Dude, Where's My Stethoscope?

by Gray, Donovan

  That afternoon I asked the neonatologist if he had any idea how she was doing cognitively. He said it was difficult to predict such things this early in the recovery phase, but that NICU infants who were able to breastfeed successfully had a significantly higher likelihood of being neurologically intact. He recommended Jan be brought to Hamilton to bond with Alanna and initiate breastfeeding. I spoke to Miles about it. He worked some phone magic, and two days later Jan was admitted to one of McMaster’s postpartum wards.

  The ink hadn’t yet dried on my wife’s admission papers before we were on our way to the NICU. Alanna’s nurses knew Jan was coming and that she’d be trying to breastfeed, so there was hint of excitement in our little corner of the room. Jan and I were both nervous. The words of the neonatologist weighed heavily on our minds: NICU infants who were able to breastfeed successfully had a significantly higher likelihood of being neurologically intact. Jan picked up Alanna and hugged her for several minutes. It was their first encounter.

  When we felt we were ready, a nurse led us to an adjacent room and closed the door so we could have some privacy. Jan sat in a chair, slid part of her hospital gown to the side and undid one of the flaps of her nursing bra. She then put our daughter to her breast.

  Alanna rooted around aimlessly for what seemed like an awfully long time. Our hearts sank. We put her mouth closer to its target. She fussed and fidgeted a while longer, then suddenly latched on and began gulping milk down at a furious pace. When the breast was completely drained she fell asleep, content. Jan and I were delirious with joy. Our baby was going to be fine.

  Alanna hit all her milestones early. She’s a crackling ball of energy who enjoys gymnastics, trampoline, volleyball, piano, art and reading. She has never exhibited any ill effects related to her traumatic birth. We consider ourselves to be extremely lucky.

  Snip, Snip

  When I was single I always said I wanted to have eight kids. Eight kids! Can you imagine? I got a serious reality check when our first child was born. Ellen was a wonderful baby, but caring for her was a lot more work than I had anticipated. Feeding, burping, bathing, changing, rocking, walking, entertaining – it was a full-time job.

  Kristen arrived 15 months after Ellen. She was equally marvellous, but following her birth our workload seemed to triple rather than double.

  Alanna made her dramatic debut 13 months later. Suddenly we were up to our eyeballs in dirty diapers. Jan started using the word “vasectomy” a lot. Naturally, I pretended not to hear her.

  One frisky night about two months after Alanna’s birth, Jan and I forgot to take appropriate precautions. The next morning I went to my office and returned with the morning-after pill. The first dose left her feeling queasy, so that evening when it was time for the final set of pills Jan considered not taking them. She telephoned her mother in Manitoba for her opinion on the matter. My usually demure mother-in-law mulled it over for about one-tenth of a second before hollering: “For God’s sake, Janet, take the pills!”

  Jan took them. The next day I visited Miles and requested a vasectomy.

  When you’re an MD in a small hospital it sometimes feels weird shedding your lab coat and morphing from doctor into patient, but what’s the sense of driving hundreds of kilometres to undergo procedures that can very capably be performed by your own colleagues? On V-Day I arrived at the hospital bright and early. After registering at the front desk I went to the patients’ locker room and changed into one of those ridiculous Barbie-sized gowns that always leave half your backside exposed. Who designs those things, anyway? As I walked to the operating room, a trio of ER nurses I work with passed me in the hallway.

  “Snip, snip,” they cackled.

  “Yeah, I love you guys, too. Say hi to Macbeth for me!”

  I stepped through the sliding doors and into the OR.

  Irene the head OR nurse was a cheerful, matronly type.

  “Dr. Gray, I see you’re here to get ‘fixed’ this morning! Har-har! Come, lie down!” She patted one of the operating room tables. I reclined on the cold table and tried to relax, but it’s hard to unwind when you’re minutes away from having the family jewels carved up. After Irene finished setting up the surgical accoutrements, Dr. Hill arrived. The quintessential man of few words, he pulled on his gloves and padded over to me.

  “Ready?”

