Category: life

Smarching

On By SW101In Army, family, humor, jobs, life, Military1 Comment
Sprinkler03
Me, spinning in formation

“1st Platoon!  Atten-SHUN!”

We all throw our shoulders back and stare straight ahead into nothing.  And we don’t move.  Leaders mill about, thinking about things, looking over their retirement accounts, playing Tetris on their phones. 

But we, the little people, just stand there.  Sweating.  Sweat runs in what feels like lightning patterns down my face.  Down my neck.  My back.  My rear…and down my legs.  I stand there taking a sweat-shower.  Spin me around fast enough and I’d fling so much water in every direction I think I could personally ease the drought problem in Texas.

“SMAAAARCH!”

Well, he actually say ‘march,’ but, really, you just can’t call it that.  No nuance.  We aren’t marching.  We’re walking around in 104 degree F heat, with sweat pouring from our bodies on par with your average Bangladeshi monsoon.  So we’re sweating.  With a little marching thrown in. 

It’s smarching.

Officer Basic Training – Day 1 (or, The Subjugation of Befuddlement)

On By SW101In family, humor, life, medicine, politics, Uncategorized7 Comments

I have left my family in Germany and successfully arrived in tepid San Antonio, TX for 28 days of training to become an officer in the U.S. Army Medical Corps (pronounced ‘core’ not ‘corpse,’ though both work pretty well).

On my flight over here, I called some in-charge guy from Oh-Hare airport in Chicago to ask him where to go when I arrived last night because I was a day early.
 
***note to friends and family who know anything about me…I showed up EARLY for something I regard as totally stupid.  Note that. Somewhere.  Just get it down for posterity somehwere.  Not just on-time.  Early.  Me.***
 
A guy actually picked up his phone when I called and told me to go to building #596, which is an Army hotel on Ft. Sam Houston. 
 
“Nice,”  I think.  “I’ll be staying there for a month.”  I take a cab from the airport to the hotel.  The cab driver drives away.  I walk up to the counter, am asked for a copy of my orders, then am told that my room is at the Holiday Inn next to the airport.
 
“I was just at the airport.”
 
“Yep.”
 
“I just paid a cab guy to get me out here.”
 
“Yep.”
 
“Thank you, so much, ma’am, for your help.  Can I have my orders back?  And, could you call me a cab…maybe even THAT GUY driving away over there who just dropped me off?”
 
She calls a cab, but not that guy.  It will be a half-hour, she says, until a cab can get here. 
 
Hmmm.  K.
 
Then, feeling Army-saavy, I ask her to COPY the copy of my orders she asked me for, and make me a few extra, AND SHE DOES!  
 
We’ve been told to come here, inexplicably, with 10 copies of the orders telling us to come here.  The need for a billion copies of paper orders is one of the many stipulations that totally befuddles me.  I am actively in the process of subjugating all sense of confusion, befuddlement, and mystification, with mixed results. 
 
But with respect to my orders, I’m making it my personal goal to leave this course with MORE copies of my orders than I arrived with.  If I get back home with more than 10 copies of my orders…I’m taking my wife to dinner or something.
 
Anyway, it’s a nice hotel, and I have to keep reminding myself that I am NOT here for the usual blah-blah conference.  For example, our day starts tomorrow at oh-430…well before the “free” breakfast I’m entitled to.  And some of the classes we’re supposed to take start at 6pm or later.  So, it ain’t a cardiology meeting in Oahu.
 
I’m in SanAntonio, in August, in a heat-wave that is about to break historic records.  So yes, it is butt-hot outside.  And I’m the kind of person who thinks PERFECT weather is overcast, rainy and 65 degrees F.  Seriously.
 
But it turns out that the heat actually doesn’t bother me, so far.  Mostly just feel like I’m back in Beer Sheva, Israel where I went to medical school.  I haven’t been running around in it yet, but so far it hasn’t really phased me.  It’s hot.  Like med school.  Who cares.
 
I met a guy at breakfast this morning who is also in the class.  Cool.  Older.  Knows stuff, like what he “makes” per day and that it’s good to bring a roll of toilet paper when we go “to the field.” 
 
