Urban Hiking

Last night I felt like I was living in the stairwell. All the silly climbing back and forth reminded me of M.C. Escher's drawing, "Relativity". By the time I get to the ICU in the morning, I have climbed 7 flights of stairs. I decided to keep track of just how many flights I would do in the course of a shift on-call. My final number was 54, but that includes both going up as well as going down stairs. I did take the elevators once during the shift, but that was only because my intern was with me at the time. A few weeks ago, she had a bad experience of getting locked in some obscure stairwell, without her cell phone, and had to pound repeatedly on a door until someone happened to walk by. I personally found this hilarious, but took pity on her and got in the elevator. (It is hard to empathize with someone who averages 8-10 hours of sleep on call nights compared to my 1-2 because she only gets paged by me for admissions, and doesn't get woken up every 30 minutes by "updates" or lab results from well-meaning nurses.)

Last night was my 5th call night of the rotation out of a total of 9 scheduled, so as far as I am concerned, it's all downhill now. Things got a little hairy this morning when a patient that we had expected to do well overnight decompensated and now doesn't look like he's going to make it. When I left, the ICU attending thanked me for my hard work, but part of me thinks he was just being nice. As far as keeping up on people's studies and labs, I tend to stay pretty well on top of things, but these people are so sick that I don't think I always understand the whole picture of what is going on.

When I got home this morning, there was over 6 inches of snow on the ground. I couldn't get my car into the driveway, so after a quick nap, I cranked up the snowblower and got to work. The thing works so much better on a level driveway, unlike last year when it was pulling up chunks of asphalt with the snow. Hopefully it doesn't snow so much tonight that I can't get the car back out onto the street, but there's no way I'm getting up early to make sure I have a clear path.

Things I Didn't Think I Would Need to Say

Sometimes discussions with a patient's family members don't go as planned. When there's a large group involved, no matter what gets said, someone will be unhappy. Here's a few lines I said the other night that I wish I hadn't had to:

"The face mask is helping him breathe, but I don't know if it is actually prolonging anything."

"No, I can't take the face mask off. He is awake, and is choosing to keep it on."

"I understand that you are his healthcare proxy, but as long as he is capable of making his own decisions, we go by what HE wants."

"No, I can't intentionally drug him into unconsciousness and then take the face mask off."

"I understand that you were told he had less than 24 hours left, and that it has now been several days. I really can't accurately tell you how much time he has left."

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As life would have it, a few days after this, my parents tell me that they have just listed me as their healthcare proxy in the new revision of their will. I told them they have never been specific with me as to what their wishes are. To this my Dad said, "Just do whatever you think is reasonable." Argh.

Ditto

I couldn't agree more.

Last night, I benefited from the Emergency Department being closed. The ICU was short on nurses, so while we actually had empty beds, there was no one available to take care of any more patients. Meanwhile, all of the regular floor beds were full, so the Emergency Department was closed all night to ambulances. (Despite being overcrowded with horrible wait times, ED's are required to stay open to walk-in patients, but transfers and ambulance patients get rerouted to any open departments in the area. The exception to this is that if a patient demands to go a specific facility the ambulance crew has to follow their wishes, and if all of the local departments are closed, then we take alternate taking ambulance traffic.)

For me, this meant only 2 admissions overnight (we had to steal a float nurse from another floor), as compared to the sleepless night of 7 admissions last week.

So Sleepy

Ru moved out yesterday morning... onwards towards colder lands and her pursuit of writing. The house seemed strangely quiet when I got home from work this afternoon. It was good having her here, and when I think of her stay, I'll remember being reintroduced to Nutella and graham crackers, Mexican hot chocolate (it has cinnamon in it!), and her showing me how fold origami cranes while I complained about my daily frustrations.

Today it has been a great struggle to stay awake. I went to a hospital recruiting dinner last night with some of the other residents, and getting home after midnight made today's early rounds particularly painful. Tomorrow is another day of being on-call, so I'm definitely laying low tonight.

... Pants On Fire

One of my favorite things about working the Emergency Department is that you never know what you are going to encounter.

The other day, I pulled back the curtain in Room 5 to find a couple of paramedics sliding over an elderly gentleman onto the stretcher. A quick survey of the room revealed that there were several police officers there as well. The guy kind of smelled funny, so I thought maybe he had been picked up off the street.

As it turned out, the guy had gotten into an argument with his girlfriend. Apparently, he tried to shoot her with a shotgun (and missed). When the police officers got on scene after being called for shots being fired, they noticed that the house smelled like there had been a fire. Upon further questioning, it turned out that the guy had caught the cuff of his pants on fire while he was burning some leaves in the yard a couple of weeks back. He had trouble putting out the flames, and suffered some pretty severe burns to the back of his legs. Not liking to waste time with the doctors, the guy decided to treat his burns himself... by applying a home remedy of boiling water and Vaseline! The entire back side of one of his legs was one big, black scab, and his foot was now swollen.

To the officer's dismay, there was no way this guy was getting medically cleared to go to jail, especially as he turned out to be septic, and it looked like he had an arrhythmia as well. Apparently, he hadn't seen a doctor in over 20 years. When I asked him what his daily medications were, he answered "90 proof alcohol"! I had expected this guy to be from some rural area, given the shotgun use, and lack of healthcare. However, oddly enough, his address was right in the city!

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As for my ICU rotation, I now have survived two nights on call. During each one, I only slept about an hour of the twenty-seven hour shift. The first call night was an admission-palooza with just constant work to be done. Last night, there were a few breaks here and there, but I didn't manage to catch much sleep as I always seem to have trouble sleeping in foreign surroundings. I suppose this will get easier throughout the month as fatigue kicks in.

Less Whining

So far, not much to talk about in the ICU. I will actually have THREE days off during this rotation. Unfortunately, I have to work almost two weeks straight to get to the first one. Today was a short day as there was some confusion about the schedule and I was allowed to leave after rounds.

Since I had the rest of the day off, Ru and I went to a late lunch at the very popular local "honky-tonk" BBQ restaurant. The place is always packed-- its clientele an odd mix of bikers and businessmen. We dined on fried green tomatoes, and I ordered the "Big Ass Pork Plate." Ru, being much more ladylike, instead of saying the title said, "I'll have what she's having." So there we were with our plates of "road food" surrounded by beer swillers, and she sips her hot tea like nothing has changed (including the tattoo-to-tooth ratio).

Happy early birthday Ru, and don't ever change!

Slow, Deep Breaths

Tomorrow I start my four-week rotation through the ICU. I am somewhat anxious about it, as I am going to be the senior resident on the service (ha!) with some poor medicine intern to help/hinder me. Every 3rd day will be a 27-hour work day, after which I will go home, try to enjoy part of the day, work a normal 8-hour day the day after that, and then show up for another 27 hours. Repeat this about nine times. No actual calendar days where I am not physically in the hospital at least for some part of the day.

