Knife and Gun Club

When I am working in the Emergency Department, I see the CT scans and X-rays of nearly every injury that comes into the hospital. I am getting really discouraged by the superabundance of some specific injuries:

1. Gunshot wounds to the spine. Way too many teenagers and young adults are forever paralyzed from the neck or mid-chest down as a result of careless or, more likely, malicious people shooting them. I'm not sure what these patients were doing to induce others to shoot them, and I really don't care that much. Although I am sure that a significant proportion of those who are shot were engaged in illegal activities at or shortly before the time they were shot, it doesn't make me feel any better about these patients whose lives are now infinitely harder than they would otherwise have been.
   
   To wit, they will, for the rest of their lives, have no bowel or bladder control. They will need surgery to enable them to put catheters into their own bladders or to divert their urine into a hole on their abdomen so that it can be collected in a bag. They will either need surgery to divert their feces into a colostomy or will need their diapers changed for the rest of their lives.
   
   Of course, they also will be unable to move independently for the rest of their lives.
   
   I am further disgusted that these patients are now wards of the state. You and I, the taxpayers, are and will be paying for the lifelong care of these patients - for both the cost of their surgeries and the salaries of those who change their diapers and roll them around in bed. It sickens me that these patients are only unable to care for themselves because some other person made a rash and/or evil decision to pull the trigger of a gun.
   
   
2. Gunshot wounds in general. Way too many people get shot around here. Gunshot wounds are devastating injuries, shattering bones and organs alike, and causing all kinds of mayhem. While many people survive their injuries, those who get shot in the head tend not to.
   
   
3. Motorcycle accidents. These are a touchy subject for many motorcycle aficionados, but let's get real - every day I see horrible injuries sustained by people who are doing innocuous things on a motorcycle. For example, this man was riding his motorcycle at 10 miles per hour.
   
   
   
   He got clipped by a car, which shattered his left foot. He had to have his leg amputated below the knee.
   
   No matter whose fault it is, a motorcycle accident will always leave the motorcyclist in a world of hurt.
   
   
4. Lung Cancer. This is another subject that gets me somewhat upset. Way, way too many people are dying early because of smoking and its deleterious effects. Take, for example, this woman. An ordinary chest CT would have lungs on both sides of the chest, with the heart on the patient's left.
   
   This woman's heart has been displaced into the right side of the chest by this enormous aggressive mass that replaces pretty much her entire left lung.
   
   
   
   It is also making its way out of the chest cavity by bulging out between the ribs. What a crummy way to die.
   
   
   

Anyway, those are four of the most preventable problems in our society, and we see far too much of them. I wish, like Alma, that I could cry repentance with the voice of thunder, that all men everywhere might repent, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.

Valentine's Daddy, part deux

This is the letter I received in response to my last one:

February 20, 2008

On behalf of our President and CEO, thank you for your letter of February 15th regarding your recent shopping experience at our _____ Market on _____ Drive. We are pleased to know that you found the quality and price of your purchases favorable even though your check out experience was less than satisfactory.

We appreciate fully the concerns you expressed regarding the magazine covers displayed at the cash registers. While it is important for us as a retailer to offer a variety of magazines and other publications that represent our customers' diverse interests, it is also important for us to exercise good judgment in our display of such merchandise. As a standard practice, we offer a 'vanity' shield at all magazine display racks and ask our store directors to place the shield over magazines with questionable or prurient covers. Generally, our store directors do a very good job in shielding these covers but, as you know, this can oftentimes be a matter of subjectivity.

Your idea of having a family-friendly checkout aisle is a great one and continues to be an item of discussion in our business. In the meantime, we extend our apologies to you and your daughters and assure you we will ask our store directors to be more attentive to our display of magazines so that a visit to our stores is not an unpleasant one.

Sincerely, etc.

Valentine's Daddy

This is a letter, slightly edited, that I sent to the CEO of one of the grocery stores where I shop regularly. Tell me what you think:

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Dear Sir:

I am a regular customer at the _____ store located in the _______ area. Yesterday – Valentine's Day – I went to that same store to purchase some last-minute items for my wife and for my two daughters. A couple of weeks earlier, I had brought my wife some flowers, and my daughters were excited that I might do the same for them.

