Never fear, the crippled doctor is here

So I'm crashing with my mom for a while until the big move... She's a nurse, for context, which keeps my doctor god complex in check while allowing for all the other complexes to seep in.

As you know, I injured myself and have been transitioning from full crutches to one crutch to "f- it; I hate crutches" so I was hobbling around on a camwalker, which was hurting a bit, but not enough to put me back on a crutch. Since I was too cheap to justify buying a cane for myself, mom got me one.

OMG you guys, I'm House. It took four long years, and I didn't get a cane when I sprained my ankle because it's Grenada, but now I have one, and I already feel more curmudgeonly and like I can hit people on the subway in the shins with it. Not because they've done anything... just cuz.

Helps too.

Anyway, I was on my way to dinner in the city when my train refused to leave the station because while the people on public transportation have been awesome to me, the public transportation itself has been almost purposely screwing with me lately.

I thought this unscheduled delay was due to a fairly aggressive panhandler on the train being hunted by the conductor who was on his radio and going up and down the stairs leading off the platform, so I moved to the window to get a better gawking view and saw... horizontal legs. Sigh.

So I said to my mom "Someone's down" and we wandered off to see what we could do. Different homeless guy was seizing so my mom moved him onto his side and I knelt behind him to stabilize. Mom was like "I'm a nurse; she's a doctor" to the conductor and I considered making that wishy washy "sort of" hand motion. An off duty police officer kept people from stepping on us, because they were certainly trying to, while I tried to get a history from the dude who was coming around because during clinicals, I was told (re: yelled at) many times that a good history is the most important part of being a doctor. I overheard the conductor say into the radio "Yeah, we have a doctor as a good samaritan".

Two things. One, I outranked my mother sufficiently to bump her from the billing, despite that she's been a nurse of over 35 years, despite being a greenhorn that's entering a specialty that has less patient contact than a hospital janitor. Two, the whole 'good samaritan' thing that kept me feeling warm and fuzzy back when I could do CPR with impunity is now mildly terrifying since it can have different implications for doctors.

Another thing I learned is that medical conditions are far less terrifying when you've studied them and seen them before. Quick! What do you do when a man near you has a seizure??? Panic! Hold them down! Put something in their mouths! Call an exorcist!

Or roll them on their side and if they're really thrashing, try to keep their head from hitting anything solid. Wait. Hope they breathe shortly. They almost always do. Talk to them as they come out of it. Collect data. Ask about conditions, medications, and previous events. Make sure they're oriented to time place and location. Ask if they hit their head when they fell or if anything hurts. Standard stuff. Mostly it's just waiting around and trying to get bystanders not to step on your patient.

About that last thing... I've been concerned that New York has turned me into more of an asshole than I previously was, which is no small feat. I have, at times, seen someone down but that was surrounded by paramedics that looked like things were under control, and kept right on jogging. I have used my ipod as a defensive weapon since I got it.

However, I have yet to argue with a police officer (he put his badge around his neck) about train schedules while attempting to step over a large half conscious sick guy and two kneeling women. Oh, for and the next person that hassles me for not being more understanding about moms dragging strollers up the stairs, a couple lifted their stroller over this guy to avoid using the other stairwell, while the cop was yelling at them. Family bonding? "This, Jimmy, is how you ignore the homeless. They're not real people, and you must never let them divert you in your quest for killer Thai food. Try not to hit the lady that has the cane on your way over, because she may smack you in the shin with it like that mean man on television."

The most awkward conversation ever...

Was probably on House tonight... to paraphrase:

"So, remember that time you tried to attempted-murder me by stabbing me with an infected needle?"

"Oh, you're going to bring THAT up?"

What, you thought this post was going to be about medical school? No way. The hypothalamus is boring. Really really really mondo important, and yet. BORING.

But does this episode and the newness of next week's episode (of House) mean no writer's strike on Fox? Will Scrubs be spared as well? Because if I don't get my share of cranky, dysfunctional, drug-addicted tv doctors, I go mad, uh... madder.