The ICU is not my favorite place. It is where we keep all of the actively dying people. Many times, their loved ones are completely unaware of just how sick they are. Sure, there are people that recover, sometimes miraculously, but often it seems to be a slow, steady decline. A decline over days and weeks, in which one gets to know a patient's family. I remember the rotation from medical school as being a month of terminal weans from ventilators.

It is also a good rotation for learning. There are a lot of bedside procedures to be done, and I am definitely going to be challenged to make quick decisions and know my own limits. There will be an attending physician on call at night, but they aren't even in the hospital.

I was talking with one of our chief residents about his experiences the other day and he said, "Well, you are either really going to learn a lot, or there's going to be a lot of people dying and you won't have a clue why." Great, I can't wait to get started.

Snow!

It is after 2 am and I just got home. My shift ended at midnight, but I ended up staying late to do some last minute stuff, and to sew up somebody's face. I am tired, and I left over an hour's worth of dictations behind. Stuff that can wait for tomorrow.

Today was the first real snow of the year. Very fine flakes this afternoon, and just before I went in to work, the thick, "lake effect" flakes that I love. When I got home, there was about 3 inches coating the fence and my roof. At this point, it's so clean and somehow magically insulates all of the background noise (although admittedly there's not much at 2 am). The slippery crunch under my sneakers is somewhat therapeutic. I am sure I will be sick of snow soon enough, but right now it's a welcome change.

Mothering

The other day I got a stern lecture from the charge nurse. The family members of my gunshot wound patient had arrived, so I went back to the family room to talk to them. I introduced myself, got everyone's relation to the patient, and sat down with them. About halfway through, the charge nurse showed up at the door and she did not look happy. I told the family members several times that the patient was doing just fine, that he had been shot through the ankle. It looked like the blood supply was ok, but he was going to need surgery and rehab to get back on his feet. I thought I did a good job, and other than not being able to answer any questions about who shot the guy, the family seemed pretty satisfied.

Later, the charge nurse told me not to EVER go into the family room by myself because I had basically surrounded myself with upset family members in a room with only one exit. Oops. I guess that I didn't really even think about it because the guy's wounds were so minor. We have had family members flip out and attack our staff, but usually it tends to be in situations where the patient is a lot more critically injured. Anyway, I guess it was nice that somebody was looking out for me.

Know a Good Priest?

The other night, I had a patient that needed an exorcism. She was rolling around on the bed, throwing up/spitting and inappropriately touching herself. You can imagine that this made her somewhat difficult to talk to. I thought briefly about calling a priest, but at our hospital, we have different clergy people that rotate through... so I just pictured some poor Presbyterian minister showing up and wringing her hands. However, I did think that needing an exorcist would be perhaps the only way I could ever justify transfering a patient to the nice, community Catholic hospital in town, a place I like to refer to as St. Elsewhere. With a crucifix in every room and nuns running up and down the stairwells in their habits and sneakers, there would be no escape there for her!

A quick scan through the computer showed she had just been discharged two weeks ago for an admission for intractable abdominal pain. The lady had a 3-year history of abdominal pain, and had been through the gauntlet as far as colonoscopies, catscans, etc. Clearly, this was a problem I was not going to fix that night.

She was thrashing around so much, that the IV team couldn't get a line in her. After she had been there three hours, the lab called and told us that there was only enough blood for them to run the lactic acid level... that I could forget about all the other tests I had ordered. So finally, I went in there and consented her for a central line insertion because if nothing else, I can't even admit someone for intractable pain if they don't have IV access.

She was sleeping soundly when I went in the room. After explaining the procedure to her, she started slamming her arms and legs into the bed, like your average two-year old throwing a tantrum in the candy aisle at the grocery store. I just stood there until she wore herself out. I had a long discussion with her about how I would not continue to give her muscular injections of morphine because if something bad happened I needed an IV line. She agreed to the line, and also agreed to let the nurses try one more time. This time, she miraculously held still so that we finally got her labs. Everything was negative.

A contrast-enhanced catscan was ordered. Then she started playing new games, "accidently" spilling her oral contrast solution all over the floor and whining about having to drink it. I went in there again and had another discussion with her about why she would come to the hospital for help and then refuse any kind of assessment from blood draws, to x-rays, to CT scans. She was still there drinking contrast at the end of my 8-hour shift. The new attending coming on decided to take over this patient personally. She has a reputation for not putting up with any behavioral crap, and was talking to me about putting restraining orders on patients that spit at her. I'm interested to find out how the situation turned out.

Randomness

One of my Flickr photos of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was picked to be part of an online map of Philadelphia:

www.schmap.com/philadelphia/home/#p=44873&i=44873_6.jpg

Lighter Stuff

Sometimes you have to find the humor in small things. A chapter in our textbook that was part of this week's required reading titled "Male Genital Problems" was written by someone named Robert Schneider.

The Switcheroo

Many Emergency Medicine doctors would probably agree that one of the main times where mistakes happen with patient care is at sign-out. At the end of a shift, care of any remaining patients left in the department is transferred over to the incoming physician. The goal is to get as many of one's patients dispositioned (discharged home or admitted with orders by the admitting service) prior to sign-out. As one may imagine, with "emergencies" continuously filtering in throughout the shift, it is sometimes difficult to know exactly what is going on with Mrs. Smith or her catscan. Patients are re-assessed by the incoming physician, but is generally a much more brief process than the initial history and physical exam, and often patients that are signed out as "stable" may not be checked up on until other, larger fires are put out first.

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The other morning, I took over a patient with a rectal bleed. However, this was not your typical rectal bleed. This patient had intentionally shoved a paring knife up her rectum. This story of course set off all sorts of bells and whistles in my head regarding psychiatric issues. The overnight team left, saying that she had some blood products ordered and the surgery team was taking over. Fortunately, it was slow enough, and her story was bizarre enough that I went in to see her right way. The woman was pretty quiet, and seemed rather hesitant to talk about it. At first she just said that she cut herself so that she could get admitted to the hospital. However, after a few minutes of talking, it turns out that she thought that she had "telepathic" powers with her dead boyfriend, and that by killing herself she thought that she would be able to see him. At that point, I had the patient put on a psych watch as she had been left unattended before that. She ended up staying all morning in our department though as her blood was too-thinned with coumadin and had to be reversed with transfusion before surgery would take her for exploration under anesthesia and repair the damage. She ended up doing fine, but she definitely required more time and attention than what was discussed at sign-out.

