Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: The Barbarous Craft
Friday Flickr Babes: nude, of course
Untrusting, originally uploaded by Delerina.
Dean, I think you’ll like Delerina’s portfolio. Let me know.
I would like to take this opportunity to alert you to an overlooked health problem that afflicts roughly 50.5% of the general population: PSAS — Priapic Sleep Arousal Syndrome. While REM Sleep Behavior Syndrome (violent physical outbursts during dream sleep) has a more dramatic presentation, it is still an uncommon condition. Priapic Sleep Arousal Syndrome, on the other hand, can strike anyone burdened with unsatisfied erectile tissue.
Extreme cases are easily recognized (pdf):
His wife also reported episodes of amnestic sexual behavior that began 4 years before referral. During the episodes, the patient typically procured his wife, achieving complete sexual intercourse with total amnesia. Episodes of sexual behavior during sleep occurred once a month. His wife remained in bed with him after the episodes. The patient did not consent to being videotaped.
The 50.5% figure may be an underestimation by nearly 100%, as erection during REM sleep (dream sleep) is not limited to men.
A man experiences penile erections; a woman experiences clitoral engorgement.
Priapic Sleep Arousal Syndrome: a silent killer!
Prevent Priapic Sleep Arousal Syndrome!
Fuck Your Spouse Today
D.
A memory without pain
Let every man in mankind’s frailty
Consider his last day; and let none
Presume on his good fortune until he find
Life, at his death, a memory without pain.-Sophocles, Oedipus Rex
I wonder when we started dying in hospitals. Not by accident (we’ve been doing that, I’m sure, for as long as we’ve had hospitals), but by intention.
All four of my grandparents died in hospitals. My mother’s brother died alone, his body undiscovered for a few days; that’s even worse. But I’m not sure it matters where we die. Dead is dead, right? And yet, like many people, I play with the fantasy of dying in my own home with at least one loved one by my side.
Anyone in medicine can tell you stories of patients’ last days. Nearly all of the terminally ill grab for that desperate last chance — salvage chemotherapy, anyone? — rather than admit to the inevitable. Many times during training, my senior residents and my attending physicians would, when presented with one horrid diagnosis or another, say, “Someone should give him a one-way ticket to Hawaii and tell him to stock up on good booze and strong narcotics.”
Today, I finally met someone who decided to go to Hawaii.
He’s coming back, he says, and when he does, he’ll take that last stab at radiation therapy. But dammit, he’s going to enjoy Hawaii while he can. Radiation can wait; he’s gonna live.
I’m sad about his diagnosis, but I’m happy for him. Somehow, I don’t see this fellow dying in a hospital.
D.
Salt pork. No, really.
I’ve written about nosebleeds before, but not in any helpful way. Since Dan wants a post on nosebleeds, and since I’m easy, here it is. But read my disclaimer first.
Best laid plans
Just settling down to write a post on tonsillectomy, when wouldn’t you know it: the ER calls. I have to go stop a bad nose bleed.
See ya later. Maybe.
D.
Hell, you don’t need me. CORN DOG IS BACK!
The heart of things
Interesting article in the October 12 issue of Science: Matters of the Heart, by A. J. Wells:
Is there any truth in the long-standing association of emotions with the heart, or is it merely the stuff of superstition and myth? “Heartfelt Emotions,” a symposium that brought to a close a program of events supporting The Heart exhibition at the Wellcome Collection’s recently refurbished building in London, explored this question. The symposium included contributions from the exhibition’s curators, heart scientists, poets, writers, historians, psychologists, and a keenly interested audience.
It must have been a delightful symposium, but we can only guess; Wells provides few details of the proceedings. We’ll have to speculate.