Purgatory?

I was talking with a few med school friends the other day. One had just recently gotten divorced after six months, because his wife was a giant bitch (anyone could have told him that). He said "I think I need to find a new church." I said, "What do you need a church for; it will just cost you time and money."

The girl in the group scoffed. Like I had said something heretical.

The conversation went on from there. The girl said how her grandmother kept a bottle of holy water with her, and splashed it on every kid she saw so they would not have to go to purgatory.

I said, "I thought they got rid of purgatory."

She said, "I guess she didn't get the message."

Music

Have you ever discovered a new song on your computer, one that you had never heard before? Has it brought you joy - a feeling of happiness and euphoria that you haven't felt in a long time.

This happened to me today. "Prize Fighter" by The Velvet Teen popped up on Itune's Party Shuffle. I have not been the same since.

Ambulance

I’m riding in the “box” of the ambulance. There’s a call for a 80 year old African American woman with "seizures." Doesn't sound too serious. Besides, an ALS (advanced life support) fire engine is on the way, well before we will get there.

Mid-way there, the driver yells back into the box "they're doing CPR." The driving gets noticeably more serious. We're running red lights like crazy now. Oh boy.

I rehearse what I learned over a year ago in my head. 30 compressions and 2 breaths. Or is it 30 and 4?

We arrive at the scene. The patient is lying on the floor, with a tube into her lungs. Someone is performing chest compressions. A woman cries in the corner. Another man looks forward, blankly, as if nothing is registering at all.

I see a big bottle of oxygen in the corner of the room, as well as a peak flow meter. She must have lung problems.

The paramedics flop her onto the blue backboard. They struggle to keep her lifeless hands from flopping to the side. Someone instructs me to turn the stretcher around, which I do. They place her onto the stretcher. The paramedic I'm with points to me and says "Start chest compressions!" I do. They load her into the ambulance with me compressing away. "Use the heel of your hand! Harder!" I continue compressions for about five minutes until someone else takes over. I’m exhausted. I could feel that some of her ribs had broken (not unusual). And there's no discernable heartbeat pattern on the monitor.

I hand someone a stethoscope. No left lung sounds. Must be a right mainstem intubation. They pull out the tube a bit, and it sounds better. They give her epinepherine and atropine through a needle in her neck. Someone asks me "Do you feel a femoral pulse?" I reach down there. "Um, maybe, yeah, I think so." Indeed, she now had a (slow) palpable pulse. God Damn, I was sure she was going to die. Wow. We saved her!

We arrive at the ER. The doctor looks none too pleased. He asks "how long has she been down?" "About 10 or 15 minutes, but she has a pulse." "Damnit! Well, resume chest compressions, then. We have no critical care beds!"

In any event, she will probably never leave the hospital.

ER tonight

Radio says kid was shot in neck, point blank. Five minutes out. I'm there in the trauma bay, expecting the worst. He must be dead or close to dead. They wheel him in. I'm in full protective equipment, wearing what amounts to a garbage bag and face shield to protect me from flying bodily fluids.

The EMT asks him if he can move over onto the other gurney. WTF? He's conscious?

They examine him all over and take X-Ray films.

He's fine. The wounds are mostly superficial. The bullet is still lodged in his arm, though. To make it from the neck to the arm without hitting anything important is incredible. No one could believe it. If only everyone could be so lucky.

Plastic Surgery

We went into the examination room. A woman was confortably sitting in a chair. I silently thought that she probably wanted a face lift or some such thing, even though she looked fine. This is plastic surgery after all.

How wrong I was. Ten yers ago she was in a car wreck, without a seat belt, and her face was smashed to pieces (the so-called pan-facial fracture). With some surgical wizardry, the plastic surgeon made everything look PERFECTLY NORMAL, at least to me. He still says that her maxilla is a little bit too big. Her only problem that day was that her nose itched a bit.

Damn. The thought that with your knife and skill you can make something look like it never happened. To give someone back their life, free of shame, free of self-consciousness and embarassment. Amazing.

John McCain

I've never been to a political rally before, so I thought I would at least make the effort to walk across the street to my old highschool's gymnasium.

I got there half an hour early. Plenty of people were already there. A woman offered me a McCain sticker, which I affixed to my coat so I would blend in better. "This is my country" was blaring from the speakers by the stage. The backdrop was a huge American flag. I didn't see a single black or hispanic or asian person.

Interestingly, there was NO visible security. None. You would think they would at least check people for guns, especially for a guy who is about to be the Republican presidential nominee.

There were three throat-clearing speeches before McCain took the stage. One guy talked about how he took Sadam Heussein's blood pressure after Saddam was captured. Another read a poem about Tennessee, written buy a POW in the Hanoi Hilton who was in the cell next to McCain's. McCain's wife talked about the daughter she adopted without her husband's knowledge.

"Where's she going to go?"

"I thought she could stay with us, dear."