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On the overnight last night it was pretty much a one-woman show. There was a medicine intern there, but she can only handle about two patients at once. This meant that I took all of the patients at sign-out, plus saw my own new patients, and supervised patients picked up by the med student. The shift started off with a very minor gunshot wound in the trauma bay, and several transfer patients from other hospitals that had multiple injuries. Much of my night was unfortunately spent on the phone with consultants. It took hours just to wade through the sign-out patients that I had assumed care of at midnight. Our nursing staff is pretty awesome, and I get along with them. I think that what saved me was having the patient's nurses let me know when studies had been completed or the patient was essentially wanting to go home, because there were just too many people to check up on.

I think that we did a pretty good job, and by sign-out at 8 am, there was no evidence that we'd had a messy night. However, the shift was such a blur that I can't help but worry about things that may have been missed here and there. There were definitely people who could have been sent home sooner if it weren't for the volume of patients.

I watch the attendings in our department, and their styles range from very conservative with workups to relying almost entirely on clinical assessment. At the end of the day, this is a specialty where one definitely has to be able to rely on their colleagues. Sometimes there simply isn't enough time or resources to check and re-check someone else's work. It is becoming obvious to me that you have to like the people in your workplace, but I don't know how to assess whether a place will be a good fit when it comes time for interviews.

Daylight Savings Time

While I appreciate that the extra hour gained over the weekend meant that I only slept in until 9 am on Sunday, I hate the fact that it is now pitch black by 5:30 pm. I definitely DID NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS. It's hard to combat seasonal affective disorder when it's dark out before you go into work and after you get out. Bleh. I suppose that the crazy swings of ED shifts (8 am to 4 pm today, MN to 8 am Tues night) help combat this, but the whole Daylight Savings thing drives me crazy.

It's Not Them, It's Me

On Thursday I noticed that pretty much all of my patients were lovely, nice people. And then I started to think about it. Were they really all pleasant, or was it more that I was well-rested and not stressed out? I think that I am definitely guilty of letting stress influence my interactions with other people. Yes, there were constant interruptions all day long. I even had a secretary personally snip at me for not hearing her page me overhead. The difference was that I didn't let it get to me. Normally, I think I just let people dump their frustrations on me, and I end up internalizing it, and probably passing it on to others. I don't know how long it will be before cynicism returns, but hopefully I can keep it away for a while.

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Yesterday, I spent almost 11 hours with Army Guy. Last night we went to a comedy show, after just spending a day hanging out. We have been dating for a couple of months now, and it's going pretty well. Sure there are times when our schedules don't align (or he gets shipped to Georgia for two weeks for weird training stuff), but I still like him. He's smart, funny, polite and can even tolerate my teasing. I think that it helps that he has a career completely different than mine, so that I don't have to talk about work stuff, but he's always interested to hear about my work escapades. I have some rough scheduling ahead, and he has to run off to Ranger School in a few months, but for now, I am just enjoying having someone to go out and do things with.

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Today I worked at the basketball game downtown. We cover the first-aid station at the local University's football and basketball games. I was allowed to watch the game and have free range of the stadium, as long as I wore a headset and carried a walkie-talkie. It was an exhibition game, so the full crowd wasn't out today, and I didn't get ONE SINGLE CALL. The home team won (although they made us nervous for a bit), and the whole thing was over in two hours.

A funny thing happened during one of the breaks. The male cheerleaders each grabbed a large flag and together spelled out the home team's name. However, for some reason, the last guy wasn't a cheerleader, just some random band guy. Well, the cheerleaders took off at a sprint around the perimeter of the court, forming a parade of the team's name. Poor random band guy couldn't keep up with their pace. It was obvious he wasn't used to running with a large flag. The last letter was sadly a good court length behind the rest of the flags. Worse yet, as he turned the corner, random band guy slipped and fell. The mascot, who was keeping up with him, despite being in a full-costume grabbed his flag and finished off with the others. Guess you shouldn't expect to keep up with trained flag carriers.

It was a good day, and I think my game coverage (three hours total) replaced a full eight-hour shift! We don't get paid extra for covering, but you just can't beat a work day of eating nachos and watching basketball!

Ending October

Tomorrow I go back to the department. Between my toxicology rotation and my vacation, I have been away for just over five weeks. We had Wednesday lectures as usual today, and several people told me that I looked really good, or different somehow. I think it's the vacation and my general disposition. In general, I think I am smiling and laughing more... which is good.

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Today my driveway got resurfaced. I finally found a responsible contractor who actually shows up when he says he will. As an added bonus, this is the same guy who insisted that he could fix the existing unevenness, when everyone else wanted to break up the old driveway, and start all over from scratch for two-three times the cost! The driveway looks great, and the edges are nice and tidy. It definitely will be smoother on my snow blower this winter and should help with some of my water drainage problems, too.

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I also talked with my computer repair guy (the same shop my car rolled out of), and my laptop is unfortunately a total loss. The problem is either with the motherboard itself, or the battery, which is so expensive to replace that I might as well get a new laptop. I think I'm going to just have this PC for a while. My main concern was that before the laptop imploded I was able to backup all of my digital photos, but my iTunes music (20 GB) was still on there, and with about 15 minutes of work-time when the laptop would actually boot up, there was no way to get the transfer process going. It would have been easy enough, had I not downsized to a 4 GB iPod Nano earlier this year. However, what the computer guru suggested was that we salvage the hard drive from my laptop and transform it into a portable external hard drive, that way I could keep all of my files. I thought this was pure genius on his part. I donated my laptop shell to the store, so that they waived all of the labor and diagnostic fees and only charged me $30 for the work and the hard drive case!

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And as for my research project, that has not taken off yet. First, there was problems with getting the chemicals, and then the pharamaceutical company "forgot" to send us the drug. Over the past two days I have done more computer modules on the proper handling and treatment of research rats. I just want things to get going before I start my ICU rotation at the end of November because that month I take 24-hour call every 3rd day, so to be running over to the animal lab is just going to kill me schedule-wise.

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The other morning I woke up to find frost on my car, which prompted a much-overdue oil change and putting the snow tires back on. I am really not ready for dark winter skies just yet. However, in the time that I was gone, many leaves have fallen, and the neighborhood trees have fully reddened.

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The Trick-or-Treaters have been really few tonight. I guess I could have gotten into the candy corn a whole lot sooner!

Turks and Caicos Islands

For our vacation, "The Phoenix" and I stayed at Beaches, Turks and Caicos Resort. It was great. The company is the same as Sandals, but it caters to families with small children. Being two single girls, we figured it would be better to be around families than honeymooning couples. The resort was all-inclusive, including two scuba dives per day.

