So if the walker is there, where's the patient?

I'd like to thank my reader Boris for submitting this picture. It's of a walker, bike-locked to a street sign. He says he took the shot last week in front of a pharmacy.

Patient quote of the day

"I have blood pressure spontaneously. I mean, I don't always have blood pressure, because most of the time I don't, but sometimes, out of the blue, it occurs."

Blatant Plagiarism

Okay, gang, my esteemed colleague The Frantic Pharmacist wrote a post yesterday about life in the pharmacy biz that was so awesome I just have to share it here.

When Will Other Businesses get their act together and run like a pharmacy?

by Frantic Pharmacist

When you think about it, retail pharmacy is sort of a unique undertaking, and after a long day filled with customers' inattentiveness, strange requests, weird questions, lack of information, non-English speaking interactions, half-believable stories and total guesswork as to what THE HELL they really want I keep wondering what other retail businesses would do if faced with our average day.

For instance, I tried to imagine, the......

TOP TEN THINGS OVERHEARD IN A FURNITURE STORE THAT RUNS LIKE A PHARMACY

1. "I need to get a dining room chair -- well, maybe more of a bar stool or a recliner.... I got one a while ago, it may have been blue or green, but it's some sort thing you sit on, anyway, made by company starting with 'S' or "W".....could you check your computer to see if I've ever bought anything like that before and can I get another one? Go ahead, read me the list and I'll see if anything rings a bell."

2. I talked to someone in your Chicago store who said they would figure out what it was and then call you and have you put it aside for me. I don't know who I talked to . Can you call them?

3. if I describe my dining room to you can you tell me what I might need or what's missing? -- and then how much it (whatever it is) will cost?

4. I have a discount coupon for some kind of chair or table but I didn't bring it with me. Can you look me up on your mailing list to prove that I did get one in the mail so you can give me the discount price? Or, can you call my wife/husband at home and they will read it to you? How long will that take?

5. My neighbor's' going to pay for it. You'll have to call him to get his credit card number.

6. I think I bought a sleeper sofa back in 1989 that was only $200. Why is it more now? It's always been $200.... or maybe it was a desk......anyways I know I bought it here.

7. I'm having company tonight -- can you give me a couple of chairs to get me through the weekend and I'll (maybe) come back next week and get the rest.

8. I need six of them, but once you get it loaded in my car and the paperwork is totally complete I'll probably change my mind and only decide to take three.

9. I lost that lamp I bought 2 days ago... is there some way I can get another one without paying for it again?

10. You know what? ---maybe it's actually a rug I'm looking for......

And remember, furniture can't kill you. I think the average furniture store employee would walk away from this pretty fast, but in pharmacy it's just another day.

Damnit, Jim, I'm a neurologist, NOT a marriage counselor

Mrs. Patient: "You can be so difficult."

Mr. Patient: "I'm difficult? Your first husband died at 48 of a heart attack."

Mrs. Patient: "I didn't have anything to do with that."

Mr. Patient: "No. You only stressed him to death."

Mrs. Patient: "Bullshit. Your first wife committed suicide. That says something about you."

Mr. Patient: "Don't give me any ideas."

Mary, come shoot me. Now.

Mrs. Labz, a PET scan looks at brain metabolism. As you've read in that bastion of medical science, Reader's Digest, it can be helpful in diagnosing a few neurological diseases.

It has it's limitations. For one thing, it cannot tell me if you have one of these illnesses by doing the test on your dog.

PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography. It does not mean we can learn things about you by testing Fluffy.

Fluffy is cute, but you didn't need to bring her to your appointment. She's scaring Ed.

Have a nice day.

Acronyms From Hell (AFH)

Medicine is full of acronyms and abbreviations. Our long words, ancient Latin names for just about everything, and mix of chemistry phrases, results in many things that are too long to say or write. So we shorten them to a few letters.