As he sits there describing Army stuff, I wonder what my problem is with details and why I’m so averse to them.  He’s talking about tax-deductions for military pay or something and I’m thinking…”Kyle Orton, he’s really the guy who needs to play for Denver this year”…and…”At some point, this guy is gonna tell me how to get out of deployment AND monthly drilling and when he does, boy, I’ll be RIGHT HERE ready to pay attention…but he just said ‘requisition’ so no need to tune in yet.”
 
His name’s “Ray” and I’m extremely proud of myself that I remembered it.  I came up with “First-day Ray” and now it’s in my head forever. 
 
Ray assures me that since we’re off-post, I won’t be given a roommate.  That was an “on-post” stipulation because it was a barracks environment.  The hotel lady yesterday told me otherwise, saying that I would be getting a roommate and I had not choice in the matter and would not be allowed to pay extra for my own room. 
 
So, the jury’s out on “Ray.”  If my single room survives today…he wins.  Stud.  Fount of knowledge.  I’ll actually like him at that point.  And he won’t be placed in my category of people who talk like they know stuff but who I ignore for your own safety.
 
Having my own room is pretty cool.  I can sit here, for example, completely naked and type my little blog.  I’m NOT, actually.  It’s just that I COULD if I wanted to…which is the whole point. 
 
It’s the Manhattan Effect…the desire of millions of people to live in Manhattan so they can be near museums, shows, galleries and restaruants and theaters even though they won’t patronize even 5% of what’s available to them for the entirety of time they actually there.  It’s just that the CAN go if they want to.
 
‘s called freedom, and I’m rather partial to it. 
 
So, my own room is nice in that way.  Doesn’t sound like I’ll be in it much, though.  Class starts at 430 in the morning, and the last class starts at 7pm.  So it doesn’t really matter who’s in here.
 
And I suppose I won’t type naked anyway. I’m afraid that as the hard drive warms up, a film of sweat will form between the laptop and the actual “lap”, as it were, and the machine will short itself out in an explosion of wicked-blue electricity bolts right into an area that really should have been covered out of respect for my readers, for God’s sake, if not for my own sense of Fallen-Man shame.
 
I do have a sense of pleasant anticipation as the day gets started.  I’m like any average boy who grew up crawling around fields and forests “fighting” Nazi’s and aliens and dragons.  Already I was “ordered” to buy a pocket knife, which definitively makes this better than your average medical seminar. 
 
So as I enter day 1, I can say that if over the next 28 days there’s firing of weapons – of any kind – any choppers, night-vision goggles, topo maps, compasses, smoke, explosions, crawling on elbows and knees, face paint, knives, matches, tents, or at least 11 copies of my orders…this little month away from my family might just be worth it. 

‘Concierge’ Medicine – A De Facto Manifesto

On By SW101In change, disease, family, health, life, medicine, money, Uncategorized4 Comments

My blogging output has been at an all-time low since moving to Europe.  Who knows why…this place is such a bore.  I continue to hack away at my book, which never seems to get close to done – the literary equivalent of Sisyphus’ ever-rolling stone.

The other day a reporter contacted me to hear my thoughts on so-called “concierge” medicine.  It was a timely query, since I’m considering a loose offer to join a concierge practice back in the States.  In my email reply to him, I found myself writing my own little manifesto on the subject.  A treatise, if you will.  A declaration.  A primer? A resolution, a promulgation…

William Osler (1849 - 1919), Professor of Clin...
I have a idea...how 'bout I actually know who you are, AND care about your medical issues?

 