I was really impressed with how responsible the resort was with the diving. Before they would let us go, we had to demonstrate basic skillis in the pool first. Every morning, resort guests could choose to go on either a one-dive or a two-dive trip. Being basic Open Water level divers, we are not supposed to go below a depth of 60 feet, and the resort was really good about adhering to this. They also made sure that there was an hour surface interval between dives.

I had been a little concerned about diving at a resort. I don't know that I mentioned it here, but over the summer a resident in a different program at my hospital died while scuba diving in Belize. Apparently, he took a short resort course, and then went on too many dives. The first couple of days that we were there, I mapped things out on the dive table and found that they were being pretty cautious, despite the fact that our guides were all equipped with dive computers (which keep more precise depth measurements and allow divers to extend the time of their dives).

As for diving in October, the temperature was perfect. It was 85, and probably about 75-80 in the water. We didn't use wetsuits, and with it being off-season, the beaches and the swimming pools were never crowded, and our room prices were 40% off!

The diving was also much easier than my certification dives. The resort supplied all of the equipment, but we brought our own masks, snorkels and fins. The tanks were lined up along the side of the boat, so that all you had to do was set up your stuff, and walk just a few steps off the end of the boat. I think the buoyancy of the salt water made it a lot easier as well.

The water was really clear, and the numbers of tropical fish that we saw were amazing. On one day we descended to the bottom with two black-tipped sharks circling around us. We also saw barracudas, lobster, and my favorite-- a sea turtle. At the end of one of our dives, a dolphin followed the boat back, jumping out of the water and showing off.

Another great thing was that there was a protected coral reef about a ten-minute walk down the beach from the resort. In the afternoons, we snorkeled there several times and got a great look at many more fish.

On Thursday, we went on a night dive. It was fun. At one point, we all turned off our flashlights, and by waving your arms around you could see little sparks of light, or bioluminescence underwater. We had hoped to see an octopus on the night dive, but it didn't work out. I'm glad that I did it, because everything did look a little different, but I much more prefer daytime dives as you can see so much more. Plus there's something kind of creepy about only being able to see the 5-foot diameter beacon of light from your flashlight while other, bigger things are able to spot you from a distance away.

Unfortunately, as our flight left early Saturday morning, we weren't allowed to dive on Friday. Instead, we went on what was supposed to be a 3-hour kayak tour. The tour was fun and included more snorkeling, a stop at an iguana preserve, and "The Phoenix" found a huge beautifully colored conch shell right there on the beach. Unfortunately, it was quite windy that day and our 3-hour tour ended up being 5 hours of difficult paddling.

The food at the resort was delicious. I think I ate some sort of fish every day for lunch and dinner. There wasn't much of a night life there as it was more set up for families, but with waking up at 6 am to get ready, it didn't really matter. I would highly recommend this place for new divers. They did allow more experienced divers to buddy-dive away from the group.

Vacation!

Off to a warmer climate for a week! Hopefully there will be plenty of sun, lounging, and diving.

Everyday Miracle

If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, then you already know that I get into more than my fair share of mishaps. I seem to attract odd characters, or sometimes things just happen to me (like an attack squirrel coming down a lit fireplace) that just don't seem to plight your average person.

This afternoon, I took my laptop back to the shop. During the summer, they re-soldered the jack which fixed my charging problem. However, now the internal battery is entirely shot. I can't even turn the darn thing on after leaving it plugged in for a week!

Anyhow...

I had been in the repair shop for only about 10 minutes at the very most. When I walked out of the store, I was a little confused because my car was not next to the maroon van that I remembered parking by. I walked around the van, thinking that maybe I was mistaken about which side of the van I had parked on. However, my little blue car was not there. Had someone stolen it? Who, in their right mind, would go through the trouble of disengaging a security system on a 6 year-old Saturn? My heart started to beat a little faster...

... and that's when I saw it:

My poor baby had not only rolled backwards out of the parking lot, but she had crossed FOUR lanes of traffic and come to rest in a small, grass-covered ditch! I couldn't believe it. There had been no sounds of horns or screeching of brakes while I was in the tiny window-paneled shop.

I guess it is a good thing that there was no median on that road, otherwise my car would have seriously blocked traffic. I also can't believe that my car rolled across all of those lanes on a fairly busy road at 5:30 pm without anyone getting hurt. It could have been really bad.

So, I did what any other grown woman would do: I walked straight over to my car, like I had intentionally parked backwards into a ditch and drove it out of there! Then I pulled into the nearest gas station to inspect it, and there wasn't a single scratch on it.

Can you believe it? What a goofball I am! I figure that I must have forgot to put on the parking brake as my car has manual transmission.

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I also went for my first run in about a month. I only did 2.5 miles (with walk breaks). I went to my usual spot along the lake parkway. I was almost a mile in when I saw the police tape. I had forgotten all about it, but this morning there was a story on the radio about how a jogger discovered a body along the parkway. I don't know why they still had the area roped off after almost 12 hours, but the four officers just by their cars looked pretty bored.

And that was about all of the adventure that I could handle for a Tuesday!

On Writing

Ru has joined the NaNoWriMo project, the goal of which is to write like mad and crank out an entire novel during the month of November. Part of me is jealous because I simply don't have that kind of ambition.

The other part of me sees her sitting at her laptop typing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." over and over. Inconveniently, I don't have a big maze-shaped garden in my backyard to hide from her when she comes after me with an axe. Let's hope it doesn't come down to that.

Organ Donation

Many people are uncomfortable with organ donation. They don't want to think about their own death, or don't like the idea of being all "hacked up". Many more aren't ready to think about this topic immediately at the time of their loved one's death, or are concerned about violating a loved one's wishes.

Here's something you may not know: if you do want to be an organ donor, you had better alert your family of this because once you are gone, the decision is basically theirs. It doesn't matter if it is on your driver's license. It doesn't matter if you are listed with an organ donation registry. At the time of your death, if your next of kin isn't agreeable to the donation, it doesn't happen.

The other day, a thirty-something male intentionally overdosed on cocaine. His dingbat girlfriend drove around with him for several hours before bringing him in to the ER. By that time he had suffered a major stroke. After several days in the ICU, there was nothing left that we could do. He had no will, and unfortunately, his next of kin was his 18 year-old daughter. She wasn't very close to him, and definitely wasn't prepared to make any decisions. Eventually, life support was withdrawn and he died. Despite being listed on his license as an organ donor, his daughter had never discussed his wishes with him, and she wasn't comfortable making that decision. I don't blame her. She's very young, and it is a difficult predicament to be in. However, at the same time, the guy was fairly young and healthy, and at least his death could have helped several people.

Talk to you family or spouse, whatever you decide.

