of styrofoam and began frantically trying to vacuum them up. Which is where I came in.

My Readers Write

Karen, who says she works for a California neurologist, sent this in. It makes me glad to know other neurology offices have as much fun as we do.


Karen: "House of Brains, can I help you?"

Mystery Caller: "You called me."

Karen: "Okay, what's your name?."

Mystery Caller: "I'm John."

Karen: "And... a last name, please?"

Mystery Caller: "Bozo."

Karen: "Okay, what can I do for you?"

Mystery Caller: "YOU called ME!"

Karen: "I'm sorry, I didn't personally call, but will try to help. Was a message left?"

Mystery Caller: "Yes."

Karen: "Who left the message? What did it say?"

Mystery Caller: "I don't know. I didn't listen to it. I just saw your number on the caller ID."

Karen: "Why don't you listen to it, then let me know who called and I'll connect you to them."

Mystery Caller: "Can't you help me?" (This is a loaded question, huh?)

Karen: "Hang on... Mr. Bozo, you aren't in our system. I don't think you're one of our patients."

Mystery Caller: "I'm not. My girlfriend is."

Karen: "Okay, what's her name?"

Mystery Caller: "Cindy Datingabozo."

Karen: "All right. But privacy regulations require that I confirm we have permission to speak to you. Can you hold while I check our records?"

Mystery Caller: "This is stupid! I could have listened to the message in less time than it's taking you to figure this out."

(click)

Truth in advertising

I'd like to thank my reader, Nicki, for submitting this photo from the U.K.

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While some may claim this has nothing to do with neurology, the statement "Always in the shit, only the depth varies" sums up most of my days.

Thursday Weirdness

So yesterday we had 2 (not 1, but 2!!!) calls from people wanting to know what their MRI's showed.

I usually try to keep up on test results, calling patients or bringing them back as soon as we get them. So it surprised me to get 2 in one day. But sometimes things fall through the cracks. I couldn't find their reports, so I asked Annie to track them down.

Guess what? NEITHER OF THESE BOZOS EVEN SHOWED UP FOR THE FUCKING TEST!!!

I'm not making this up. Annie called the MRI places she'd scheduled them with. Both were no-shows.

So she called the patients back. Both were aware that they hadn't had the tests, but thought they'd call us for results "just in case".

(For the record, both of these patients were being seen for back problems. Not memory loss or head injuries. If that was the issue it wouldn't be so shocking, or even blogworthy).

Look, people, here's a tip. The MRI is a VERY GOOD test. My specialty depends heavily on them.

But no matter how good they are, they CANNOT get images of you while you drive by the facility. Or sit at home reading about how horrible they are on bigdavespageofhowanMRImademydickfalloff.com. Or lying on the couch watching TV and eating Fritos.

Thank you.

So let's beware of them

Dr. Grumpy: "Any major illnesses run in your family?"

Mr. Genetics: "Yes. My Dad died on his birthday."

What the hell?

Mrs. Nutz: "I'm only going to have the MRI if you can guarantee me it will be abnormal. Otherwise, what's the point of having it at all?"

Drug Ads

Does this lady look happy, or what?

She was on the cover of an ad brochure one of my drug reps dropped off. It's for a pill used for excessive daytime sleepiness.

What I think is funny, though, is that the pictures on the left (the "before drug" shots) are supposed to be abnormal.

Lets start at the top:

1. Lady dozing off at work. Who doesn't do that here and there? Hell, I slept through most of my pathology class in medical school. To this day I'm conditioned to automatically nod off when I hear the word "amyloid". And it's not even like she has a can of the sacred waters next to her.

2. Lady finding ironing boring and tiresome. As if anyone froths at the bit and has an adrenaline surge at the thought of finally getting to that mountain of wrinkled clothes.

3. This one is my favorite. The lady has fallen asleep while her boyfriend/husband is watching sports. Mrs. Grumpy is the sports person at out house, but I know plenty of women who consider dozing off in these situations to be perfectly normal. Let's face it- I'm pretty sure he's not watching figure skating.

Personally, if I see anyone who looks like the lady on the right at work or doing housework, I think they need their Lithium dose lowered.