Thursday, October 5, 2000:
Best Opening Lyric of All Time: "Well, just look at that
girl
with the lights coming up in her eyes." -- Jackson Brown.
Close Runner-Up Lyric: "I got dykes on ninja bikes." --
Lil Kim.
The Eighth Deadly Sin: Not experiencing Cyn.
(That drawing above is Cyn herself. Larger version here. Real
version here.)
EXTRANEOUS FIGHT SCENE
I'm anxiously awaiting the big-screen release of Jackie Chan's The Legend of Drunken Master on October 20 (U.S.). It's easily Chan's greatest martial arts film ever (so far).
I love the character (same in every movie) he plays and the movies he's in. He runs before he fights. Everybody knows kung fu. Nobody dies. Almost no guns. Fairness still counts. And most importantly, the good guys are not anti-heroes, they are GOOD GUYS. How refreshing.
It's fantasy fu in a fool's paradise.
Plus, it's the best demonstration of the hilarious drunken boxing style ever, by the Charlie Chaplin of martial arts. If you don't like this movie, then I PITY THE FU!
(FYI: The Legend of Drunken Master 2000 was originally released as Drunken Master 2 in 1994, no longer available in stores for obvious reasons.)
"PENICILLIN AND ... uh ... ehh ... LET'S GET A MEDICINE CONSULT STAT"
MEDICINE JOKE: "What's the difference between an orthopod (orthopedic surgeon) and a carpenter?"
ANSWER: "A carpenter knows more than one antibiotic."
ORTHOPOD'S ANSWER: "Haw haw! We make four times what you medicine fleas make so joke all you want .... So what's that other antibiotic?"
(I really shouldn't make fun of people who are often ex-football players and are experts in joint disarticulation.)
ET TU MOMMA
Finally, my mom (now in her 50's) wants to see a doctor AND has insurance. She asks me who to see.
At mom's house.
ME: "I'll send you to a friend of mine (a.k.a The NORM). I graduated with him, and he's very good."
MOM: "I think I have cancer. I think I need an MRI."
ME: "Forget it. Give me that number back, there is no way I am sending you to see my friend if you go in saying 'I need an MRI.' Jesus, what was I thinking?"
MOM: "Your momma getting so fat. What do you think is wrong?"
ME: "Well, I don't know (looking at a bag of McDonald's cheeseburger wrappers atop empty donut boxes). You are certainly due for a 'scope and a visit to an ObGyn. But I am not giving you this number unless you promise NOT to ask for an MRI."
MOM: "Okay, I won't, son."
ME: "Fine, call and he'll see you right away. Just don't tell him you NEED antibiotics for a COLD, or steroid injections, or B12 shots or anything. Just listen to what he says."
MOM: "Alright alright, son. Stinker!"
ME: "I'm not kidding. I am not sending you to my friend if you turn out to be one of those kind of patients. He'll tell you what's best for you. I trust him."
(I'd see him myself -- that is, if he was a woman, and his fingers were smaller. "Are you sticking your whole arm in back there, doc?" Ouch.)
(There's nothing worse than having a hypochondriac patient in the office demanding to be over-medicated and pan-scanned for every singular thought who also happens to be the mother of a fellow physician. Well, I guess seeing the hypochondriacal mother of a malpractice lawyer would be worse.)
MOM: "Maybe I have diabetes? I need one of those glucose tolerance tests on the news."
ME: "He’ll check you for that, but he can do it with blood tests. The glucose tolerance test has fallen out of favor. Don't believe that crap on the news. How many times do I have to tell you that?"
MOM: "Do you think I have meningitis then?"
ME: "Mom! Acckkk!"
At that point I depart in a rage of insanity. I truly believe H.P. Lovecraft's original inspiration for his madness-inducing Cthulhu mythos was his mother. Or vice-versa, if you believe.
"DOCTOR, MY EYES,
Tell me what is wrong
Was I unwise
To leave them open for so long?"[7:30 a.m., a few days ago]
I see a lot of older couples in the hospital. Older men with a new stroke, or pneumonia, or myocardial infarction (heart attack). Their wives hovering over them, coddling them, managing their lives.
I can already see that happening to Amy and me. Even now she takes care of most of the domestic things like bills, arranging plane tickets, haircut appointments or meetings with our home builder, etc. I'm not sure if I even remember how to get a plane ticket anymore.