It was a dark and stormy night

And boy howdy, is it freaking ever. I'm no safety nut, and I've got my computer unplugged and on wireless and everything because the thunder was cracking so loudly it was literally shaking the apartment.

Of course, being the person that I am, I can only think it's freaking cool (so long as my power, aka, air conditioning, stays on), but it's coming down like it did during Felix, sans the heavy winds.

First off, let me give a big THANK YOU to Slappy for tracking down this picture, illustrative of what humans would look like if we did the same thing to them as we do to fruit flies:

Gentlemen, BEHOLD:



And when Adult Swim tracks me down to break my thumbs, I will also share in that prize.

Today, prior to the inevitable viewing of House (and thus necessary weekly social interaction, which keeps me sane enough that I don't have to start making up invisible friends), I was again enraptured in front of Sonic Foundry, inhaling three physio lectures and a neuro lecture, with another one planned before bed. So I suppose, while being "productive", I think that means that except for going to my immuno lecture, I watched tv all day. Ah, med school.

Midterms midterms... but we're going to ignore them to talk about House.

House points (not House rules, which should be far more important to my current situation, since I'm required to know them for the neuro midterm):

1. Not a big fan of this episode, much as I love NearDeathExperience!House. He's dying more than Mulder lately.

2. The ending violated cardinal television rule number 1, and I am NOT a fan. I'm becoming a people-doctor so I *don't* have to watch furry little critters die. Don't screw my record.

3. Cuddy's been one of my favorite characters since I started watching the show, but she is now so totally ineffective that it starts to stretch reality even for this show, and oh-my-god can we stop with the stripper clothes? It's beyond even tv-revealing embarrassing and right into trailer park hussy.

4. Seriously? Cameron needs to die. There are crazed gunmen, stalker teenagers, girls plummeting off balconies, and thrillchasers with switchblades running all over this hospital; she works in the ER, and not ONE tragedy can befall her short of falling into a vat of peroxide (Yes, I know it's Jennifer Morrison's natural color, I don't care, and it's giving her this weird twincest vibe with Chase)? I'd say kill Foreman too, but since they already assassinated his character at the end of season 2 (interesting intelligent character replaced with Stabby McPaperStealer), he's already dead. Which means he'll probably be seen in the next Very Special Supernatural Episode of House.

5. I am convinced that there is an unseen, uncredited writer working for the show that goes to this school. Not only do the diagnoses tend to follow what we're studying with an inordinate number of shoutouts to parasitology (the only class any of us seem to remember), BUT there's a hiatus in the show smack dab in the middle of midterms to be resumed the week after? C'mon hidden SGU student. Step up and take credit. And kill Cameron. I know you have the power.

Recycling is fun...

You Know Midterms are Coming When

Hey, give me a break, it was House night!! Which incidentally, did not mean studying Dr. House's neuro lectures (which it probably SHOULD have), but meaning there was yet ANOTHER shoutout to parasit on this show (alveolar hydatid disease, though not the correct diagnosis) and of course, the standard "neoplastic syndrome" (not parasit) that is the show's third favorite not-right disease after lupus and MS.

Speaking of House (the show), can we have a "Very Special Episode" in which they spend the entire episode with Cameron getting a fatal disease and dropping dead? Gods I hate her.

In Reality-Land, it's sleepover night. L'il Grr STILL has an propane leak in her apartment (allegedly fixed a few days ago, yet clearly not), and is sleeping on my futon (so I'm trying to type quietly) due to some inexplicable aversion to dying in a fiery explosive blaze.

And yes, parents, my propane tank and stove are functioning perfectly well, her apartment is in a separate building, and when the stuff leaks, good god, you can smell it, so there is no 'hidden propane leak' in here. I can read your minds!

Wanted:

Wanted:

One latest episode of House, MD, reported to be entirely kickass, missed by starving medical student due to being uncharacteristically responsible and studying through it.

WWWAAAAAAAAHHHH... I want my Hugh Laurie!

And Aunt Pam, if you're reading this, I concede to you that it is an awesome show and I do thank you entirely for hooking me on it, so that now I'm having withdrawal pains from it!