October Skies

I think it's official... summer stuck around here kind of late, but all of a sudden, it's gone. Unfortunately, the sunny skies disappeared at the same time as my stupid cold symptoms. It has rained every day this week, which doesn't bode well for my contractor showing up and getting my driveway redone before the winter arrives. All of the bulbs and dead-plant replacements that I ordered weeks ago finally showed up and are actively drying up in the garage since even I am not crazy enough to plant bulbs during lightning storms. I was scrambling to get the lawn mowed this afternoon as the first few raindrops started to fall.

It is also no coincidence that with the cooler weather, I am finding myself hungry all the time. I guess it is time to put away the sunscreen and re-vamp my gym regimen.

Sigh.

Certifiable

I spent this past weekend in "Nearly Canada" finishing up my Open Water Diver Certification course. The last part of the course involves completing four dives over a two-day period. The water was cold enough that we had to wear wetsuits, hoods, and gloves. While wearing all of that equipment made performing our basic technical tasks awkward, I am also confident that I will have a much easier time in warmer water.

To my surprise, we did shore entries on all four dives. I think that shore entries are much more physicially exhausting because you have to strap on all of your weights, tank, BCD (buoyancy control device) and clambor down a plank while holding onto your fins and mask and hoping that you don't fall on your rubber-encased butt. In a boat, you can just gear up and jump off.

The bay where we were diving was pretty cool because there was an old ship that had sunk right there off the shore many years ago. Although visibility wasn't more than about 20 feet, I did get to see a few fish and some interesting wreckage. However, most of my time was spent trying to focus on my breathing, not dropping to the bottom or bursting to the surface.

Saturday night I spent in a roadside motel. While the staff was extremely friendly, I was more than thankful that I hadn't seen that recent slasher film about motels in the middle of nowhere. I guess it was actually kind of quaint... if you like wood paneling, shag carpet, and red lighting in the bathroom! There wasn't even a deadbolt on the door. Yikes.

Today, I am surprisingly sore. My calves ache, despite all of my running this past summer. My shoulders hurt... which I kind of expected given that I have the upper body strength of your average 7 year-old girl. However, when I take a deep breath, my entire rib cage hurts. I think I pulled every single one of my intercostals!

The reason that I pushed to get the course finished is that I have another adventurous vacation with "The Phoenix" coming up in a couple of weeks. With being at opposite ends of the country for residency, we decided that the best way to stay close friends would be to vacation together. So after suriving our crazy Grand Canyon hike, we decided that SCUBA would be the next adventure.

Omission

Entirely forgot to mention our first procedure: a cricothyrotomy.

Have a great weekend!

All in a Day's Work

This evening I was watering some of the plants out in the front yard when I overheard some of my neighbors talking about their daily activities. I ended up with somewhat of a smirk on my face because I wonder what they would think if they only knew what I was up to.

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Yesterday, we had a morning of lectures, reviewed journal articles, the usual stuff. Then, in the afternoon, I went to cadaver lab with all of the other second-year residents. There were enough to go around that we worked in teams of two. Our mission was to basically perform as many procedures as we could with the equipment that we had available over the course of two hours.

My partner and I went right to work. We did venous cutdowns on both ankles, both thighs, closed and open DPL's (Unfortunately, my buddy perforated the bowel on that one, which made us in a bigger hurry to get out of there!), a couple of Burr holes, bilateral chest tubes, followed by a thoracotomy. The idea is that some of these procedures we may not actually get to perform during our residency time, or even during our careers (DPL's are kind of obsolete) and we should at least be somewhat familiar with the basic technique.

It was helpful to be in a low-stakes environment to practice, rather than our typical on-the-spot trauma bay learning, with tons of people watching and judging. And there's always something somewhat amazing about holding a lung or heart in your hands, even if it is not actively beating.

After that, I picked up my friend at the airport. He offered to thank me by buying dinner, and although I may not be the brightest crayon in the box, I am certainly not dumb enough to turn down a free meal! We ended up going to the casino that he's been trying to drag me to since we started residency. After dinner, I watched him play craps (I wasn't confident enough about strategy to fork over any of MY money, but I was more than happy to roll the dice with his!). I finally pulled him away from the table an hour and a half later and $95 richer, so technically, I think he owes me another dinner since it didn't actually cost him anything!

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Today's activities were much more common. I went to work, sat through some lectures, and followed it up with an evening of watching television and baking chocolate chip cookies. Not exactly the satisfaction of hand-drilling into someone's skull, but still a good day.

Ode to the Taxi Cab Driver

The hours are horrific,
His sense of direction uncanny.
His malodorous backseat
Has carried many a large fanny.

That guy on the corner--
"Where to?", no other question.
A good driver knows
There's more pay for discretion.

A gunshot or stab wound
Gets driven with haste.
When they prepay,
There's no time to waste!

Drop him at the ER,
Somewhere near the door.
At $2.80 per mile,
That is all he paid for.

The man in the lot,
His story, no one knows.
"Hey wait, Mr. Cab Driver!"
But silently he goes.

With a screech, he drives off
To the next airport or bar.
Wherever it is,
May the next fare go far!

Unexpected Simile

"Come look at this, it's so pretty!" she exclaimed from the kitchen.

I left my dark office to go have a look. Ru was slowly stirring a concoction of sugar and eggs on the stovetop. It had this opulent, creamy sheen to it.

"Hmph."

"Isn't it pretty?" she asked.

"Well, it kind of has that shine-- like pus draining from a shooter's abscess that I've cut into." With that remark, I went back to my study, after receiving a cutting glare.

Vocabulary Lesson

This past week I started a toxicology rotation at the poison control center. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on whom you ask) there haven't been many overdoses lately, so business has been pretty slow. I was sitting around the table with a couple of the pharmacy students when one of them turned to me. (Keep in mind these women are six months away from becoming doctorate-level pharmacists.)

1st student: "Excuse me, can I ask you a question?"

Me: "Sure."

1st student: "Which word means country: rural or urban?"

Me: "Rural."

1st student: "Are you sure about that?"

Me: "Pretty sure."

2nd student: "The way I remember it is that the store, Urban Outfitters, is like, in the city."

1st student: "Oh, yeah." (Long pause here, then much scrunching of the face.) "But what about Keith Urban?"

Me: "What about him?"

1st student: "Isn't he a country singer?"

(I shake my head and walk out of the room to keep from laughing.)

2nd student: "I'm pretty sure she's right that rural means country."

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Am I wrong here, or aren't those 4th grade vocabulary words? Maybe these two have dedicated all of their brain power to chemical reactions, but I found this conversation kind of scary.

