A portrait of journaler, Sara Astruc (sadly not journaling now). Click for larger version.
Sunday, July 22, 2001.
Hatless Baldman Index : 56 (+2)
Inevitability Index :
40 (+0).
Favorite Comic Books :
Blade
of the Immortal by Hiroaki Samura.
And The Authority (although the way it treats Asians
is beginning to annoy me).
I LOVE this guy's art and journal : Small
Stories.
A portrait of journaler, Sara Astruc (sadly not journaling now). Click for larger version.
THE AUTHORITY
Despite the fact that I do not live in a big city, I have only been recognized as a doctor in two places (fortunately).
Once was at the comic book shop. By a nurse. With her two little kids.
While I had a comic book in my hands.
Featuring big-boobed bikinied demon goddesses, actually. (I didn't buy it, this time.)
The first thing the nurse said to me, was,
"DR. SCOTT !! What a surprise !!"
The second was,
"Are you here with your kids ?"
I would have been slightly less embarrassed if she had asked if I'm picking up the latest issue of Ninja Schoolgirls On Panty Patrol. (I didn't buy that one either. Honest!)
I guess I was embarrassed because, really, I don't want anyone outside of the hospital knowing or at least SAYING OUT LOUD that I'm a doctor. My mom does this ALL the time. It's not a big deal, but I certainly don't need the attention or the looks, good or bad.
As my mom, The Authority on Proper Doctor Behavior, says, doctors don't do certain things. They don't play video games. They don't buy comic books. They don't surf po -- um, drawing reference sites. (Actually, I've heard from Dr. Secretz that The AdminiStarStation surfs more "drawing reference sites" than any other department.)
They play golf. They listen to opera. They go to fancy overpriced restaurants and order things in French.
Ugh ... just thinking about all that makes me want to puke.
Good thing I'm a doctor, though. At least I can prescribe myself something for nausea.
MERRY JUAN
The second place I get recognized is at the gym. No big deal, though. Usually a nurse or resident. The nurses all used to work with Amy and just call me Scott, or Dr. Amy as they like to joke.
Last week though, someone else recognized me.
"Hey, are you a doctor?" he asked tapping my shoulder in the locker room.
I turned. He was a guy a few years younger than myself. Overweight, but obviously trying to work it off judging from the sweat all over him. It took a second, but I remembered who he was, if not his name.
Most times I really can't recognize people I knew in the hospital unless they are lying on their backs in pain, relief, or frustration.
Okay, that last sentence could sound really bad in the wrong context.
But I remembered him. Juan. A young twenty-something who was perpetually pissed off or frustrated that he had to stay in the hospital for just a "pneumonia." He almost required surgery because of it too. He had a rare complication, called a loculated abscess with his pneumonia. He nearly lost a lobe (of his lung).
I've only seen complicated pneumonia's in twenty-somethings in two situations. They were either immunocompromised or they were smoking entirely too much pot.
Guess which group Merry Juan fit into.
Of course, he denied that mj (i.e. marijuana, not Min Jung) was bad in any way (although Min Jung could probably be considered illegal and addictive in some states). I mean it wasn't like cigarette smoking (?!?).
Whatever. When I was a medical student (makes me sound old), they were still saying that cigar smoking wasn't as bad as cigarette smoking. Some things aren't reported in the literature because no one has gotten around to them yet. Or maybe everyone really enjoyed their cigars back then.
It should be fairly obvious that any foreign particles in such frequent quantities floating around the pink tender tissues of your lungs might cause a problem eventually. Just a wild unprofessional guess here.
And besides, marijuana has very high concentrations of a fungus called aspergillus. A fungal infection famous for burrowing its way through tissue in immunocompromised hosts. Although, even "normal" people get it rarely. (Aspergillus is found in abundance everywhere, but moreso in barns, hay, plant soil, and marijuana. You shouldn't worry about it if you have a normal immune system and breathe more oxygen than pot.)
But anyways, I remembered Juan made me dread going to work every day. He was such a jerk. We're trying to save his young fat lung-abscessed ass and he's accusing us of malpractice and trying to keep him to collect his insurance money (um, it doesn't work that way). He even called his ... mom.
I never learned what had happened to him. I gladly left for our Korea vacation, and The Kommandant and The Smoking Pulmonologist covered for me.
And now he was here at the gym.
"You were my doctor," he said, "It's good to see you outside of the hospital."
"Yeah, so how's it going? You look fantastic," I told him and meant it. He did look a lot healthier. More determined too.
"Man, you guys did a really great job. I just wanted to thank you. You and The Kommandant and The Smoking Pulmonologist. You guys saved me. Really. Thanks, man!"
We talked a tiny bit. And then he left.
I was a little shocked. I never met a former patient who actually thanked me outside the hospital. And certainly not one of those people "who know how the world really works."
I was still smiling when I met Amy outside the locker room.
I felt all ecstatic and giddy.
And a little high.
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This picture reminds me of Curious George for some reason.