I feel a little less at ease going out unless Amy is at my side. Crowds have always made me a little uncomfortable. Ever since high school, I've always thought those crowds were making fun of me in some way, which in turn made me learn how to ignore and be ignored. It's unrealistic, but it's still the same feeling. This is why I hate going to conferences or public outings or work dinners without my bride. I realize this is a social crutch but I was just as bad before I met her, actually worse.
I’m not a complete social phobe though. I don’t get all sweaty or lock myself in my room or self-medicate. Since I’m an "adult" now, I am frequently in those situations and deal with them in my typically shy and aloof fashion ...
Which many people perceive as "rude" or "unfriendly."
[At this point of the actual entry, I was paged to the floor. An expiration. Not mine, of course. Not my patient, I mean.]
The timing of this one disturbed me. I was still contemplating my growing emotional dependency on Amy (above) when I approached the clerk's desk.
She was 50 years old, and "family was there" according to the nurse. Great.
Pronouncing someone dead is one of the easiest parts of this job. Doing it with family present is one of the hardest.
She’d been dead for forty minutes and I was supposed to pronounce her now. I didn’t want to know why it took so long to call me.
I looked for the chart in case the family had questions as to what happened. The nurse had it in the room. Of course.
The husband looked young as did his pale stiff wife. He was crying like a child who lost his mother (aside: "father" doesn't sound right there. Why is that?). I didn’t ask him to leave this time.
"She had throat cancer. She was so strong. She fought until the end …," the husband choked as he leaned forward to brush her cheek with his hand. Each time he did so, his rather large gut brushed against her hip. I couldn’t help but notice it for some reason.
I abbreviated the "pronouncement procedure" on her. She had already been dead for forty minutes (although not 'officially'), and we all knew it. I just did the Hollywood version. I felt her pulse -- no beat, no spirit. I shined a light in her eyes -- no pupil constriction, no soul. I looked at her chest, her neck -- no chest expansion, no carotid pulse. Nothing.
I always have to resist the urge to say, "Yep, s/he's dead alright." I don't know why I think that is funny.
I waited for a minute or maybe an hour while the husband cried. He kept leaning over her with his hand and his gut following as if his body yearned to lay with her again. It reminded me of how I can't resist wrapping myself around Amy. She always squirms out of my grasp after 10 or 20 seconds. I always wonder how long I could hold her if she never left.
He loved her so much, he almost had me believing she was still alive. She was long dead, but he was the one still dying here.
"You are so fucked," I thought in pity for the husband, also now known as the widower. "Widower" just sounds so wrong, as if he did something to cause her death. Now if he was O.J. Simpson, it would fit perfectly.
Whether women (or men) like it or not, any woman who stays with a man for the rest of his life is eventually going to become a mother figure for him in some way ... Take out the garbage ... We're going to the doctor ... (I'll love you forever).
I eventually left without saying anything other than my initial introduction. The two nurses there were tearing up and commiserating with the now-abandoned husband.
These events usually don’t phase me anymore. I can usually deflect the emotional assaults swifter than a Wing Chun martial artist wacking a wooden dummy. But today I had become entangled like two jiu jitsu fighters struggling for the finishing limb lock. And I was losing.
Like a kick to the solar plexus, I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me. I think I was still in receptive mode because of the thoughts I was trying to record just before I got paged. Tragic flaw. It's better to feel things after the fact, you soon learn by the end of medical school. Or sometimes not at all, by the end of residency. It's not heartless; it's saving yourself for the next fight. One that hasn't been lost yet.
It was a vulgarity of the natural order. Children are supposed to outlive their parents. Wives are supposed to live longer than husbands. It’s a proven fact that men suffer serious ailments when their spouses die to a greater degree than women. They fail to take care of themselves, like lost children.
Women are more resilient. Maybe it’s because they surround themselves with friends or pleasant memories or busy tasks. Maybe it’s because they know how to cry. They cleanse and purge themselves with their mascara-streaked tears. Men just swallow.
I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Then looked away because the whole thing was just a little too melodramatic and familiar.
"Be like water," I recalled a popular Bruce Lee quote.
I washed my face in the bathroom sink. The soap burned my squinting eyes. Really. I felt better.
I looked back in the mirror. Nothing.
I was back in the fight.
Time to get ready to be avoidant and head to Pittsburgh, where women come equipped with scripts and fake breasts ... no, it's where the women glow and men plunder ... that's wrong too ... hmm. I'll get back to you on this.
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