faux pas of the day January 30, 2008

I try hard not to embarrass myself with my Spanish skills. However, today I failed. After a lengthy visit with a woman in which we discussed in Spanish her bleeding ulcer and total lack of teeth, she informed me that her birthday was this week. What did I say? “Feliz Navidad!” (merry xmas). d’oh. Her and her daughter had quite a chuckle about that one.

Another horrible faux pas occurred a few weeks ago. I saw a man in his late 40’s, accompanied by a very wrinkly older lady with his list of medications in her purse. I assumed that like many of my patients, he had some cognitive problems and was accompanied by his caregiver. But when I foolishly asked, “Is this your mother?” He replied, “No, this is my wife.” crap. Note to self: never assume that a weatherbeaten older woman is not the patient’s beloved wife.

brevity January 25, 2008

I have always enjoyed the timeless art of haiku. Here are a few that sum up my day:

Real bad UTI

It’s multi-drug resistant

Go to the ER!

Sore throat, can’t swallow

Painful glands like golf balls

Could it be mono?

Very skinny man

Surprisingly large penis

Act like no big deal

The opposite of laughing gas January 23, 2008

Contrary to my previous post about being the NP with the secret supply of laughing gas, today I felt like I had been huffing something else…whatever the opposite of laughing gas is (angry gas? vaporized anabolic steroids?). I learned a valuable lesson about what happens when you drip Calstat hand sanitizer onto a really cool calf-length perfect-condition-kenneth cole-black leather-skirt-found-at-a-thrift-store-for-$15. (What happens is that is ruins the nice shiny leather finish in a ugly splotch). Then, after spending my last precious minutes of free time during lunch googling “leather conditioner” and “how to clean leather skirt,” my crappy afternoon began. I sent one person to the ER and begged another person to go (they refused).

Starting this blog has motivated me to learn more about my computer. I realize that since I don’t use anything except Word, PowerPoint and the electronic medical record, my skills have stayed at their previous 1996 level, when I got my first computer. This is kind of pathetic. I feel like I’m following in my mother’s footsteps–and my mother is a woman who called me in a panic when the email she was writing to me vanished; her response to my suggestion, “why don’t you hit the ‘back’ button on the browser?” was “Wow, it worked! I didn’t think about that!” My first attempts at posting pictures to this blog did not end well. Oh learning, you never stop, do you?