I’m a big believer in concierge medical practice, although I use the term “concierge” only as a nod to already-established norms.  Really ‘concierge’ medicine is a throw-back to true primary care medicine before it was ruled by other industries.  So the idea isn’t new.  It’s old – old as William Osler and Johns Hopkins and William Carlos Williams.
This industrial “take-over” I mention isn’t entirely due to craven insurance businessmen.  It’s also due to the allure of “Wal-Mart” pricing that so captivates Americans.  I suppose you’ve heard the adage that as a consumer, you can only have 2 out of 3 options in the market: Fast, Good and Cheap.  If you want something fast (hamburger), you can get it cheap (McDonald’s) but it won’t be good.  Or, you can have it fast and “good” (quality, taste, etc), but it won’t be cheap (maybe, Red Robin?).
This principle is true in medicine too.  Americans, over the past 20 years, have been trending toward Fast and Cheap medicine, just like they want clothes, household goods, food, etc. quickly and cheaply.  Hence, the rise of WalMart, which provides easily acquired things of questionable quality.
Concierge medicine isn’t “cheap,” by WalMart standards.  It requires real cash investment.  But it IS better.  And, while there is little problem with wearing nondescript, zero-style golf shirts to work every day, primary care is different.  We’re talking about your life, here.  Not only are you likely to live longer and healthier with good primary care, but it really is cheaper over time because it is so effective in offsetting gigantic medical calamities later.
I dispute the notion that no one can afford concierge medicine, by the way.  Most people in the richest nation on earth perceive they can’t afford it, but really can.  I blame this perception on the invention of the 10-dollar co-pay.  This idea was such poison in American medicine.  It made medical care seem like the equivalent of a few iTunes, or sunglasses from a roadside gas station – just another in the ocean of cheap, disposable and generally worthless products. Yet so many Americans shell out enormous amounts of money on alcohol, cigarettes and fast food.  They don’t think twice about coming up with over a thousand dollars to fix the clutch on their car, or to trick it out with lights and racing wheels.  But when it comes to good, relationship-based primary care, they resent anything more than “10 bucks.”
I’m currently in a line of work that provides “free” care to everyone (the military), so at the moment I have no vested interest in the above comments.  But I continue to feel strongly that it is not immoral to require a reasonable, even significant, amount of money for true primary care, especially when obtaining that care may require cutting out things that are terrible for your health.  I see major problems with a medical system that tries to provide unlimited access, especially when coupled with zero perceived cost for that access and care.
More health care is not better health care; worse, it can be dangerous.  On a daily basis, people needlessly lose breasts, prostates (read: sex life), resistance to microbes, and countless other quality of life measures in the process of hunting down phantom maladies or responding to false-positive tests.  High-quality primary care offers good, analytically based work ups of genuine symptoms that justify that work up.  NOT investigating something further can often be the best medical care available.
I mention ‘analytically based’ decisions because most mid-levels (a cost-cutting invention in American medicine) are trained to provide algorithmic decision-making:  that is, if X symptom, then Y action with little analysis involved.  recipe medicine.
Often algorithmic medical decision-making is just fine, but it easily leads to over-testing and over-treatment.  When it comes to possibly dying from cancer, for example, most of us want someone who knows us, knows how we communicate, and what is important to us (e.g. dignity vs. “full court press”). Further, we want that same person to be well-trained in weighing the risks vs. the benefits of treatment vs. non-treatment, based on the latest available medical knowledge.
Doctors seeing 20 patients a day can’t provide this adequately.  Mid-levels are not trained to provide this type of risk-benefit analysis, and don’t have the hours of training experience even if they wanted to.
Disclaimer:  I’m speaking in generalities here; there are fantastic PA’s and NP’s out there, many of whom are compassionate and professional; better than many physicians.  Most I’ve met are smarter than me.  But in general, the care from a mid-level is fundamentally of less quality because the training of a doctor is an average of 3 times more than any mid-level (roughly 3,000 hrs vs. 12,000).  This differential limits mid-levels to algorithmic, rather than analytical, decision-making.  When it comes to your health care, the mantra should be “reason, not recipes.”
These days, you can’t get this care from HMO’s (Group Health in Seattle is getting very close), you can’t get it from mid-levels.  The only place I know where you can get this level of care, is in a ‘concierge’ practice, where the benefits of the increased cost are immeasurable.

DIE-Tunes

On By SW101In change, internet, learning, life, media, money3 Comments

I believe I have just witness the beginning of the death of iTunes.  As much as I’ve tried and tried to like iTunes, I can’t express how happy I am to see a true and valid competitor emerge to thwart them.  And, I think this will DESTROY them.

Amazon, you rule.

iTunes Icon
Something Tells Me I've Just Violated A Copyright By Posting This Logo.

Now you can buy Mp3’s from Amazon.com and – here’s the sell – store your tunes to the cloud, not on your own hardware. I’ve been begging (in my head) for this for YEARS.  The cost and hassle of trying to constantly figure out where to store my songs and shows that I’ve downloaded from iTunes has been one endless headache.  This has as much to do with the fact that I’M MAKING A GENUINE EFFORT NOT TO STEAL THEN (in all honesty, this is my big mistake).  Being legit, I’m constantly plagued with copyright protections on iTunes products that makes storing and moving MY copies of digital media almost impossible.

