{"id":881,"date":"2006-05-12T19:12:42","date_gmt":"2006-05-13T03:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/?p=881"},"modified":"2006-05-12T19:16:02","modified_gmt":"2006-05-13T03:16:02","slug":"excuse-me-could-you-take-a-look-at-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/?p=881","title":{"rendered":"Excuse me. Could you take a look at this?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I seem to have something on my forehead.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It’s the damnedest thing. Maybe what we need is a bit of strong light and a magnifying glass . . .<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Ah! That explains it.<\/p>\n

Conversation with a patient.<\/p>\n

Me:<\/strong> So, how much are you smoking these days?<\/p>\n

Pt:<\/strong> I’m not smoking. I quit two months ago.<\/p>\n

Me:<\/strong> O-kay. You live with smokers?<\/p>\n

Pt:<\/strong> No.<\/p>\n

Me:<\/strong> Then why do you smell like cigarettes?<\/p>\n

(Note: my polite way of saying, then why do you smell like a human ashtray?)<\/p>\n

Pt: <\/strong>Oh, well . . . I smoked one before I came in today.<\/p>\n

Yeah, right. One. And I only scratch my balls when they’re itchy. Tell me another.<\/p>\n

I should know better than to get upset when my patients lie to me. Lying only hurts them. It never ever hurts me. Consider the thirty-five-year-old who tells me he’s an ‘occasional’ drinker — you know, a beer now and then. He needs a tonsillectomy. He gets a tonsillectomy. Then he takes my usual advice to heart and pushes the fluids really well post-op. (You need to drink lots of liquids after a tonsillectomy. It helps to reduce post-op pain, and it also reduces the risk of delayed hemorrhage.) Trouble is, the fluids are all Budweiser.<\/p>\n

Same guy comes in to the ER bleeding from his throat. Hoffman gets called, comes in, takes care of it. The labs the ER ordered come back funky. Hoffman can’t figure it out, so he gets the flea* to check it out. Guy won’t tell Hoffman the truth, but he tells the flea that he drinks one to two six-packs per day. Guess what — alcoholics don’t clot too well.<\/p>\n

Here’s another example. This time, I got angry.<\/p>\n

Getting angry never helps.<\/p>\n

YOUNG teenage girl comes in for tonsil problems. I happen to notice a bruise on her soft palate. I ask her about it. I don’t believe her answer.<\/p>\n

The girl’s mom and I have a private conversation.<\/p>\n

Me:<\/strong> I can’t know for sure, but bruising of the soft palate can be a sign of forced oral sex. Are there any men in the household?<\/p>\n

Mom:<\/strong> No.<\/p>\n

Me:<\/strong> Uncles, older brothers, your boyfriend —<\/p>\n

Mom:<\/strong> No, no men. None at all.<\/p>\n

Mom goes on to reassure me that the girl’s explanation is indeed true. Later that day, I call their home to clarify something.<\/p>\n

A guy answers. Turns out he’s the mom’s live-in<\/strong> boyfriend.<\/p>\n

So I do what I’m required by law to do. I report the incident to Child Protective Services, only now I’m mad, so I keep nagging CPS for followup. What happened? They investigated and found nothing to support a case of sexual abuse.<\/p>\n

Oh, I feel so<\/em> much better now. Not.<\/p>\n

No, it doesn’t help to get angry. And you can only do so much to help people. Even liars.<\/p>\n

D.<\/p>\n

*Flea: an internal medicine physician, AKA internist. Called ‘flea’ by surgeons because they crawl all over the body. I suspect the fleas really hate it when we call ’em that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I seem to have something on my forehead. It’s the damnedest thing. Maybe what we need is a bit of strong light and a magnifying glass . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-barbarous-craft","radius"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ballsandwalnuts.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}