Crazy People Get Sick, Too

During medical school, several of us wrote down funny quotes from different speakers throughout the year, and then some of the best ones were printed on our class t-shirt. One of the better ones was, "Managing physicians is like trying to herd cats." Another favorite, "Crazy people get sick, too. Don't get distracted by all of the craziness."

The other day I almost missed a bread and butter diagnosis. This guy came in complaining of a headache for three months, chest pain for two days, and abdominal pain for twelve hours. He was really distractable, and the more I tried to get him to focus on one thing or another, the more symptoms he kept developing... like insomnia, and left ankle pain. Perhaps I was already annoyed by my ongoing cold and the opportunity to hone my mouth-breathing skills, but I just was losing all of my patience with this guy. It didn't help either when later he started having pseudoseizures... he would start twitching at random, but still was able to answer questions and follw commands, like from the nurse to "Stop twitching and hold still so I can start this IV."

Annoying, just annoying.

Somewhere along the history of present illness for his headache, he told me that the only thing that made his headache of three months better was, "Stabbing myself in the temple daily with a butter knife."

Review of his daily meds revealed two narcotics, and an asthma inhaler.

Review of his computer chart revealed a previous mention of schizoaffective disorder... for which he was not currently being treated. It was becoming clear to me that this guy hadn't just "slipped through the cracks" with regard to follow-up care, it was more like he had fallen down a gorge and the vultures were circling.

So I called the psychiatry resident on call, and told them that I was working on clearing him medically for his chest pain, headache, and abdominal pain. However, what he really needed was assessment and follow-up with a therapist and a psychiatrist.

Easy enough, right?

Things got a little busy in the trauma room, and the next thing I know my personal intercom is going off while I'm putting in a central line. It is his nurse. She tells me that his blood sugar is 690. (Normal is 70-110 fasting, or less than 200 after eating.)

Oops.

Not only is this guy an undiagnosed diabetic, but he is in DKA and as all of his bloodwork starts coming back, it is becoming apparent that he is actually quite sick. Fortunately, he had already been started with IV fluid replacement, but I could have been a lot faster with the insulin therapy had I not so been distracted by all of his psych stuff.

He actually ended up getting admitted to the ICU for monitoring, but should be discharged by now after having received diabetic teaching and started on new meds, and will be seen by the psychiatry service before discharge. Before he went upstairs, he thanked me for taking his complaints seriously. I felt like such a jerk. I guess that's why we do lab workups on our psych patients.

Queen Bee

Somewhere along the way, I am sure that I have mentioned Aunt Ruth. Aunt Ruth has been the head of my mother's side of the family for the past six years since my grandparents both passed away. She is the reason the family still gets together once a year in the summertime.

Aunt Ruth is 104 years old. She was driving and living in her own two-story brick home until she was 99. She knows exactly who is in charge, and she doesn't let you forget it.

This past weekend she fell in her apartment and broke a hip. We were afraid that given her age, no surgeon would want to touch her, and she'd be confined to her bed. However, my mother told me last night that they operated on her yesterday and expected her to be back on her feet TODAY. She must have just needed some minor pinning rather than actual joint replacement, but I still can't believe they operated on her.

Just a couple of weeks ago, she was giving her visiting nurse Hell because a state inspector came through the facility and insisted that she had to have someone dispense her medications for her because of her age. I think that this was a wise decision because last year she had some problems when she mis-dosed her meds... and then there was the episode of setting off all the smoke detectors on her floor when she forgot about some prunes that she left boiling on the stove.

Aunt Ruth is ticked off though, as "I don't want any govenment making decisions about my healthcare." So now there is a long recovery road ahead of her, and all I can say is good luck to her nurses!

Rat Wrangling

For my required research project I am going to be working with rats to see if we can find another indication for an already existing antidote. The positive aspect is that this research may help a lot of people. The negative aspect is the working with rats part.

Today I had a meeting at the animal lab with the other co-investigators in the project to learn how to handle the rats. No one told me that we would be using the ugly white rats with the creepy red eyes. There's just something sort of evil-looking about them.

The instructions were simple: Grab the rat by the tail with one hand and with the other hand, grab it just behind its front feet, high enough to cause the front paws to cross over each other. This helps to minimize struggling and at the same time, makes it relatively difficult for the little varmint to bite you.

You would think that for women with PhDs and medical degrees this would be a simple task. Well, you thought wrong.

The first of our group did well enough. She was hesitant at first, and with good reason as the rat sliced through her rubber gloves with one swift swoop of a paw. But she held on to him tightly, so tightly that when we were learning to place a tiny needle down the rat's throat to administer medication that his little tongue was purple and he looked kind of short of breath. A fine job overall, though.

The next woman was less hesitant, and reached with one hand to encircle the rat, but forgot to first grab on to its tail for stabilization. The animal deftly spun in her hand, and somehow she ended up with rat urine on her face! She was a good sport about it though, especially considering that the rest of us were giggling like schoolgirls.

Finally, it was my turn. I think my rat was just more docile, and other than flinching a bit, there were no problems. I have to admit that I have a slight advantage in the rodent-handling department because as a child, my brothers and I helped to raise mice for a bird rescue project of my father's. Of course a few select mice were kept as pets, but it's been almost 20 years since I've handled a mouse.

Next week we go back to the lab to learn how to test for normal reflex and behavioral reactions. I knew that this study was going to require a lot of commitment, but I didn't know that golden showers were going to be one of the exposure risks!

On Diplomacy...

I have been working overnights lately. It has been especially painful lately with the flow of waiting room traffic being steady ALL NIGHT LONG. Why, oh why, would you check in at 3 am with a complaint of foot pain FOR A YEAR?

To make things worse, I have been dealing with contractors lately... another particularly painful practice. My driveway is in horrible condition, and the "highly-recommended" person I called three weeks ago, finally bothered to show up the other day. Unfortunately, my driveway is too narrow for him to negotiate with his paving equipment. This has since sent me into a frenzy of phone calls, trying to get people to come out and give me an estimate because I would really like this taken care of before winter. So, to add to my already toasted Circadian rhythm, what sleep I do get during the day has been interrupted by random dudes calling me back or showing up at my door.

Having some experience in customer service in the past, I pride myself on being able to remain calm when dealing with your average jerk. The other night, this particularly difficult woman came in at 4 am, and I just wasn't going to deal with any nonsense. First off, she wouldn't narrow down her complaint. First it was nonspecific tremors, then the list expanded to include chest pain, left ring finger pain, and tongue pain. The "tremors" she was talking about involved her rhytmically flapping her hand on her chest. However, when she answered my questions, the flapping stopped, and only resumed when she remembered to start it back again.

Suddenly, she began demanding Valium. It turns out that someone has just been giving her this medication for over a year, without having diagnosed anything. Apparently she has now ran out. Oh, and prior to coming in by ambulance? She drank 2 inches of vodka.

