Thursday, Nov. 13, 2003.
Contemplating: Duran Duran is playing this weekend nearby....
Last Thing I Would Expect To Hear Tonight From My Amy:
"Scott, come up here quick. Benjy's tea-bagging this girl
on Howard Stern!"
TYPICAL WORK DAY
When I wake up in the morning, ... The LIGER! (in the picture above) often harasses me to feed him. But I ignore his pleas. Amy takes care of what goes in and I take care of what comes out.
Also, contrary to any rumors, we have not sold our fat and feral one to any cathouses. And please do not answer any ads on ebay with this picture that say,
"PLEASE TAKE MY CAT !!
IT WILL BRING YOU GOOD LUCK !!
FREE !!"I did not agree with giving ... The LIGER! away but Amy still tries.
A good thing about Sun Su is that he is like a natural alarm clock.
A bad thing is that he usually wakes me up a half hour before I set my alarm.
Amy wasn't too keen on me taking her picture this morning.
"I just woke up," she muttered as I happily took one anyways.
The sign on Sun Su's door says, "Parking for S. Koreans only." But honestly, I would let some poor North Korean farmers park there too. You know what they say about those Northern girls.
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ALL SYSTEMS GO
Corean tie pin? Check.
Beeper? Check.
Wallet? Check.
Masturbated? Check.
Ready for work.
Hi ho! Hi ho!
It's off to war we go.
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E.R. ETIQUETTE
I usually take care of patients who are already admitted upstairs but lately I've had to catch them in the E.R. as well.
The E.R. is notorious for having the hottest pornerific clerks and nurses of any department. I've never quite understood why. Maybe it's the younger patient population. Or the "excitement" (as seen on TV, that is). Or maybe they all think they'll be on TV someday.
Of course, once they realize it's not all it's cracked up to be, or that all the good ER docs are taken, or they've already been dated and dumped by the not-so-good docs, they can become some of the rudest as well. Especially the MUFOs - Mean Ugly Fat Ones.
ME: "Hi, can I see that chart?"
MUFO: "Grrr...."
ME: "Can I see that chart? I need to write some orders."
MUFO: "Here! The minute the escorts get here, he is going upstairs WITH this chart. Got it?"
While I was talking to the old man, without warning the VUFO used her behemothian strength and literally pulled the rug from under me - or sheet at least. I nearly landed on my ass on that God-forsaken fecal-colonized and urine-coated ER floor.
A half hour later, as the escorts came to pick him up, I overheard,
ESCORT: "Where's the patient's chart?"
MUFO: "That intern has it. *snarl*"
That's what you get for trying to be polite in the ER. Everyone thinks you're the fucking new guy. (For those that don't get it, I was an intern 7 years ago.)
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DO AS I SAY,
NOT AS I DO
Breakfast. Four out of five doctors agree it should be the most nutritious meal of the day. I am that fifth doctor who missed that meeting. (Probably because it was at seven in the morning.)
Today I went on a chocolate-free diet and tried the Mike & Ike jelly beans. My diet ended after the last jelly bean.
Screw this diet stuff, I thought, I'll just run more.
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YOUR FAVORITE WORD
One of my first patients of the day was a very difficult one. Last entry I mentioned that I hate it when the bean counters start pressing you to move out patients whom you don't feel comfortable moving out.
Sometimes the opposite conflict happens, when the patient is medically ready to leave but they just don't want to. My first patient today was like that. Just letting her stay overnight was a major favor to her. You meet all types in the hospital. Grannies who don't want to leave because they like the company. Families who don't want to take their granny home because they're going on vacation or "they're room isn't set up" or my favorite, "it's just safer here." Um, no it isn't. Trust me. Some just love that I.V. Dilaudid way too much. Some just don't want to go back to their stressful lives. One guy comes in faking things just to hide out from the police when they're looking for him. People even want to stay in the hospital if they have a cold. Then there's the Munchausens.
This particular bipolar patient decided today was the day she was going to get the answer to her nine-year chronic pain syndrome. After the work-up she's had, that was not going to happen. And of course, she used the L-word.
Lawyer.
They all do.
No one can help some of these people so they take it out on whoever they can. The ones who have to see them everyday. Like me. Sometimes, I envy the consultants. Or the surgeons and their PLFFD notes,
"Patient Looks Fine From Door."
I don't hate crazy people. Just the ones who go crazy on me, and make me crazy. The ones who can't accept the painfully honest statement that,
"I'm sorry. I can't fix you."
I hate them because they make me feel like the bad guy.
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TWEETY
One of my favorite patients is a 20-year old African-American girl. It's not because she's twenty either. Many times the younger patients are the whiniest, most impatient in-patients there are. Give me an 80-year old WWII veteran any day instead.
She happens to have a brain tumor in one of the worse possible places in her brain stem. Her family refuses to allow us to treat it because she almost stopped breathing after the second radiation treatment. That doesn't usually happen, but like I said, the tumor is in a very sensitive spot. I totally understand the family's choice, but the choice means she will have no chance.
They want to take her home and wait for her to get well on her own. Maybe she'll be better tomorrow, they hope. They use the M-word. Miracles, they say. I hate that word. The most abused and over-used word in the hospital. Next to lawyer.
Her little 8-month girl was playing on her bed yesterday. Mommy can't talk and can't move her left side anymore, but lil baby girl was bouncing around like any innocent baby should.
Like a newborn chickadee and a mother bird with a broken wing. Is baby even going to remember her mom?
I never really thought about that part until now. At work I am more focused on treating her pneumonia, blood infection and malnutrition. Giving little encouragements where it is due - "your pneumonia is almost gone" or "your kidneys look good." I guess that is one of the good things about my job. You have to think so much and so quickly that sometimes there just isn't time to just sit down and feel. I wouldn't call it a miracle, but sometimes it's a mixed blessing.
Today my 20-year patient showed me her Tweety Bird doll, and grunted something I couldn't quite understand.
She signed her sister to tell me something. (The sisters learned sign language as children just for fun. Now they use it because it's the only way she can communicate. Fate is stranger than fiction.)
"She wants you to touch the Tweety's belly," her sister said.
So I did, and the Tweety doll squeaked something that I didn't quite catch because of some crazed screaming patient across the hall.
The sisters laughed after the Tweety spoke and the older one said,
"That's appropriate, haha!"
I just laughed and agreed, pretending I heard what the Tweety said.
Maybe I'll know what Tweety said tomorrow.
That's another reason I prefer the elderly patients sometimes. It's sad when they die, but at least they lived.
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TEACHER
My last patient of the day was back in the E.R. again. She bled from her rectum at home but it had stopped.
She was a fourth grade teacher in Detroit who was about to retire. She was tired of teaching. It was a losing battle.
"One boy wanted to kill himself so he paid another boy to shoot him so his mom would collect on her policy. He offered him fifty bucks. But when the day came, he only could give him twenty-five. So the other boy, who brought his gun to school, beat him up instead of shooting him, because he didn't have all the money."
She had a dozen stories like that. Crack babies, she called the students who grew up with their crack addict parents. Starving children passing out in school. Mothers selling their own little girls and boys to perverts for drugs.
"Now what am I supposed to teach kids like that. Kids who are just trying to survive?"
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I was glad to go home by then.
To see this.
And this.
.
