Annie's desk, August 29, 2012

Mrs. Autoclave: "Hello?"

Annie: "Hi, this is Annie at Dr. Grumpy's office."

Mrs. Autoclave: "Do you have my test results?"

Annie: "Yes, your neck MRI was fine, and so he'd like to schedule you for an EMG."

Mrs. Autoclave: "Is that the test where they stick needles in your arm?"

Annie: "Yes."

Mrs. Autoclave: "Does he use clean needles?"

Annie: "Of course!"

Mrs. Autoclave: "He's not, like, re-using the same needle on every patient, is he? Or just rubbing it down with a paper towel between patients?"

Annie: "No. It's a disposable needle. He throws it away, and uses a new needle for every patient."

Mrs. Autoclave: "How do I know he's not just fishing it out of the garbage?"

Annie: "You can watch him open the package before the test."

Mrs. Autoclave: "I'm going to have to think about this. I don't trust you people." (click)

Skool Nerse announcement

This is Mrs. Grumpy.

Look, kids.

There are all kinds of ways to fake being sick/injured/dead to try and get sent home from school.

Pretending to have a weird rash that "suddenly came up" before the math test is not a good one.

Especially if you do it by rubbing your face and hands vigorously with Cheetos.

Your neon-orange "rash" washed off pretty damn easily when I took a washcloth to it.

And now you smell like the inside of a vending machine.

Nice try, though.

Patient quote of the day

"My blood pressure is intermittently sporadic. It happens randomly."

Life on rounds

I recently got a new doctor's bag because my old one fell apart. While talking to a nurse at the hospital, I started fiddling with the shoulder strap.

Nurse: "What's wrong?"

Dr. Grumpy: "My bag is hanging funny."

Hysterical laughter breaks out at nurse's station.

Dr. Grumpy: "That didn't sound good, did it?"

Saturday afternoon

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

Mrs. Adna-Thompson: "Hi, I'm one of your patients, and I'm at Glove World amusement park today."

Dr. Grumpy: "What can I do for you?"

Mrs. Adna-Thompson: "Well, we're in line for the Fiery Fist O' Pain, the roller coaster that goes upside down a few times. I'm afraid the upside down part will give me a migraine."

Dr. Grumpy: "So..."

Mrs. Adna-Thompson: "So, can I hand my phone to the attendant? I want you to tell him not to send my car on the upside-down part."

Dr. Grumpy: "Um, I think that's a function of the track. There's nothing he can do about it. Why don't you just not go on the ride?"

Mrs. Adna-Thompson: "That's what the attendant and my husband both said! You're no help at all!"

Random Sunday Pictures

First, from our recent trip, we have this picture taken at Lagoon. Apparently to dissuade masochists and guys looking for a painful prostate check:

I really love Lagoon. But not this much.

Next, in a similar vein, we have this unusual public service announcement tie-in from Local Grocery:

Have some wine. Then bend over.

It was a long driving trip. Fortunately you can try and amuse yourself with Siri:

"What do you mean? African or European?"

Emma sends this picture, which she says was taken at a store in Hackney:

And, lastly, yet another example of...

"My, what lovely dentures you have."

Sentence structure

English, like any language, has rules that are needed to convey whatever a sentence is trying to say.

Sometimes those are at odds with space limitations in a newspaper.

While I understand this headline for a "human interest" story, it still doesn't sound good.

 

Thank you, Lee!

BUSTED!

Yesterday I got dragged into doing a car accident evaluation for an insurance company. Generally I try to avoid these, but for various reasons couldn't get out of this one.

The hallway from my exam room to the lobby is a straight 10 feet, so I use it to watch patients walk when they come in.

On the way back to my room the patient limped on his right leg, and held a cane in his right hand.

Afterwards, on the way back to the lobby, he limped on his left leg and held the cane in his left hand.

Breaking medical news

In case you missed this groundbreaking work last month, the Journal of Caffeine Research (with a name like that they should be hanging out in my office taking notes) found that:

(drum roll, please)

DRUNK COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE MORE LIKELY TO DO STUPID THINGS THAN SOBER ONES!

Shocker, isn't it? You'd think that with all the previous pioneering research in this field (Landis, J. et al. Animal House, Universal, 1978) further studies wouldn't still be needed.

Better yet is how they obfuscated the subject to make it sound more interesting: they put sex into it. This is a guaranteed way of getting your paper more attention than it deserves.

