Mary

Yesterday I left my car at Local Automotive for an oil change. Toward late afternoon I asked Mary to call and see if it was ready.

It wasn't. They'd had a busy day, with 2 guys out sick, and since my car wasn't urgent they put it at the bottom of the list and didn't get to it. To me this wasn't a big deal. It happens here, too.

But Mary decided to take a stand on my behalf, and told the guy that since this happened I shouldn't have to pay for the oil change. He agreed, and told her that if I bring it in again today they won't charge me for it.

Mary was so proud of herself. I didn't have the heart to tell her I bought the lifetime oil change for the car 12 years ago, and haven't paid for one since.

Sunday afternoon

'"Hi, this is Mrs. Triptan, and I see Dr. Grumpy for migraines. My daughter also gets migraines, so I give her my Painbegone pills. I know I'm not supposed to, but they work. Anyway, she's at 'Hunger Games' and has a migraine, but doesn't want to miss any of the movie, and texted me to bring her a pill. But I'm out, and the insurance won't give me more until April. So could Dr. Grumpy either meet me at his office to give me samples so I can take them to her? Or, if you're near Tween Cinema, could you just take them there? I can give you her cell number."

Wild times at the hospital

Dr. Grumpy: "So I'm going to check an MRI and EEG, and I'll be back to see you after we have the results. Any questions?"

Mrs. Speed: "NO! But I have a complaint."

Dr. Grumpy: "What's up?"

Mrs. Speed: "That orderly, the teenage hospital lackey that you people had take me downstairs for my chest X-ray last night! You need to have her fired!"

Dr. Grumpy: "I'm sorry, was she rude to you!"

Mrs. Speed: "How should I know? She pushed my bed so fast I had to hang on for dear life! I was so scared I wasn't paying attention to what she said!"

Dr. Grumpy: "I..."

Mrs. Speed: "She's a hazard! I hate to think how she drives! She took corners at speeds so fast I was afraid the whole bed was going to fall over!"

Dr. Grumpy: "I'm sorry..."

Mrs. Speed: "You need to train them better! And you should also have speed limit signs in the halls, and educate people like her to follow them!"

Weekend Reruns

Quick! What is It?




Looks like a soap dispenser, huh? WRONG!

It's actually a battery-powered shower-cleaning device that sprays foaming suds around your shower after you're done. Of course, I know that NOW. I didn't know it yesterday.

While I was on call this weekend, Mrs. Grumpy installed one in our shower, and didn't mention it to me.

So yesterday morning, I was showering away in the dark (I get up early, and shower in the dark so the lights don't wake up the kids). In the dim glow of the night-lite I noticed this gadget hanging there, looking suspiciously like a soap dispenser. So, to lather up, I pressed the big blue button on the front, and put my hand under it.

Nothing came out. Instead the thing began beeping REALLY LOUD.

BEEP!

Holy shit! What the fuck kind of a soap dispenser is this?

BEEP!

Crap! Why is it beeping? It's going to wake up everybody! How the hell do I make it stop?

BEEP!

Fuck! There has to be a button or switch or something to turn it off! I'll press the blue button again!

BEEP!

That didn't do anything. Shit, I can't see if there's another button to make it stop!

I leaned forward, feeling it all over to try and find a switch.

BEEP!

After the 5th BEEP! the little blue thing on the bottom suddenly spun around, spraying shower-cleaning foamy stuff in a circle around it, covering the shower, the tiles, and my eyes, which were about 2 inches in front of it as I frantically tried to find a way to make it stop beeping.

It burned like hell. I screamed and fell backwards, and some shampoo bottles fell on me with a loud clatter. Snowball started barking. In the panic I tried to get to a sink to wash my eyes out, before I realized that I was already in a shower with water pouring down.

As I rinsed my eyes out the lights went on, and I became aware that I'd woken up the whole house. Wife, kids, dogs, and all.

I'm going to stick with bar soap from now on.

Memories

It was the mid-70's, and I was 10 years old, in the 5th grade.

Some friends and I were hanging out in the school library, and noticed a book on a nearby shelf called "A Night to Remember." In typical pre-adolescent fashion we joked about it being a dirty book, but I was curious and picked it out.

Roughly 35 years later, it still holds me. I re-read it again last night. Hundreds of books have been written about the Titanic, but this one still trumps them all. Likely because it tells human stories, not just a summary, and was based on many interviews.

I'd never heard of the Titanic before that book, and the story certainly has changed the direction of my interests.

Walter Lord, in my opinion, was likely the best historical writer of all time. I never met him, but wish I had. If you've never read any of his books, you should. "Day or Infamy" and "Incredible Victory" are both excellent, too (there are many others). He had an amazing ability to tell stories through the eyes of people who were actually there, not just quoting the facts, and his many interviews with eyewitnesses give you a whole new perspective on historical events.

If you like "A Night to Remember" I also recommend "The Night Lives On," where he re-examines many of the legends and stories about the Titanic for clearer answers of what happened during the tragedy.

Bones

The orthopedic surgeon who occasionally rents office space from Pissy & I has this ortho tech named Larry.

Larry looks like a character from Dr. Seuss. His eyes point in completely different directions, his hair is a LONG ponytail that goes past his rear end, he keeps the ponytail tied up at different levels with multi-colored scrunchies, he has this massive unkempt beard, and he always wears these 1970's era tie-dye scrubs.

So yesterday I'm sitting in my office with a patient when Larry suddenly shows up in the doorway (his shirt triggering a migraine in my patient)

Larry: "Hey, sorry to bother you, Dr. Grumpy, but can I borrow your cast saw?"

Dr. Grumpy: "My what?"

Larry: "You know, cast saw. What you use to cut off casts. Mine just broke."

Dr. Grumpy: "I'm a neurologist. I don't have a cast saw."