Some acronyms are better than others. While catching up on some reading, I stumbled upon this one for Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures. While the acronym makes sense, the writer probably didn't think about how it might sound when spoken.

(click to enlarge)

Mary's Desk, June 30, 2010

Mary: "Can you come in on Tuesday?"

Mrs. Queens: "Of course not. I'm from New York."

(If any New Yorkers out there can explain this logic, I'd appreciate it)

June 30, 1908

One of the most remarkable events in history happened on this date. And it's mostly forgotten.

At 7:14 a.m. a MASSIVE explosion occurred near the Tunguska river in Russia. I'm not exaggerating. The force was somewhere between 5-30 megatons. Think about that: an explosion between 150 to 1000 TIMES the power of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. And it happened 37 years before the nuclear age began.

And, purely by chance, it happened in a fairly uninhabited part of the Earth.

To this day it's exact cause is unknown, and it's simply called "The Tunguska Event". It's generally believed to have been a meteorite or comet that exploded before hitting the ground.

The shock wave it sent through the ground was a 5.0 on the Richter scale. Every tree in an 8 km (5 mile) radius from the center was killed, and the force of the explosion covered a total of 830 square miles (2,130 square km). An estimated 80 million trees were knocked over by the force- all of them pointing away from the center. A few were left standing, scorched black, with all their branches stripped off. People were knocked off their feet, and windows shattered, hundreds of miles away. The pressure wave was measured as far away as England. For the next several months there was a change in the density of the planet's upper atmosphere.

An eyewitness 40 miles south of the explosion, reported that "At breakfast time I was sitting by the house at Vanavara Trading Post, facing north. I suddenly saw that directly to the north, over Onkoul's Tunguska Road, the sky split in two and fire appeared high and wide over the forest. The split in the sky grew larger, and the entire northern side was covered with fire. At that moment I became so hot that I couldn't bear it, as if my shirt was on fire; from the northern side, where the fire was, came strong heat. I wanted to tear off my shirt and throw it down, but then the sky shut closed, and a strong thump sounded, and I was thrown a few yards. I lost my senses for a moment, but then my wife ran out and led me to the house. After that such noise came, as if rocks were falling or cannons were firing, the earth shook, and when I was on the ground, I pressed my head down, fearing rocks would smash it. When the sky opened up, hot wind raced between the houses, like from cannons, which left traces in the ground like pathways, and it damaged crops. Later we saw that many windows were shattered, and in the barn the iron lock had snapped."

There have been other impacts in recorded history, but none this powerful. And, over 100 years later, the scars are still there.



1921: 13 years after the event.





2008: 100 years after the event.

Afternoon patient neologism

"My spine is curved sideways. They said it's skeletonosis."

Marital Counseling

Mr. Joyful came in to follow-up on his back pain today. A few minutes into the appointment his cell phone rang. He reached over and pushed the speaker-phone button.


Mr. Joyful: "This is Ed."

Lady Joyful: "Are you at the doctor's yet?"

Mr. Joyful: "I'm here right now. You're interrupting. What do you want?"

Lady Joyful: "I'm reminding you to talk to him about your anger problems."

Mr. Joyful: "I don't have anger problems. YOU'RE the one with the problems. Like that's anything new!"

Lady Joyful: "Look, Ed. You've been an ass recently, and he needs to give you some happy pills or something."

Mr. Joyful: "No, bitch, you have the problems. I'm fine, except for having to deal with you."

Lady Joyful: "Oh, like it's a pleasure to have to deal with a prick like you. If I have the problems, how come everyone else says you're the one with the issues?"

Mr. Joyful: "By everyone else you mean your dirtball mother?"

Lady Joyful: "Don't bring my mother into this! At least she's not serving time, like your mom!"

Mr. Joyful reached over and hung up the phone.

Mr. Joyful: "Anyway, Doc, the physical therapy didn't help my back at all."

