Cramping, Her Style

"Is there a doctor on board the plane?”

Huzzah, I've waited decades for that line.

The teenager behind me fainted, alarming her seatmate. Across an armrest and forty years, we chat as she recovers. She laughs as I call her period a ‘newspaper’ in Spanish, but, despite two languages, we both agree that cramps are a drag.

Wow, hadn't expected that!

My patient pumped Purel in her palm, leaned over the counter as she rubbed it into her hands.

“You should be glad I’m using this,” she opined to my front office clerk who looked up with an inquisitive arching of brows.

“Yep, you see I don’t wash my hands,” my patient shot back with a serious nod.

Out but not down

She went from diarrhea to deadly abscess in less than two weeks. What do you say to a ski instructor whose season nearly ended forever in the surgical suite?

She answered with an upbeat "Hello?"

"How you doing?" I asked. She'd been home for a week.

"I just went for a walk, and so glad to be out."

Life cycles

Mortally injured, Dave lingered a month and then died. Businessmen sat through his funeral next to the grizzled, pony-tailed riders of his beloved Harley club.

I stood afterwards, eyes filling, as one hundred-plus bikers headed down the boulevard, Dave in tow, bearing him away even as he smiled next to me from his daughter’s eyes.

Blow and Tell

She stood by the counter, a brown grocery sack in hand. Without a word, she upended the brimming bag, used Kleenexes tumbling over the surface, some falling onto the ground.

“This,” she declared angrily, “is one day’s worth of tissues. I need help now!”

Eyes wide, mouth clamped shut, my front desk receptionist grabbed for the Lysol.

Oh gad, get me outta' here!

My patient looks sick--eyes glassy, cheeks flushed, and his voice an octave too low.

“Any cough?” I ask. Lord I don’t want what he’s got.

“Yes, just started...it hurts...from deep in my chest,” he rasps then demonstrates wetly, his hand about a yard from his mouth.

Oh yuck, that which he harbors now floats in my air...

A distressing typo' problem

Patients like to weigh in by e-mail, and I, in turn, can read them at will. This strategy, however, may be harmful to health:

"I am still having an upset stomach and episodes of diarrhea. They are happening after each email now instead of just in the evening."

Back away from the computer, ma’am. Phone me instead.

I, Phone Woman

I checked for drug interactions with a flip of a finger, a middle-aged techno-babe plying my apps.

As I put down my iPhone, the room exploded with an arcade-style riff.

“Nice ringtone!” I said to my patient.

“Uh...I think that was your phone.”

Oh dang, I opened my games while closing down drugs. Not so tech savvy after all.

She lives on in my heart

Della died from liver disease one month after her first grandkid was born.

At her funeral, I got a heart-shaped pin with her picture attached. Lipstick red as her shirt, chin lifted, she smiles at me still. I keep it at hand as a reminder that life should never be viewed through a jaundiced eye.

Show and smell

M was annoyed and didn’t look well. She rummaged in her purse, then tossed a Ziploc bag on the desk.

Uh-oh, close encounters of the turd kind. Could’ve figured this out sans sample!

She rose at visit’s end, went to leave without Exhibit A.

“Would you mind throwing out...that?”

So she did, right into the basket underneath my desk.

Lady Madonna

She was nursing her son as I entered the room. Long brown hair cascaded over her shoulders; she smiled and mentioned two special needs toddlers home now with Dad.

Sated and overcome with curiosity, her baby turned, flashing a total body grin at me. This tiny dynamo was long on enthusiasm, energy, and chromosome 23.

And now it's too late

Jeanette was always tired and always in pain. A consultation of experts and I couldn’t figure out why.

One afternoon, she napped in her rocking chair and never woke up. Still, she sang at her funeral; her recorded voice like an angel’s, husky and haunting. I didn’t know she sang. I never asked, she never said.

Hair today, here tomorrow

Two friends shared cancer and chemo, enduring, in tandem, the ebb and grow of hair. R’s grew back in darling ringlets; K sent new growth up in fright wig style.