Basically, they interviewed 648 college students about "risky sexual behaviors" and found that if you're drunk you have a much higher incidence of having casual sex, or inebriated sex, or both. I suppose this could also be done using a more mundane topic such as "more likely to incorrectly sort the recyclables" but who would read that?

Since such information is hardly new, they decided to put a twist on it by studying risky sex following the consumption of energy drinks, both with and without alcohol. And, in a stunning conclusion, found that the incidence of banging near-strangers went up considerably when alcohol was involved, rather than just a plain old energy drink.

Now, on the surface this may sound like some vaguely interesting paper about regular energy drinks (such as Red Bull) vs. those mixed with alcohol (i.e. Jägerbombs) but let's face the facts: it basically found that alcohol consumption leads to a greater incidence of risky behavior than being sober. No shit, Sherlock.

You could do the same sort of research about coffee vs. coffee + bourbon, or milk vs. milk + schnapps. Those haven't been done yet, so if you're a grad student desperate to publish in the "Spiking Drinks Quarterly" (or just trying to meet girls) this is your big chance. Please see the definitive paper on the subject (Ramone, JJDTMR Somebody Put Something in My Drink, Sire Rec., 1985).

This research was supported (according to the article) by a government grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Sadly, I'm not making that up.

Then why ask me?

Mr. Tophi: "Look at this thing on my foot. It really hurts. Is this from my Parkinson's disease?"

Dr. Grumpy: "No, that looks like gout."

Mr. Tophi: "Funny, that's exactly what my podiatrist and internist said, too."

Does she live near a nuclear plant?

Reading notes from another doctor yesterday I discovered this line:

"The pain radiates from her neck into the right shoulder, then down the dorsal aspect of the arm and hand into the 7th & 8th fingers."

Skool nerse time

This is Mrs. Grumpy.

Dear Parents,

I encountered quite a few of you last month, as I got suckered into doing the summer vision and hearing screenings at Douglas C. Kenney Elementary School.

This is basically a volunteer job for the nurse involved. The district pays us (literally) minimum wage to be there. The tests are done routinely during the school year, but, trying to be accommodating, they offer them in July, too. So a teenager flipping burgers over the summer is making the same as the nurse checking his vision. I'm not telling you this for sympathy, but rather to make you understand that I'M NOT DOING THIS FOR THE MONEY. I do it because I care about your kids, and (more importantly) because it gives me a few hours away from mine.

Bringing your child in to get his hearing tested is a good thing. Bringing in his 18 siblings, or even just one screaming infant, defeats the entire process. To accurately test Junior it needs to be QUIET.

Since you apparently don't know what that means, here it is: no other kids playing loud video games, an infant screaming because you haven't changed her diaper in 2 weeks, talking loudly on a cell phone about which movie to see with friends later, eating a bag of extra-crunchy Cheetos, or all of the above. Also, you don't need to change the baby in my small office. There's a bathroom across the hall, and we are not testing your kid's sense of smell. Or mine.

Don't tell me it's okay to do any of these things because the front desk girl told you so. She's the chewing-gum-popping daughter of the woman who works there during the school year, and is too busy texting her friends to pay attention to what you're asking. She's not saying yes, just nodding her head in time to whatever song is playing. 

If you can't sit in here and be quiet, then go out to the fucking lobby and leave me and your kid in here. I'm not going to molest them. You can check my license online. I've never been in jail, gotten anything worse than a traffic ticket, or coached at Penn State. If this option absolutely, positively doesn't work for you, then GTFO and have your precious child tested during the regular year like everyone else.

Next is the vision issue.

I understand you feel Junior looks cool, cute, or whatever while wearing sunglasses. But he needs to take them off to do vision screening. We are not outside in direct sunlight, and hopefully he isn't in the Witness Protection Program. We are inside, under generic fluorescent bulbs. Wearing sunglasses may work for the top 2 Snellen lines, but not when they get toward the bottom.

Also, I'm sorry the eye chart isn't the one your kid fucking memorized from Wikipedia so she wouldn't have to get glasses. We know these games. As hard as it may be to believe, we school nurses were once kids. And most of us have our own, too.

Finally, I am NOT, in any way, shape, or form, responsible for your child being blind or deaf, or you being stupid. The school district is doing this testing free of charge. They are NOT giving out vouchers for eyeglasses, hearing aids, or doctor visits. If your kid failed the hearing test because you just had to bring his twin siblings and their Game Boys, and now you have to pay to go see a real audiologist, THAT'S NOT MY FAULT.