  “I guess.”

  Irene lifted up the front of my gown to expose “the field.” The room was chilly, and as a result “the field” had shrunken considerably. Fortunately for my self-esteem, there were no gales of hysterical laughter. After scrubbing the area with antiseptic solution, Dr. Hill picked up a syringe.

  “Freezing,” he said. The injection wasn’t nearly as painful as I had expected, but I broke into a sweat nonetheless.

  “It’s all right, Dr. Gray,” said Irene. “Here’s a cool cloth for your forehead.” The cloth was surprisingly soothing. I closed my eyes and felt my body begin to loosen. A few seconds later Dr. Hill began cutting.

  I daydreamed.

  Hey, this isn’t so bad… .

  “Gauze,” said Dr. Hill.

  My afternoon office is pretty reasonable today, so with any luck I should be home by 4:30… .

  “Forceps,” said Dr. Hill.

  That’ll work out well, because we have a 5:00 appointment for a family portrait at the photo studio.

  “Sponge,” said Dr. Hill.

  As long as I don’t have to lift the kids, I’ll be fine… .

  “Cautery,” said Dr. Hill.

  What’d he say? Cautery? Down there?

  Zzzzt! Zzzzt! ZZZZZZZZZZT!

  The world’s biggest lightning bolt crashed into an exquisitely sensitive part of my anatomy. I arched so rigidly, only my heels and the back of my head remained in contact with the table.

  “Yaaaaaaaaugh!”

  Dr. Hill looked sideways at me.

  “Did you feel that?”

  “YES!”

  “Oh. Sorry. Irene, could you get me some more freezing please?”

  Even though the rest of the procedure was completely painless, I was so paranoid about the possibility of another close encounter with Thor that I wasn’t able to relax. When everything was finished I thanked Dr. Hill and Irene and gimped back to the locker room.

  Due to a few last-minute add-ins, my office didn’t finish until 5:00. I raced home to get ready for the portrait. While I changed into fresh clothes Jan asked me if I was sore.

  “It throbs like hell,” I replied. “I’ll take some Tylenol when we get back.” We rounded up the kids and drove to the studio.

  “Okay Janet, move Ellen a little bit closer to you. Donovan, could you please lift up Kristen and Alanna and put them on your lap?”

  “But - ”

  “Trust me, it’ll make a great shot.”

  “But - ”

  “I’m telling you, it’ll be perfect. That’s right…now Alanna… good. Um, Donovan?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you okay? You look like you just got kicked in the you-know-whats… .”

  Last Call

  Recently I was paged to the emergency department at 3:00 a.m. to stitch up another Jethro. This guy was totally hammered. The story was that he was drinking peaceably with his honey when all of a sudden she up and smashed him in the head with a beer bottle. Damn! Second time she’s done that this month! Funny how these guys fall prey to so many unprovoked attacks. I’ve had several drinks with my wife over the years, and I honestly can’t remember her ever bashing my head in with a beer bottle.

  Anyway, I set up all of my suturing material, cleaned off his shard-filled forehead and was just about to begin stitching when he yammered, “Hey! W-w-w-wait a minute!”

  “Why?”

  “I gotta take a leak.”

  He rolled off the stretcher, staggered to the adjoining bathroom and slammed the door shut. Moments later I was treated to the sound of a torrential stream of used beer. Within a minute he was finished.

  Wa
tching him navigate his way back to the stretcher brought to mind images of a sailor trying to walk across a ship’s deck in the middle of a typhoon. He plopped back down on the gurney and promptly fell asleep. It wasn’t long before he was snoring like a hippo.

  I quickly sewed him up (no need for local anaesthetic this time, folks), peeled off my gloves and got up to make arrangements for him to be observed in the department for a few hours.

  I was halfway out the door when I heard a slurry, nearly unintelligible, “Heyyy doc, hang on a shehcond…come ovah here… .”

  I turned back, intrigued. Was this guy actually going to thank me? That’s a rarity at 3:00 a.m. Most times I consider myself lucky if I don’t get barfed on.