I told her straight off that I couldn't see any reason to give her Valium, that I would like to workup her chest pain and other problems, but currently I had no reason to give her that medication. At this point, she refused any blood draws, stating that she was Jewish, and it was against her religion.

I went to enter her orders in the computer.

At that point, the nurse came in and told me that the patient was screaming and cursing. So, I went back to the room, where I was told that she was going to, "F***ing sue you so hard, you won't know what hit you." I again told her that I wouldn't be giving her any Valium, but that it was important that we make sure that her heart was ok.

At this point, the attending walks in, and the patient starts screaming at him that I am calling her a liar. I reiterate that I don't disbelieve that she had tremors, I just don't see any reason to give her that medication.

The attending and I talk privately, and he explains to her that the Jewish religion is opposed to autopsy (which sadly we will not be performing), but that blood draws are typically ok. So she agrees to the blood draw, and he compromises to 1 mg of Ativan, on the condition that she stays for evaluation.

Ten minutes later, she's screaming again at the staff, so I offer her another dose, and explain to her that she can just hit her call button rather than coming out and yelling obscenities.

Five minute later, she's demanding: a warm blanket, jello, and the "head doctor". The attending stalls on going back in there and thankfully she yanks out her IV and walks out. Everyone was silently rejoicing. I think she would have walked out much sooner if we hadn't caved to her demands in the first place. I just don't have any patience for people demanding medications without wanting to be evaluated. Even more annoying is that when people walk out, apparently social work has to contact them at home and ask them if they want to come back in. I'm pretty sure I know what her answer will be!

Creepy Beer

The other night after our midnight shift, we all went out for a drink. Everything was fine, until the attending bought me a second one. Look closely at the foam, there's clearly a skull in there! It actually was pretty anatomically correct with teeth and everything. It is slightly distorted here as unfortunately, I had turned the pint to show my buddy.

1, 2, 3

Found out today that I passed the last part of my medical licensing exam! Now I feel like I can finally focus on Emergency Medicine. Woohoo! No moonlighting (working for extra money on the side) until next summer, though.

Please, Leave YOUR Doctor at Home

This is something of a rant, so forgive me if there's a lot of jumping around.

"The other day" I walked into a room to find a 60's something female. She was brought in by ambulance, and the nurse was still finishing up reviewing her medications and getting her vital signs, so I walked into the room "cold". The only thing that I knew before walking in was that the word "Dizzy" was written on the whiteboard. Fine.

So, after walking into the room I begin interviewing the patient. I am a few questions in when a well-dressed woman in the room interrupts and asks me if the patient will be getting an EKG. I haven't decided this yet, but to get her off my back, I just say "Yes" because basically just about everyone over 40 gets an EKG... for just about anything.

So, I go back to the patient. The other woman then introduces herself as an internist and says that she works with my patient. She then proceeds to answer for my patient and gives me what details about the episode of dizzyness, only including what she thinks is important. She then adds that "I'm really anxious to see what my friend's 12-lead EKG looks like."

Finally, I get through my interview. As it turns out, the patient didn't just get light-headed, she has numbness and tingling in her left hand, foot, and although I don't observe any slurred speech, the patient is reporting that she just "isn't talking like her normal self."

So, I run through a quick physical exam, being sure to complete a full neuro exam. Now I'm thinking this isn't just a near-fainting dehydration/cardiac problem, it could be a stroke.

I duck out of the room. The attending is busy, so I quickly order an EKG and some meds to make the patient feel better. I give the attending a brief synopsis, and we decide to activate the stroke pager, which means that this patient basically gets pushed in front of everyone else in the hospital with respect to lab results, and imaging studies.

At this point, the internist grabs me in the hallway, and says, "Look, I don't mean to tell you how to do your job, but we still don't have an EKG." As she says this, the neuro resident is stepping into the room behind her back and the patient's nurse is putting her on a portable monitor to get her ready for the head CT.

I calmly tell the internist that the patient is not only getting an EKG, but she's getting evaluated for a possible stroke. Silly me, I had thought this would make her happy. She then asks me if I'm getting cardiac enzymes. I respond that they have already been ordered. At this point, I'm already daydreaming about punching this internist in the face.

I check up on one of my other patients, and see the internist pounce on my attending. By this point, the neuro resident is stepping out of the room, and she then proceeds to pounce on him, too. The patient is starting to improve, so it looks like more of a TIA or mini-stroke picture, rather than a full-blown stroke. Finally, to placade the internist, an EKG is done before the CT scan, and it is completely normal.

The CT scan doesn't show any hemorrhages and all of our labs come back normal. However, the neurology team is convinced enought that this is a neurological problem that they want to admit the patient and start her on a medication to help prevent any future events.

I walk into the room to make sure that the patient understands what is going on, and the internist is sitting there telling her who she'll need to see as an outpatient and blah, blah, blah. Finally, the internist leaves. At this point, the patient starts saying that she just wants to go home. Today, when I did my dictation I saw that she did actually get admitted.

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I have several issues with the way this patient was taken care of. First off, if someone wants to accompany a patient, fine, but this woman was nothing but a hindrance from interfering with me speaking with the patient directly all the way through her workup. If she wanted to be in control of how this patient's workup went, she could have easily admitted the patient directly to the hospital herself.

There's nothing more annoying than patients that show up in our department with prescriptions for MRI's and other studies. I'm not running a lab. I'm there to actually evaluate patients and do some of my own independent thinking. If bloodwork or imaging needs to be done, then just send your patients to a place that does that crap and sends the results back to you without ever looking at it.

My other least favorite thing is when patient show up expecting their doctor (who usually is not even the one on-call for their group) to meet them at the door. When your doctor tells you to go to the ER, that means check in, get evaluated, and if the ER finds something we'll let him/her know. If they really want you admitted, then they do it directly, and you can just bypass our infernal lobby of misery.

Zoology Crash Course

Up late tonight finishing up a computer training module on animal research.

Here are three things I learned:

1.-Pick the least sentient animal that's appropriate for your study... this makes more sense as it makes the work more acceptable to the public and all those involved.

2.-It's important that researchers get vaccinated so that they don't infect the monkeys with things that can crossover like tuberculosis.

3.-Rabbits and rodents have some sort of weird esophageal anatomy that make it impossible for them to vomit, therefore it is not necessary to make them fast before surgery to prevent aspiration.

Tug of War

Lately, I have felt pulled in too many directions. I often feel like by remaining neutral at work, I have somehow managed to become everyone's personal emotional dumping grounds. At the same time, I feel guilty about not keeping up with the list of old friends in my head that I need to call and catch up with. I'm trying to be better though, by simply not answering the phone and having some peace and quiet to myself.