I found a large and varied display of flowers, and was pleased with their quality and price. After getting a few other items, I went through the checkout stand and noticed, as I have many other times, that there are a number of magazines displayed near each checkout stand. The covers of most of these magazines are plastered with pictures of scantily clad women in alluring poses, many of which are frankly pornographic.

As I went through the checkout aisle, averting my eyes, I thought about an article I had read earlier that day about the harm done to women – particularly young women – when society convinces them that the most important attribute they can possess is "sexiness." I thought about the numerous times that I have brought my girls through those same checkout aisles and been embarrassed to have them see such exploitative photographs.

I hope to raise my girls in such a way that they will know their own inherent worth. It is not easy to teach this concept in any circumstance, but particularly difficult when objectification of women is so prominently – indeed, unavoidably – displayed.

Please make arrangements – such as removing the magazines from at least one checkout aisle in the store – that will make shopping more family-friendly. It occurs to me that having such a family-friendly checkout aisle in every one of your stores would be a valuable advertising advantage.

Sincerely, etc.

Medicine Man

Yesterday my wife was sick with a urinary tract infection when I woke up. She was having burning with urination, and was feeling miserable. She took some pyridium, which is a local anesthetic that works on the urinary tract, and called her doctor for treatment. They had her go to the medical center to leave a urine sample, presumably so that they could check to make sure it was an infection and to get a culture of the bug. It took her almost three hours to get there, leave a urine sample, and get out, which seems to be an unreasonably long time for 20 seconds of actual peeing-in-a-cup time.

After she got home, we waited for several hours, then I finally called the hospital and asked if they were going to call in an antibiotic or what. The doctor called back and said yes, she has an infection for which she needs an antibiotic, so the doctor called our designated pharmacy with a prescription. A Rite Aid pharmacy called us shortly after we talked to the doctor and asked to confirm my wife's information, which we thought was a little odd, since she had filled prescriptions there before.

When I showed up at the pharmacy, the clerk said that they had received no prescriptions for anyone of my wife's name. I asked the pharmacy clerk if they were sure that there was no prescription called in to Rite Aid, since we had gotten a call from someone who claimed to be a Rite Aid employee; the clerk - somewhat snippily - said "positively not - our computer systems are all linked together, so we would know if another store had filled it."

I called the hospital, explained the situation, and gave them the number of the correct pharmacy. They called back and told me that they had passed the message along to the doctor, so the prescription should be coming in soon. Shortly thereafter, the doctor called me to say that she had called the number the nurse gave her and it was a private residence - the nurse had passed the incorrect number to the doctor. So, I had to give her the correct number of the pharmacy. The snippy clerk meanwhile came by and informed me that he had called the other Rite Aid pharmacies in town, and they denied having received any calls leaving prescriptions for my wife.

After giving them what I felt like was a reasonable time to fill the prescription, I went to the desk only to find that, surprise, the insurance company was refusing to pay for the prescription because it had already been filled earlier that day at - surprise, surprise - another Rite Aid pharmacy. Had the snippy clerk been there who originally assured me that by no means had a prescription had been called to a Rite Aid pharmacy, I would have been sorely tempted to slap him.

This would be a good time to mention that I had gone to the pharmacy with the girls in anticipation of a quick trip to get them out of the house and to give my still-under-the-weather spouse a quick break. I wound up spending the two hours it took to finally get the medication sorted out meandering through the pharmacy looking at the Christmas decorations that, for some reason, are already up for sale; helping the girls try on silly sunglasses that are way too big for them and taking pictures with my camera phone (see below); and playing with little motorized massage toys that the girls really got a kick out of (good Christmas gift idea for the girls!).



In any case, I have learned my lesson - next time I will just bust out my medical license and order an antibiotic for my wife rather than going through the 10-hour process of getting the antibiotic through the conventional health care system.