  “Heyyy doc… .”

  “Yes?”

  “Can you lend me 20 bucks?”

  Drug Charades!

  Anyone who’s worked in an ER knows about drug seekers. They’re those incredibly annoying chuckleheads who are forever trying to con us into giving them prescriptions for certain drugs. OxyContin is their Holy Grail, but Percocet, Dilaudid, fentanyl patches, or just about any narcotic will do. Sedatives and stimulants are also welcomed with open arms.

  Drug seekers all seem to have cribbed notes from the same manual. They come to the ER after regular clinic hours because they know it’s harder for us to crosscheck their hinky stories when other doctors can’t be reached. It’s not uncommon to hear tales of woe involving pills that have been misplaced, stolen or eaten by the family pet. To improve their odds of getting something high on their wish list they usually claim to be either allergic or immune to all non-narcotic analgesics.

  Most of these characters hobble to their allotted cubicle so melodramatically, you’d think they were on the brink of death. They’re quick to display any old wounds or surgical scars they might have. Those with no physical evidence of disease to bolster their credibility usually complain of disorders that are difficult to quantify objectively such as headache or back pain. Most seasoned ER docs come to automatically suspect malingering whenever unknown patients present with symptoms of this ilk. This attitude is unfortunate, because it undoubtedly causes us to treat some bona fide sufferers with less compassion than they deserve.

  Some of the more inventive drug seekers can really put on a good show. A few years ago one fellow suckered me into giving him intravenous morphine for presumed kidney stones several times until I clued in to the fact that he only writhed about in agony when he had an audience. When I tiptoed back to his room and observed him surreptitiously he was humming a Def Leppard tune while leafing through an old People magazine. As it turned out, he had been covertly adding blood to his urine samples to trick me into thinking he had hematuria. Why on earth would someone with that much drive and creativity waste his time slumming in my ER? He should be down in Hollywood making millions alongside DiCaprio and Depp.

  The list of popular swindles and scams is as long as your arm, but an exhaustive review of them all is not what I had in mind for today. No, today I just want to talk about a small subgroup of highly entertaining drug seekers: the Charaders.

  In regular charades one player pantomimes a role or phrase while the others try to guess what it is. A correct guess results in jubilation and a strong feeling of camaraderie. In Drug Charades, the patient ropes the unwitting doctor into a game of trying to guess the name of the medication they’re after. Although they don’t mind dropping Godzilla-sized clues to facilitate the process, they usually try not to say the actual name of the drug themselves. Why? They’re hoping the fleeting euphoria the physician experiences when he or she finally guesses correctly will help generate a big, fat prescription.

  A game of Drug Charades involving a novice physician and a veteran drug seeker might go something like this:

  “Good evening, sir! I’m Floogie Howser, Doogie’s younger brother. How can I help you?”

  “Well, this morning I accidentally dropped my pills into my neighbour’s aquarium and his guppies ate them all.”

  “My goodness! Are they okay?”

  “What?”

  “The fish! Are they okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, they’re fine; just a little sleepy. Listen, is there any way you could refill the prescription for me? I’m not supposed to go without my pills, and my regular doc’s on vacation in Antarctica.”

  “No problem, sir! What kind of pills were they?”

  “Painkillers.”

  “Do you remember the name?”

  “Not really, doc – I don’t pay much attention to that sort of thing. I think it started with a P, if that’s any help.”

  “P?”

  “Yes.”

  “Gee, I can’t recall the names of any painkillers that start with the letter P.”

  “P-e-r, I think it was.”

  “P-e-r?”

  “Yes.”

  “Per, per… I’m awfully sorry, but I’m drawing a complete blank.”

  “Per-co-something. They were round and white.”

  “Per-co, round and white, Per-co… Hey! Could it have been Percocet?”

  “That’s it! Wow, doc, you’re incredible!”

  “Thanks!”

  “So… can I get some?”

  “Certainly! Will 200 be enough?”

  Once in a while I like to have a little fun with Charaders:

  “Hi Mr. Pinkman, my name is Dr. Gray. How can I help you today?”

