Good thing it's not lunchtime, yet

Dr. Grumpy: "Are you allergic to any medications?"

Mr. Taco: "Mexican food gives me gas."

Sentence structure- It means something

This ad for a charity really could have been worded better.





From Fail Blog.

Monday Afternoon Reading

With my office closed today for the 3-day weekend, we took the kids back to the waterpark. While relaxing in the shade I caught up on my reading and learned that:

1. Patients with Alzheimer's disease have a higher rate of memory loss than people without Alzheimer's disease (Neurology Reviews, May, 2010).

2. Multiple Sclerosis patients with balance problems have a higher rate of falls than MS patients without balance problems (Clinical Neurology News, May, 2010).

3. I suspect one or both of the above studies could have been written by a lady who I saw at the park, who was chewing out a lifeguard because she (gasp!) got wet while floating on the lazy river.

More Acronyms From Hell (AFH)

I'd like to thank Whitney for submitting this. She says it was proudly displayed at her Pharmacy School.

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4th of July

Today we went to the waterpark. Among the posted rules, I was horrified to see "Local Waterpark is not responsible for sunburn."

WTF is the world coming to? People are actually suing waterparks for sun exposure? Isn't the sun something you encounter, like air and water? Isn't there already a boatload of info out there about such things as sunscreen or protective clothing? Are people really this stupid? (sigh, I know)

It's a good thing they had that notice up, because when Craig and I went on the lazy river there was a guy going around it endlessly, snoring away, and being gradually transformed into a leather handbag.

One water slide that Marie really likes turns you sideways as you go down it, and you swing back and forth between 2 high sides, gradually coming to a stop. While we were waiting in line for our 3rd time there was suddenly a loud scream, and as we watched a teenage girl came down the slide- followed a few seconds later by her bikini top. The girl was frantically trying to cover herself and hold onto the inner tube at the same time, to the great amusement of pretty much everyone. The girl didn't seem very happy about the round of applause she earned, or the multiple requests for an encore.

My kids spend all their time at waterparks doing one of 5 things:

1. Playing together.

2. Playing apart.

3. Fighting because they are playing together.

4. Fighting because they are playing apart.

5. Whining about other topics.

As a result, Mrs. Grumpy and I spend a fair amount of time trying not to referee these disputes. We hide from the kids. Usually the days end when they all find us at once.

Then they bitch and moan about having to go home, claiming they'd just started having fun.

Open to interpretation

I got dragged in to see a hospital consult this morning. The admitting physician's note featured this:

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Back to the Future

This afternoon we took the kids to see Toy Story 3. And, of course, the obligatory previews.

Watching the previews (and the movie), there were 2 themes that seemed remarkable:

1. Digital animation and special effects get more awesome every year.

2. Our music tastes in movie soundtracks are still living in the 1970's and 1980's.

It's not like they've stopped making music since the mid-80's. Maybe using these soundtracks increases the appeal to adults (I'm not complaining, believe me. Just making the observation). Maybe it's all they can think of. Maybe it's cheap. But consider:

Toy Story 3 (itself a franchise 15 years old, which is really hard for me to believe) features the songs "Dream Weaver" (Gary Wright, 1976) and "Le Freak" (Chic, 1978).

Movies shown in the previews included the upcoming animation flicks:

Alpha and Omega, about 2 wolves, featuring "Hungry Like the Wolf" (Duran Duran, 1982).

Megamind about a superhero and his arch-foe, featuring "Highway to Hell" (AC/DC, 1979)


Not only that, as if the 1980's revival thus far of 2010 (The A-Team, Clash of the Titans, Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Karate Kid) isn't enough, movies coming out in the rest of 2010 include:

Tron- Legacy (original Tron, 1982) which will feature Bruce Boxleitner and Jeff Bridges again.

Red Sonja (Original Red Sonja, 1985) which I'm assuming will not feature Arnold Schwarzenegger this time.

And even more frightening, 2011 is bringing us a new Smurfs movie.

Saturday afternoon, 12:37 p.m.

"Um, hello, I need to see a neurologist. I have seizures, caused by seeing red and blue flashing lights. So I need some sort of note saying that cops can't ever pull over a car that I'm driving, no matter what, because it would be bad for my health. It should be, like, something that should be in the police database so that all cops everywhere know that they can't pull me over. I also sometimes have seizures triggered by being near cops, and they need to know that, too. No one else will write these notes for me, and this is really urgent, so I need to get in right away, before my court date. Please call me back."

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.

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