Don't do this at home

PTR

So, what do you do for a job?

Patient

I'm a butcher.

PTR

Me too.  Ha ha ha ha.

Patient

...

PTR

Anyway, it's really true isn't it, that if you want a decent piece of meat you should buy it at a butcher's shop instead of a supermarket.

Patient

I'm a butcher in a supermarket.

PTR

... Sooooo, it's the end of my shift now. 

Bye!

On being farty

Today I am farty.  Yesterday I was not.  But at the stroke of midnight, something changed: I am now farty and will be farty (at the very least) for the rest of my life.  Some of you who read this may be surprised to hear that I'm farty.  Perhaps you know me personally and I just didn't have that air about me.  Or perhaps you're surprised that I'd be talking about it like this; for some reason, being farty seems to something to be ashamed of in modern society.

In our grandparents' era, being farty meant that you were of a particular level of maturity.  People gave you respect.  You had responsibilities.  You had solidity in your life. Sure, you might be slowing down, people might have thought of you as a bit of a pompous gas-bag but that doesn't mean you weren't still full of beans.  But these days, and I am a case in point, being farty just means that you're older but perhaps not wiser.  People's lives are much more fluid these days; I had a whole other career and trajectory before I even started to study medicine.

There's a pressure that comes with being farty.  I'm hoping that I can ease some of that pressure by trying to keep things more fluid, while also striving for solidity in the future.  I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I don't think it's helpful to label yourself as farty, or not-farty - surely everyone is farty in some way, at some time, even if they'd like to pretend otherwise. Farty is a just state of mind. Before I was farty I fell into the trap of thinking of it as the end of something rather than the beginning.  Being farty is nothing more than a sign of more surprises in store.

Am I really farty? The answers, as Bob Dylan said, are blowin' in the wind.

Shortbrain

Initialisations, abbreviations and acronyms.  Medicine, like any complex field, is full of 'em. Some of them are similar but mean very different things.  And some of them are doctor's own personal shorthand and don't mean much to anyone else.  So if you're ever unfortunate enough to work in, visit, or be a patient in a hospital, be very careful when you start flinging them around or you may end up with more than you bargained for.

Last year I was talking to the family of a person who had had a stroke.  They were filling me on the patient's medical conditions.  I went and told my registrar that the patient had a family history of IHD, PVD and EPOG.

EPOG? asked my registrar.

Yes, I said.  The family told me that the patient's son had EPOG.

My reg laughed and said, EPOG is Enduring Power of Guardianship.  Difficult to treat.

Disease of the week

I got excited the other day because I peered over a doctor's shoulder at a patient's notes, and saw that one of their previous illnesses listed was ELEPHANTIASIS.

Wow!  What are the odds of that?  I started looking at the patient, trying to figure out which bit of them was affected.  Hmm.  They looked normal enough to me.  So I glanced back at the notes.

ELEPHANTIASIS?  No - BLEPHARITIS.  Inflamed eyelid.  How dull.

Emoticons

Did you know that <3 is like a little love heart if your tilt your head to the right?  I only realized it recently.  I've been tilting my head to the left because that's how you read the :) face.  I thought that <3 meant "boobs".  I could never understand why they would say things like: I <3 Bieber. 

I boobs Bieber???  What???

Bar fight

The resemblance is uncanny.

Tonight at the gym I had a new experience - I fell to the floor and was trapped under my weights bar.  Now I'm not boasting that I was like one of those Olympic weightlifters that you can see on youtube dropping several hundred kilos on their own heads and pile-driving themselves through the floor.  No, my bar had only ten kilos on it.  To make matters worse I was up in the front row of a class and I was the only man in a room full of women, so as you can imagine my masculine pride was dented worse than my body.

Some people go to the gym in order to build themselves up to lift the heaviest weights they can.  Several of my classmates are into this kind of pursuit and they seem to be able to lift the weight of ten large hams above their heads one-handed whereas I am flat-out lifting a ham sandwich to my mouth.  Which is why, when my Smaller Half came home today and said, "Let's go to the gym!", I moaned and groaned but ultimately said okay.  I really would benefit from some exercise.

When we got to the gym, I was dragged into what I call a Girls' Class.  It has some name like SexyThighs or Buns 'n' Abs or BoobFunk and it involves using small weights and doing endless repetitions while your ears bleed from the 80's remixes being blasted at you so loud that you can see the shockwaves.  It's kind of fun.

But because I am a man I feel compelled to use heavier weights than the strongest woman in the class despite the fact that they are clearly fitter and stronger than me.  My rationale is that not only am I chock full of testosterone, I also have an extremely large head so I should be quite strong already.  Of course, after five minutes of doing squats and lunges with this bar across my shoulders something bad happened.  The instructor went, "Up and two and down and two and pump and two and three and four", and I went, "Up, and two, and down, and aaaaargh!"  My legs didn't work any more and I fell to the ground.

To my surprise, nobody rushed to my aid.  The instructor and my Smaller Half both raised their eyebrows and made little "oooh" noises while I flopped around on the floor, but that was it.  Perhaps they are getting used to sweaty red-faced men crashing to the ground in their classes.  It's a jungle out there.  Watch out for the Amazons.

[p.s. World-wide hot beverage poll now up - vote or we'll be hung!]