Changes since my last post:

-I haven't gone for a run since, and yet I somehow have a 10K to do next weekend.

-I finished my SCUBA lessons and pool time. Now I just have to do my open water dives and I'll be certified.

-I have a new roommate... Ru's great, although I am afraid I haven't had too much free time with her.

-There's a new guy in my life. We've had three dates and I still like him.

Sinking to New Depths

Recently, I enrolled in an Open Water SCUBA Diving Course. Fortunately, I am able to do all of the bookwork and quizzes online, needing only to visit a small dive shop for actual pool time and my dives. Today, I got into the pool for the first time. At first there was a little awkwardness, but once I was comfortable that I could in fact breathe under water, it all went pretty well. I have to return next week to finish up my pool skills, but I am lucky to have found a program that works around my schedule! Once you get certified, your card is good for life. The plan is to meet up with "The Phoenix" later this year for another awesome vacation adventure.

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Tonight I tried to make some brownies in honor of Ru coming in to town. They were just from a box, so it didn't require much effort on my part. My kitchen was smelling wonderful. The timer went off, and I expected to open the oven door to perfectly gooey brownies. Instead, I found a square pan of chocolate with a layer of oil boiling on top. Apparently, I forgot to mix in the eggs! Leave it to me to forget one of three required ingredients in a pre-mixed recipe and screw it up! The whole oil brownie brick went straight into the garbage.

Downsizing

Yesterday, I cleaned out my closets. Literal closets-- don't get all excited. Things I hadn't worn in the past year or two were thrown out. Things that were of questionable fit were thrown out. Gone were any shirts picked out by old boyfriends. Pants I could slide off over my hips without unbuttoning or unzipping were thrown out (When I started medical school, I weighed 125% of what I do now.). Oddly, things that had been tight that I would have thought would look good after losing another 10 lbs were still ill-fitting. And, things that were flattering when I was heavier, still hung on me with good shape. I guess there is some truth to clothes just being well made or not. By the time that I was done, I had SIX filled garbage bags of clothes to haul off to the Salvation Army. I think I got rid of about half my clothes (not counting workout and housework stuff).

Part of the motivator is that next weekend I am getting a roommate. My dear friend Ru will be here for an extended stay. She has whittled her material possessions down to what will fit into her compact car and has been heading my way over miles and miles of asphalt trails. She is braver than I am. Rather than moving out of employment obligations, she is just picking up and relocating for a while. It will be fun to have a friend in-house. I'm hoping we'll do some local trips and have many misadventures while she's here.

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This morning I ran a 5K with one of my friends. We banged it out pretty well, but our time was actually almost a minute slower than the last one we did in May! There's another 10K coming up in a few weeks' time, so I had better up my running schedule again.

The weather has been beautiful lately. A few days of rain have been followed by perfect skies. This afternoon I finally finished the second coat of paint on the deck, so gone are the ugly boards of pinkish-tinged primer that had been exposed for the past year. Unfortunately, the whole thing now needs a third coat to hide all of the brush strokes, but just being all one color now already makes it look much better! Suddenly, there is an almost air-conditioned cold to the breeze through the leaves. It's a warning of cold days ahead. There are so many projects I had put off last year until "the weather is nicer" and I am suddenly realizing the weather's now about to worsen. Argh.

Mystery Solved

Silk already solved the mystery about the psychiatry symbol for me. Based on my poor description, phonics and Greek language skills, she knew right what I was talking about! There's nothing quite like having a Mensan available to do one's homework... if only she had been around for those painful semesters of O-Chem in college!

Cashing Out

The other I day I picked up a chart in which the chief complaint read: ANGRY. The whiteboard wasn't much help, where under chief complaint, there was the shorthand symbol for psychiatry-- it looks like a pitchfork... sometime I need to look this symbol up, to see whether it's a reference to being tortured by demons or more likely, something far less creative.

Anyway, I sighed and started the long walk towards Room 15, our designated psychiatric room. There's nothing much different about it, other than that it is a physical room with a locking door (as opposed to a curtained off area, like most of our other bed spaces), absolutely no equipment in it, and covered, locked electrical outlets.

I asked my patient why had come in and he said that he was angry because his personal things were stolen from the shelter he lived at. He had filed multiple complaints with the police department and was getting no results. He said that he was here for someone to "write me a check to pay for all of my missing things."

After running through a long, exhausting social history and review of systems to make sure there was nothing wrong with him, we finally returned to his missing stuff. No, he wasn't angry enough to be homicidal. No, he wasn't going to hurt himself. I told him I didn't think we could write him a check, because we don't do that, but perhaps the social worker could see him and see if there was anything else that could be done.

Then I found my attending and told him the story. He said something along the lines of, "What do you mean he wants a check?" So, we walked down to Room 15 again, where my attending proceeded to tell the guy that we don't write checks, we take care of sick people. I know that we see a lot of people for routine stuff that should be covered by their regular doctor, but most of them at least come in with a medical complaint!

After waiting for over an hour for the social worker to arrive, the gentleman walked out. I don't know where he is going to get that check, but when he does, I hope that he gets one for me, too.

Doomsday

My laptop continues to drive me bonkers. In spite of spending $135 and painfully surrendering it for four days, it continues to charge intermittently and angrily flash the lightning bolt at me, threatening to go into hibernation mode at any given moment.

A smarter person would have backed up her photos and music a long time ago.

A more organized person would have already been shopping for the best deal.

Alas, I am not that smart or organized.

I just don't want to deal with it, in spite of the fact that every time I turn this blasted machine off, I have to question whether or not I am going to be able to coax it back on again. I have also tried just leaving it on continuously, which just seems to cause it to freeze up.

I am also thinking about making the switch to Macintosh as their customers seem to be happy, if not a little fanatical. At least for me, PCs tend to be trouble-free for about 2-3 years, and then they sort of self-implode in terms of efficiency. This laptop is going on 3 years now, and does it make any sense to spend any more money on this thing when a newer, faster model could be mine for approximately $700, although I think Macs start at $1000? And I am thinking of just getting a desktop computer as I am no longer homeless and relocating every 4 weeks.

Any recommendations?

In My Humble Opinion

Granted I am a wee bit short in the experience department, but in my opinion, if you manage to present with a broken neck, femur, and wrist, and still have the stamina to give me a "Come Hither" look after your sedation and dislocation reduction in the trauma bay, you are probably going to be just fine.

Although I suppose this was before the orthopods took a power drill to his tibia, shoved a rod through it, and left him with weights dangling off the bed... sometimes leeches and bloodletting don't sound like such crazy ideas.