Don't give me bullshit like "the last nurse passed him," "you didn't set the machine right" or "his sister didn't have a problem." I DON'T CARE. Contrary to popular belief, I do not have some sort of personal vendetta against your child (you, maybe, but I won't hold that against him).

Also, telling me that any problem the test found is my fault doesn't fly. You'd think I'd be shocked that so many of you feel I should personally pay for new glasses/hearing aids because "he didn't have a problem before you did the test," but sadly I'm not surprised at all. And no, I'm not paying for them.

Have a nice day.

Summer vacation

At my family's request, I am ending the current Summer vacation series. I will return to regular blogging on August 20, 2012.

Grumpy Summer vacation, day 3

Today my aunt drove us to pick up our rental car. We'd decided to leave the legendary Grumpy Family Truckster at home and rent a car. We loaded it up, and off we went to Las Vegas. Since the kids had so much fun there last year, we wanted to go back.

Approaching Vegas, we passed one of it's most famous celebrities.

"Don't run over my blue suede shoes."

We decided to stay at the Flamingo this time, as the staff we'd spoken to last month had told us about all the great pool features, including it's huge size, and the waterfall they can swim through. Unfortunately, we discovered they hadn't been entirely truthful. Yes, they do have a humungous pool with a big waterfall. Unfortunately, kids aren't allowed in it.

Families with kids are limited to 2 small pools. One is surrounded by fountain statues of Flamingos spitting into the pool (I SWEAR!) and the other is even smaller and has a water slide and dinky waterfall. Both were packed wall-to-wall with people, and not nearly enough chairs available. So I sat on a concrete wall while the kids swam, and pounced on the first chair I saw open up (okay, so I waited until this old lady's family wasn't looking, then I pushed her off a chair, threw her glasses in the trash, and grabbed her marble rye). My kids were similarly unimpressed with the pool, and kept asking if we could go to another hotel.

As I tried to relax and play Russian solitaire on the iPad (sorry, Klondike fans, I learned this one from my grandfather, and it's my game of choice) a couple next to me were playing dominoes while their kids swam. At some point this innocuous tile game became a proxy between them to fight over who's fault a recent speeding ticket was, why the kids wear out shoes so fast, when can they afford to go to Hawaii, and (finally), who's turn is it anyway. At that point the game ended when she turned the board over and sent tiles flying everywhere.

Another issue was that while families weren't allowed in the big adult pool, childless couples were allowed in the kiddie one. So a pair of newlyweds came over to try out the waterslide, then decided to stay. Since pool chairs were at a premium, they shared one. Being newlyweds, this proximity resorted in them starting to make out, then using strategically placed towels to go further. After they finished I wasn't sure if I should applaud or not.

One thing that I find incredibly annoying about Las Vegas is that all the pools close at insanely early hours, usually 5:00 for kid pools, 7:00 for adults. I don't understand this at all, especially in Summer when it's daylight until at least 8:00 p.m. Hotels everywhere else keep pools open till at least 9:00, and often 10:00 or 11:00. Except in Vegas.

While walking to dinner we engaged in the popular Vegas sport of avoiding guys handing out cards with hooker's phone numbers (except for Frank, who tried to get the ones with pictures on them. Craig wanted to, but doesn't have Franks lack of inhibition). During this time the kids kept bumping into each other, until finally a fight broke out over who stepped on who. Of course, this sort of thing always seems to happen when you're dodging cars/hookers/hobos/Elvis, making the situation as chaotic as possible. After we got them separated Mrs. Grumpy pointed out a remarkably appropriate sign nearby:

Sums up traveling with kids, huh?

 

For dinner we went to the Planet Hollywood buffet, which is done up with movie posters. This one caught my eye:

Somehow, I just don't see a movie today being marketed with that tagline.


Afterwards we walked over to the Cosmopolitan hotel. (MOM! ARE YOU READING THIS? GOOD!). We did this because my parents were in Vegas a month ago, and Mom made a big deal about how neat the Cosmo's lobby is. She (YES, MOM, YOU!) told us we should take the kids there because they have these really cool columns with TV screens that show changing pictures, and that the kids would love them. So we went.

Well, I guess they changed the pictures since then (or my mom needs new glasses) because when we got there the lobby columns were showing a silent movie of a silhouetted, but obviously nude, woman. And she was doing some sort of semi-erotic dance with a large dog. I am not making this up.

When I called my mom tonight to tell her this, she said "well, I only told you they were interesting." Great, ma. I'll have Marie call you when I find her dancing naked with Snowball in the bathroom.