  “Well, doc, last night someone broke into my lab, ah, I mean apartment, and stole all my pills. Do you think I could get a prescription for some more?”

  “Well… .”

  “Just enough to tide me over until my regular doc gets back.”

  “What type of pills were they?”

  “Painkillers.”

  “Hmm. Do you remember the name of the medication?”

  “I’m not sure, but they were round and white.”

  “Aspirin?”

  “I think the name started with an O.”

  “O?”

  “Yes.”

  “Orudis?”

  “No, that’s not it.”

  “Hmm… .”

  “It might have been Oxy-Something.”

  “Oxygen?”

  “No.”

  “Oxymoron?”

  “No! Come to think of it, the last three letters were t-i-n.”

  “Oxytin?”

  “Nine letters… .”

  “OxyBontin?”

  “There’s a C in it… .”

  “OxyContin?”

  “Yes!”

  “Never heard of it.”

  Haute Cuisine

  A few weekends ago Jan and I were scheduled to return to Hogtown to try our luck at another show and fancy restaurant, but our flight got snowed out. Undaunted, we decided to give one of our little town’s newer eateries a try. After securing a babysitter we donned our finest and headed out.

  The moment we entered we knew it wasn’t going to be a five-star culinary experience. For starters, the oversized television set above the bar was broadcasting a WWF wrestling match at teeth-rattling volume. Some steroidal goon in a lucha libre mask and a velvet cape was whacking a similarly attired Cro-Mag over the head with a metal folding chair. The other immediately obvious problem was that there were only five people in the entire restaurant – a group of four chatty snowmobilers plus a waitress who didn’t look much older than the babysitter we had just left behind at our house. So much for ambiance.

  Our waitress led us past dozens of empty tables only to stop at one right beside the garrulous quartet. The stench of gasoline was overpowering.

  “Is this table okay?” she asked.

  “How about somewhere a little more, uh, private?” I replied, sotto voce.

  She moved us to a more suitable spot, gave us our menus and departed.

  Five minutes later she returned to take our drink orders. Jan requested something a friend had told her the restaurant stocked – Heisenberg on tap. The waitress apologetically informed her tha
t it was no longer available because the owner had moved the draft tank to his other restaurant. Shucks. Jan settled for a Blue Light. I ordered a Sling. Yes, you read that right – a Sling. I love girly drinks, especially the ones with those colourful little umbrellas in them. What can I say?

  Our waitress returned with Jan’s beer, but no Sling. Turning to me she asked: “Is a Sling the same thing as a Singapore Sling?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  She pulled one of those red bartender drink-mixing books out of her hip pocket, rifled through it and said, “According to this, Singapore Slings are usually made with two ounces of lemon juice.” I nodded sagely. “My book also mentions an alternative recipe that calls for two ounces of lime juice instead of lemon juice,” she continued. “Which would you prefer?”

  “Lemon juice, please,” I replied.

  She skittered off.

  Before long she was back with two tall, yellow drinks on her tray. Neither looked even remotely like any Sling I had ever seen before.

  “I made one with lemon juice and the other with lime juice,” she beamed. “Check and see which you like best.”

  I took a sip from the first one. It was incredibly sour.

  “I don’t think you added enough grenadine,” I theorized.

  “Grenadine? Darn it! Are these things supposed to have grenadine in them?” She consulted her little red bible. “You’re right; they are supposed to have grenadine! Hang on, I’ll be right back!”

  She zipped away.

  Seconds later she returned with a bottle of grenadine.

  “Okay,” said our teenybopper waitress. “I’ll pour, and you tell me when to quit.”

  I glanced at Jan. She grinned and took a swig of her Blue Light.

  “Go for it,” I said.

  After a couple of glubs I held up my hand and she stopped pouring. We all stared at the one-inch layer of grenadine congealing at the bottom of the glass. My drink was beginning to look like a science experiment gone bad. Our waitress picked up my soup spoon and used it to stir the dubious concoction.

  “How does it taste now?” she asked eagerly.