Easter

Here is Toddler enjoying her new water table. She really loves that thing.


And here is Little Bit this sitting with her Nanny


Nanny put Toddler's hair in pigtails so I had to take a picture.

Clean and Dry

A few days back a patient called and said she accidentally washed her prescription for pain medication with her clothes and needed another one. I asked her to bring the old one in (because I trust no one these days) and I would write her another. She finally brought in the crumbly and barely legible prescription and I wrote her a new one. Before the nurse took it to her she asked me if I had any special instructions for her.

"Yeah, tell her Dry Clean Only." Heh heh heh

I'm so clever.

And in other news, Husband is angry because toddler is talking like a Southener. One of her nanny's is from Alabama and we've decided to blame her. She says things like "Deener" instead of Dinner and "Deeown" in stead of Down. Drives him crazy. Of course, toddler knows it and teases him everytime he walks in the door. I told him we shouldn't raise her in the South if he doesn't want her to talk that way.

Speaking of, family sometimes asks me to relate more Southern terms I learn in my practice. Here is a list of the current ones:

Liter = muscle
Kernel = lymph node
Pone = fat pad (or loaf of corn bread)
Fall Out = to faint
Nature is bad = impotence
Sugar = diabetes
All Stoved up = stiff (from arthritis)
Dizzy Headed = dizzy
Vomickin = vomit
Once't day = Once a day
Twice't day = Twice a day
Chest is tired = Chest pain
Diarareer = diarrhea
Foggy Headed = stupid


And to E.McPan - I didn't mean to imply you don't do anything outside of blogging. That's just it. I can't believe you accomplish as much as you do and still manage to blog that much! I can't do that. I'm too foggy headed.

Pictures!

I've just figured out how to put pictures on my blog! Watch out world, here we come! I'm going to post pics for family (since they're the only ones who read my little blog anyway). Enjoy!

Here is Little Bit sitting up and quite proud of herself.


Here, Mom, is how the cute jacket and hat fit toddler. She's so happy to have it on!!

Will Blog for Money

My sister, E.McPan, is the most amazing blogger. The girl must have hours of time on her hands because she writes a new blog about every 8 minutes. Seriously. I don't understand this at all since she is a law student and makes As in all her classes. When she was home for Thanksgiving another sister with two children said she just couldn't get to her computer to read the blogs. E McPan was somewhat incredulous. "What? Was something in front of it?" Yes. Children. Work. Life.

So I read recently that you can make money blogging. One man does it and is a part time law professor. He put a tip can on his blog site and there you go. Now advertisers are on his site and he makes about $3,000 a month. Since E.McPan is so interesting and gifted I think she too ought to make some extra money too.

As for me, I'm lucky to blog something once a month. But that's okay, because I don't have many interesting things to say anyway.

And let it be known that George W. Bush has no right to let the federal courts micromanage my health care or the care of any of my patients. If I want to die peacefully in the privacy of my home I will do it. No Republican is going to stop me.

But I did sleep at the Holiday Inn Express. . .

You know your doctor's an Idiot when:

You tell her you had a double mastectomy twenty years ago and she asks you when your last mammogram was.

You tell her you're having chest pain and she asks "So where is the pain, exactly?"

She stops you in the middle of a sentance and says "Wait, go back. I didn't hear anything you just said." Yet she was looking right at you the whole time.

She walks into the room and introduces herself and asks "Have I seen you before?" This would be fine if it wasn't the third time you had seen her in the last two months.

You tell her you had a hysterectomy ten years ago and she asks "So when was your last menstrual cycle?"

And on the flip side: You know your patient is not quite with it when:

You ask them when they had their appendix removed and they say "Right after I had my knee replaced." Oh, okay. I was sitting right there, and I remember that day fondly. . .

You ask them to describe their pain and even give examples such as "crampy, dull, sharp, etc" and all they can say is "It just hurts." Okay. Where does it hurt? "Everywhere." Okay, how long has it been hurting? "A while" Hmmm, how long, exactly , is a while? "Well, it started after I had my appendix taken out." And when was that? "Right after I had my knee replaced. . . "

You ask them if they're allergic to any medications and they say "Oh yes. Benadryl." Oh. How is one allergic to allergy medicine?

Listen Here Little Missy

Today an elderly man who had undergone surgery a couple of weeks ago came to see me. His incision had become infected and he had just finished a week of antibiotics the surgeon had given him. It still hasn't healed, so he came to see me. Me, the internist. Me, the one who was not even remotely involved in his surgery.

After examining him I decided he may need drainage of this infection and wisely suggested he go back to the surgeon. This really made him angry. "I knew you would tell me that. Listen, all you guys do is send me back to the surgeons. I know what I need, little missy. In my day we didn't have doctors, we just treated ourselves. I've been around here a lot longer than you and what I need is some antibiotics. I'm tired of you docs sending me all over the place and always acting scared that you're going to be sued. But if you want me to go to the surgeon I'll do it. Just make the appointment and I'll be on my way. I guess you can't do anything else. . . "

I wrote him a prescription for the antibiotics and he huffed out of the room. I'm glad I went to four years of medical school, three years of residency and put myself into six figure debt so I could learn how to write the prescriptions my patients tell me to write. It was all worth it.