Tis The Catalog Season

With the pentuplet of seasonal holidays approaching (Hanukkah, Festivus, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Solstice), my home mailbox is full of catalogs selling all kinds of things that these people apparently feel my family and friends can't live without.

Since so many of my patients call my office asking if we have any gift ideas (NO! I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FREAKING IDEA WHY THEY CALL ME!!!) I figure many of you are dying to do the same (Dr. Grumpy merchandise is always nice).

So I've personally combed through these many catalogs to help you, my loyal readers, find some of the most useful gifts out there, and will present them over the next few weeks.

Today I'm going to kick off the list with this tasteful item:



Yes, it's a shower soap dispenser (comes with green gel soap! Wow!) that dispenses soap out of it's nostrils. I suppose next year they'll have one that makes a sneezing noise when you squeeze it.

I'd order one for that special coworker who continuously complains about allergies and leaves wadded-up Kleenex all over the office.

Public Service Announcement

Attention ladies:

It is NOT, generally speaking, normal for you to be woken at night by your guy shaking the bed violently, turning blue, and peeing on the sheets. If he does this, and hasn't done it before, he needs medical attention.

You also should not allow this to go on for several nights in a row, and then call his mother to see if she can help you wash all the bedsheets, and (when she asks you why), let her be the one to make the CORRECT decision that he should go to ER.

It is also not cool that you sent him in by himself, so you could stay home and catch up on washing sheets. Your description of the events is usually helpful to those of us in the "med-biz".

Thank you.

Live! From ER! It's Dr. Grumpy!

I'm on call.

While rounding, I was paged overhead to come down to ER for a stroke that had just arrived. Guy who can't move his right side.

So I'm sitting here in ER, watching him from the nurses' station, waiting for my turn to go in. Nurses are hooking him up to stuff, techs in there drawing blood, an EMT going over info with another nurse.

In the middle of this all the patient is lying there, calmly texting with his left hand.

Starting and Ending With a Survey

Well, just as my day began with a strange marketing survey question, apparently it's going to end that way. I'm doing one tonight over the internet, and this question came up:

"When managing a male or female MS patient who wishes to become pregnant, what action do you typically take with their current MS medication?"

You Must Live REALLY Far Away

"I only get migraines when there's a full moon. In my neighborhood I think that's around once a week we have one."

Okay, Let Me Get A Blindfold

I did an online marketing study this morning, in which I was looking at various ad concepts to see which parts of the ads interest, and don't interest, doctors.

So at one point I came to these instructions:

"On the following screen, we'd like to know which parts of the picture did not get your attention. Please click only on those parts of the image that you don't look at."

Homecoming

I pull into the driveway, and walk down to the mail box to get the bills & junk. The neighbor family is out putting up some Christmas lights. Mr. Neighbor comes over to chat for a minute.

Suddenly, my front door flies open. Frank comes out, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Frank: "DAAAAD!!! THE FRONT HALL TOILET BACKED UP ON ME 'CAUSE I USED TOO MUCH PAPER AND NOW THERE'S POOP ON THE FLOOR AND SOME STILL IN THE TOILET AND PAPER EVERYWHERE AND IT SMELLS BAD AND THE TOILET KEEPS RUNNING AND..."

Dr. Grumpy: "Frank, calm down. Why didn't you tell Mom as soon as this happened?"

Frank: "I did. She told me to wait and tell you as soon as you got home."


Mr. Neighbor doubled over laughing. Perhaps for the first time he was glad to have teenagers.