"Oh, Ok."

Then there was the pledge of allegiance. And then the national anthem.

And then McCain finally took the stage with a huge cheer erupting from the crowd. Cameras flashed from every direction.

He gave his well-rehersed stump speech. Promised to find Osama. Promised to make Bush's tax cuts permanent (I had to concentrate to keep my groans from being audible). Promised to reign in federal spending using the "veto pen that Reagan gave me." Promised to give better healthcare to veterans.

And then he walked into the crowd with his wife, and was immediately swarmed by people wanting an autograph or wanting to shake his hand or wanting a better picture.

It's too bad McCain is a Republican. He would probably make a great president if he weren't so beholden to the conservative right.

The thrill remains

Hey L. You still owe me a dollar, don't you?

No, I gave you your dollar last Wednesday. You don't remember?

Oh. Well, I'll give you back that dollar if you go to Cadaver Prom with me...

Oh. Ok. Well, I'm watching a movie right now.

Ok.

I'll call you back.

I'm going to sleep in an hour, so make your movie quick."

L. calls back, and says YES, to my amazement!

Launry Detergent Thief

Two months ago, I realized that someone was stealing the laundry detergent that I keep in the communal laundry room. Every week, another three loads' worth of detergent would disappear. My half-full bottle would be nearly empty when I needed to use it. So before I left for Italy, I took the nearly empty bottle of Tide Free and filled it up with vegetable oil. Looks exactly the same. That'll teach them.

When I got back, I was shocked to discover that 1/3 of the bottle was gone. This means that the person did MANY (like 8) loads with vegetable oil. They didn't notice something different about their clothes?

I filled up the bottle again with more vegetable oil. And when I checked it a few weeks later - the same thing. WTF?

I'm not sure if I should just keep filling up the bottle with vegetable oil, or if I should write on the bottle "You've been washing your clothes in vegetable oil for the last two months, you detergent-stealing asshole!" Thoughts?

Pro-Choice Rally

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. There's one student in my class, Student L, who is very active with Medical Students for Choice. In the hall today, she persuaded me to attend a rally that abortion rights proponents were having later in the day. At first I was non-committal, but finally agreed to (she's kind of cute).

So I showed up wearing my white coat. It was drizzling out and slightly above freezing. I was expecting a stage with a speaker and a bunch of people cheering. A rally, right? Wrong.

They were standing on the busiest street in town. As I approached, someone handed me a sign (I held the Roe part of the Roe v. Wade HONK!" sign complex). A woman advised me to stand as close to the curb as possible because anti-abortionists would probably come and try to stand in front of us. So I stood there, holding my sign and waving a flag every time someone honked, which was not that often in the Bible Belt. A woman came up to me and asked if I would be willing to be interviewed by News Channel 4. Sure, I said. More people showed up. My gloveless hands were already numb. The drizzle intensified.

Student L as well as several other med students (including Student E) finally showed up, 20 minutes late. Making their signs had taken longer than expected.

Only a few anti-abortionists showed up. One guy stood behind me (I was right next to the curb), and constantly muttered something about the "value of life."

There were plenty of honks after a while. All (maybe 40) of us formed a line on the curb that was hard to ignore. One passenger in a car leaned over to honk the horn, causing the car to swerve. Another minivan drove by, all six kids emphatically giving us the thumbs down. Guess the parents didn't use birth control.

Student L asked me "Do you really think we're actually accomplishing anything?" "No," I said. "We're probably just pissing off the religious folk."

"Yeah, you're right," she said. "But that's ok by me."

"Me too... Me too."

Ears, Nose, and Throat

The doctor looked into the medical student's ear. "Too much ear wax." She looked into the other ear. "Wow, even more wax! Who else wants to volunteer to be the patient?"

I rose my hand, sat down in the chair, and the doctor inserted the otoscope. "Beautiful tympanic membrane with almost no wax. Your ear canal is unusually straight. Ought to be perfect for demonstrating."

"Q-tip every morning" I said. "That's probably not the greatest idea" she responded.

Student E grabbed the otoscope, peered in, and said she saw the eardrum. Mission accomplished.

Student L then took the scope. She couldn't see anything, so her solution was to insert the scope farther with a quick jabbing motion, which evoked a sharp yelp from me. She appologized profusely.

Then it was off to the nose. The doctor inserted the speculum and peered in. "Hmm, slight deviation of the nasal septum to the right. Now you guys take a look. Just remember NOT to close the speculum before removing it, or you'll take out some hairs."

Student L took a look without complication. Then student Y did, but apparently forgot the doctor's instructions in the intervening 30 seconds. He closed the speculum while taking it out, taking five nose hairs with him. You could see them still attached to the speculum.

"Owww! Goddamnit" was my reaction. My right eye started watering. Student Y appologized profusely and got me a tissue.

I asked the doctor why pulling nose hairs caused tearing.

"It's called pain" she responded.