Larry: "REALLY? I thought every doctor did. Do you think I can borrow Dr. Pissy's?"

Dr. Grumpy: "He doesn't have one either."

Pause

Larry: "Well, what am I supposed to tell Dr. Ortho?"

Sigh

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

Dr. Launchpad: "Yeah, I'm the hospitalist working today, and I consulted you on Mrs. Sick."

Dr. Grumpy: "I saw her this morning. I think I ordered an MRI and some labs."

Dr. Launchpad: "You did! But that wasn't what you were supposed to do!"

Dr. Grumpy: "What was I supposed to do?"

Dr. Launchpad: "I wanted you to just write 'okay for discharge' so I could send her home!"

Dr. Grumpy: "Your note said 'consult neurology for confusion.' It didn't say anything about sending her home."

Dr. Launchpad: "I just wanted you to evaluate her, not order tests! I want to get her out of here."

Dr. Grumpy: "Okay, but ordering tests is a pretty common part of an evaluation."

Dr. Launchpad: "What does that have to do with it? I'm trying to send her home, and you've screwed it all up!"

Radiology 101

The aside: a good reason to turn off the microphone when dictating.

(click to enlarge)




Thank you, Gary (who claims his partner did this- yeah, sure)!

But wait! There's more!

The dreaded A-word has now come to the medical field.





Yes, we now have artisanal control cardiac catheters, for all your heartfelt needs.


Within a few minutes of the catheter showing up in my mailbox, a friend of mine who's currently in Portugal sent me this picture, to show that the problem continues to spread across the planet.

Monday night, 11:58 p.m.

Tap, tap, tap

Dr. Grumpy: "Mmmmph... What time is it? What's up, Craig?"

Craig: "I can't sleep."

Dr. Grumpy: "Are you okay?"

Craig: "Something is bothering me."

Dr. Grumpy: "What?"

Craig: "Did people at Target have to work on St. Patrick's Day?"

Dr. Grumpy: "Um, I guess so. They were open. This is why you can't sleep?"

Craig: "I don't think it's fair. They only wear red shirts at work, so won't people pinch them? For not wearing green?"

Long pause

Dr. Grumpy: "I'm sure for St. Patrick's day they're allowed to wear green pins or something."

Craig: "Oh. I guess that's okay. Thanks! Good night, Dad."

Specialists

Dr. Grumpy: "Hi, Leigh, good to see you again. What brings you back in?"

Mrs. Skin: "Well, my internist told me I needed to see a dermatologist about this thing on my shoulder."

Dr. Grumpy: "Um... I'm not a dermatologist. I'm your neurologist."

Mrs. Skin: "I know, but I wasn't able to get in to one this week, and you had an opening. So I figured I'd ask you about it instead."

Weekend reruns

This afternoon I saw a great little old lady, sharp as a tack, who got dragged in by her overprotective daughter, and was NOT happy about it.

The daughter was one of those huffy types who tried to answer every question for her mom, even though the old lady was clearly fine, independent, and a helluva lot brighter then her offspring.

Mom tried to talk around her, but the daughter just wouldn't let her answer my questions, even when asked directly of the patient.

Finally, when her daughter interrupted her for the millionth time, Mom looked at me and said, "You'll have to forgive my daughter. Normally she wouldn't be accompanying me to doctor visits, but 52 years ago my diaphragm broke."

Of Flies and Men

Okay, for those of you live under a rock, you missed THE BIGGEST SCIENCE STORY OF THE DECADE yesterday.

Now, we humans are what biology types call vertebrates. Like birds, snakes, fish, turtles, and horses, we have spines.

Invertebrates is the really big group out there (97% of animal life on Earth). It includes flies, spiders, lobsters, coral, squids, and lots of others.

From what we know, we branched off from them roughly 535 million years ago. So with our last common ancestor being PRETTY OLD, you'd think we wouldn't have a lot in common.

But, apparently we do.



(Drosophila, by the way, are flies)


As published in the journal Science yesterday, if you take a bunch of horny male fruit flies, and deprive them of female companionship, they turn to consuming alcohol as a coping mechanism.

Now, anyone who knows a guy, or is a guy, is aware that this behavior clearly exists in human males, but it's interesting to find it in a life form fairly different from ours. Of course, I'm not sure if this has been tested in closer relatives, like dogs or chimpanzees. So it's possible this is some odd vestige left from 535 million years ago that's persisted in only 2 species.

Granted, I think it's unlikely there were any bars open then (although one near Big State University when I attended it may have been, as I don't think the bathrooms had been cleaned since trilobytes had used them).


I'm left with a few questions:

1. Is this where the rejection line "buzz off" originates?

2. Do flies have flying-insect-based porn flicks to turn to? If so do they feature stars with names like Jenna Erecta?

3. Who the hell thought of studying this in the first place? Where did they get funding? And how did they keep a straight face while asking for a grant?

4. Does this somehow relate to the fact that fruit flies have the longest sperm on Earth (2.3 inches each sperm! I SWEAR!)*

5. If the sexually satisfied flies are the ones hanging out on dog shit, and the deprived are the ones getting shit faced, which is worse?

6. Did anyone do this on female flies? When sex-deprived do they go shopping?


And last, I should add Mrs. Grumpy's comment that this proves males are a lower state of evolution than females, and simply haven't changed much in 535 million years.


* If knowing this fact ever helps you win millions on Jeopardy, please remember who told you. I take Paypal.

Phone bill

Mr. Library: "Here, I brought in several articles about my condition that I downloaded off the internet..."

(hands over 3-inch-thick notebook)

Dr. Grumpy: "Okay."

Mr. Library: "And here are the office numbers of their authors. As you can see, they cover several major universities around the globe. I'd like you to call and discuss my case with all them."