Waiting for haircuts, a tweenager stared at K and nudged his mom: “That’s how I want my hair to look.”

K roared with laughter, survivor style.

Nothing simple about being old

Eighty-something, on seven drugs, six supplements, and under the care of nine different doctors including four different orthopedists for as many body parts. She wanted to discuss simplifying her care.

As she left the office, she caught her leg on the car door, peeling the fragile skin back like tissue paper. So much for simplification.

So who's the "Glamor Don't"?

I ushered my patient into a room thinking “I wish I could carry off high-heeled boots with such ease.”

She, in turn, regarded me with curiosity as she eased into her seat. Adjusting her tiny skirt, she remarked “Well you’re not exactly styling today.”.

I waited for the ‘just kidding’ to follow, but, alas, it never did.

The lady and the stats

She’d walk each day to the store, a cane in one hand, cigarette in the other. She quit at age 90, walking... not smoking.

Shortly after her 93rd, I sat beside her on the tiled bathroom floor waiting for the paramedics to arrive.

One-third of old ladies die within a year of a hip fracture.

Damn statistics.

One foot away from a normal life

The room was quiet save for the hiss and whir of metered pumps and vacuum drains. Her foot had slipped from the covers, the toes perfectly appointed with rosy polish.

She moaned softly in her drugged sleep. I thought of how just last week she surely groaned with pleasure as her feet slipped into the suds.

Well...sort of okay 2

A hands on sort of doc, I’ve been known to personally tote samples for analysis from restroom to lab. One day, I teetered while toting, splashing the specimen on the front of my shirt.

“Oh well,” I shrugged. “Waste is a terrible thing to mind.”

My mantra that day? I’m okay with urine, I’m okay with urine.

The last dance

Grandma’s cancer showed up first as a clot in her leg. Two months to diagnosis and a year to her death.

Mary showed me tender red cords on the back of her leg; she was scheduled to dance in ballet class later that day. One week to diagnosis--thanks to Grandma-- and a year to her death.

Taking great pains with patients

She limped in and plopped on a chair. Smiling brightly, she asked how I was.

“Worried,” I replied. “You’re getting Vicodin from three different docs.”

Eyes wide in a ‘Moi?’ sort of way, she phoned her husband--had he picked up these meds?

Our eyes met as tears formed and rolled down her cheeks. She closed up her phone.

A trip down denial

Advil is her friend and her foe.  A health professional with serious pain, she struggles as well with her fear and her bank balance.

Her latest labs come in; D now stands for dialysis and not just denial.  I call with the news.  A teenager sets down the phone as she yells for her mom.  

False pride

Good hair day today so I had to head to the head to take it in once more.  Just a glance, can’t keep my first patient waiting.  Turned slowly in front of the mirror, big smile (teeth looking good too!).  But then...

Two stethoscopes hanging around my neck.  Music grinds to a halt.  Exit laughing.

What am I missing here?

He’s three months short of college graduation.  His mom did most of the talking.  Two years, three symptoms, zero diagnoses.

His exam and his nodes were normal.  No need for tests; it’s dry air and bad posture.  He claimed he felt calmed. 

All this training, all this acumen, and I still don’t know what they needed.

Not so bad after all

It’s lung carcinoma.”

I was crying in the rain, drenched in bad news,  phone pressed to ear. Not surprised by the diagnosis yet completely speechless.

The surgeon was puzzled by my tears: “We did expect this”.

She smiled later as we talked, “Either I’ll die or I won’t.”

And she didn’t. Not for 17 years.

A hint of hope

The young engineer sat bolt upright in his chair, eyes fixed on the floor.

"Anything different on Prozac?"

"Well, perhaps a little less agony."

Ouch.

"Are you keeping up at work?"

"I'm compliant."

Compliant?!?

"Dude," I declared, we've got more work to do!"

With a hint of a smile, he lifted his gaze to mine.