Patient quote of the day

"I worry constantly about my son. I always have, for my entire life. Ever since I was born, I've worried about him. And I'm 38 years old now. That's 38 years of worrying about a 10 year old."

Dear Mrs. Crest,

We're sorry you had to cancel your appointment this morning, but it was understandable. I have kids, too, and sometimes they have medical/dental emergencies that screw up your whole schedule for the day.

So I understand having to take your daughter to the dentist urgently. I'm sorry she had to get a filling, but at least it's nothing serious.

I trust you. I'm not penalizing you for this sort of emergency. It happens. So there was no need to email a picture of your kid's new dental filling to Mary.




For future reference, please don't send pictures. Especially if they involve an urgent visit to a proctologist.

Thank you,

Ibee Grumpy, M.D.

Just Shoot Me

Miss Pill: "I can't stand the side effects, and it's not helping. I don't want to take it."

Dr. Grumpy: "Okay, let me write out a schedule to taper off it."

(scribbles on paper)

Dr. Grumpy: "All right, have a look at this. You'll drop to 2 pills a day for a week, then 1 a day for a week, then stop. So you'll be off it in 2 weeks."

Miss Pill: "TWO WEEKS?!!! I can't do 2 weeks! I have to take it at least 3 more months."

Dr. Grumpy: "You just said you wanted to be off it. Why do you have to take it for 2 more months?"

Miss Pill: "I just paid $25 for a 3 month supply. I don't want them to go to waste."

News that leaves me speechless

I'd like to thank The Mother, who submitted this truly remarkable news story from the Emerald Isle over the weekend.





www.herald.ie
By Andrew Phelan
Wednesday June 23, 2010

A REVELLER at a fancy dress party in one of Dublin's best known gay bars attacked her ex-girlfriend in a row over a novelty wrestler's suit.

Sandra Talbot (32) assaulted her ex-partner with a bottle she had hidden under her costume in a fit of rage at the George pub, after more than a year of acrimony following their break-up.

A court heard she lashed out at victim Adrienne Martin in a row that started over a novelty sumo wrestler's suit that Talbot was wearing. The row developed as the victim tried to wave at a man dressed as a Snickers bar, the court heard.

Ms Martin told Dublin District Court how she was left with a large lump on her temple and still suffered from panic attacks because of the incident.

RUINED

Talbot denied any physical contact happened and said Ms Martin had "ruined her life".

Convicting her and fining her €400, Judge Catherine Murphy said she hoped the accused and the "loosely linked group of friends" who had become involved in the court case could put it behind them.

Talbot, of Greenfort Close, Clondalkin, had pleaded not guilty to common assault on Ms Martin at the George on George's Street on Halloween night, 2008.

Ms Martin told the court she was out for the first time in several months, following the death of her sister from a brain aneurysm.

She had been in an on-off relationship with Talbot for three years which had ended in March 2007. During the evening Talbot, who was wearing an inflatable sumo suit, bumped into her. When she turned around, the accused said to her: "Keep smiling, c**t."

Later, a man dressed as a Snickers bar began waving at her and when she went to wave back, Talbot pushed her arm from behind. When she asked what the problem was, Talbot said: "Your arm's in my way."

When she again asked what her problem was, Talbot "flipped" and started screaming abuse at her.

Ms Martin's friend Suzanne Bowes got in between them. Talbot was saying something about Ms Martin's dead sister that she could not hear over the music so she turned her head to listen.

"The next thing, I got a blow to the left side of my head beside the temple," Ms Martin said. "My knees went from under me and I went down. She walked away, laughing and sneering at me. I had a massive lump on the side of my head."

Ms Martin said she saw a Smirnoff Ice bottle fly from the defendant's sleeve. The State solicitor said the prosecution had no evidence that a bottle was used in the assault other than Ms Martin's word.

The accused was escorted out and had to be asked to partially deflate her costume so she could get out the door.

To read the rest of the story, click here.