The obvious solution (one that still supports the artists and their decadent renunciation of most human moral codes) is to simply quit making me store the songs in the first place.  Just stream them from some central server that I never even deal with.  Amazon Cloud Player (actually real, actually available, actually currently playing 1 of 100 of the top trance tunes of 2011 that I just bought as a collection for…9 bucks) does just that.  Finally.

One example:  I had a tiny netbook, with virtually zero hard drive space.  So I tried to store all my tunes (and shows) on an external hard drive.  Then I switched computers, and wanted to move that data.  Tough.  Sounds easy, but it ain’t.  To Apple, it looks like I’m stealing them, or selling them in some virtual dark alley, furtively looking over my shoulder and waiting to hear Hugo Weaving bellow, “Mr. ANDERSON!”  If I’d just legitimately STOLEN the damn songs in the first place, I could play them wherever I wanted, moving them like so many Word files.

Zeus with a laurel crown. Gold stater from Lam...
SW101: God Of Ruined Mp3 Players.

 

Another example:  If ruining ipods (usually by jogging in the rain) was a God-like attribute, I’d be warming up a U-haul for my move to Mt. Olympus.  I just sorta never believe water is actually bad for anything.  It’s a swimmer thing.  Anyway, my iTunes can only be played on 5 players unless I “de-authorize” a player.  This sounds find, but how do I de-authorize a player that has suddenly transformed into really unique thin mint?  I can’t even turn it on long enough to de-authorize the glorified aluminum can.  Same for my original computer that held the results of my first foray into iTunes psychosis.  It suffered a massive “heart” attack at some point.  That’s 1 authorized player I’ll never get back.

Six hard disk drives with cases opened showing...
Hard Drives, Hard Drives Everywhere...

 

Now it doesn’t matter.  My tunes are floating out there, in the beloved cloud.  Free from the confines of my cheap, inefficient hard drives that never seem to have enough space.  With Cloudplayer, the tunes stream, so presumably, copying them illegally is much harder.  So, I would hope that Amazon will be HELPFUL when I try to use one device or another, or when I mistakenly put my Mac Mini in the microwave, expecting a nice melty pizza in 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Plus, it’s Seattle busts Cupertino.  Kurt Cobain vs. The Grateful Dead.  The Sound vs. The Bay.

Die.  Die Tunes.  You had your chance, Appletini.

Related Articles

Health Report – Mickey Mouse

On By SW101In disease, family, health, humor, learning, life, media, medicine, science, Uncategorized, writing4 Comments

Our family just returned from Disneyland Paris.  We had a great time.  As a doctor, however, I just couldn’t ignore the many health problems clearly evident in the thousands of images I saw of the world’s most famous mouse.

Fictional characters on the Hollywood Walk of Fame

I can say with confidence that this will be the first and only time that I publish the health record of a patient without his/her consent.  But then again, I’m not even sure this little rodent was my patient at all.  Furthermore, I can’t vouch for my physical exam of our storied mouse – given his rather cavalier take on the idea of ‘physical’ – but I do believe we should all be alarmed at the probable health status of our big-eared friend.

Of greatest concern is what can only be described as HUGE feet.  Unfortunately, this does not suggest enviable male endowment, as it is sometimes rumored in those with enormous paws.  Rather, these feet are swollen.  A close look at most pictures of this patient suggest that he in fact can’t wear shoes at all, but instead some sort of stretchy slipper.

The illustration shows the major signs and sym...
I Kept Seeing This Instead Of Enjoying Space Mountain

The best explanation for feet this swollen is congestive heart failure.  This is a situation where the heart has pumped against a dysfunctional circulatory vessel pressure for so long that the muscle fibers have becomes stretched out and weak.  Eventually, the heart becomes incapable of pushing blood around the body effectively, causing pooling of fluids in the extremities, especially the feet.  Judging by the thousands of pictures of him, most drawings were likely done after this patient had been on his feet all day.  Let’s face it, an 80 year old mouse can only walk around smiling waving at kids for so long before problems arise.

CHF is progressive (meaning it just gets worse over time).  Elizabeth Taylor just died from this, for example.  Mick could use any of a number of meds to lower his blood pressure, and (arguable, these days) something to strengthen the contractions of whatever functioning heart muscle fibers he still has.  He should also go with low-salt cheese, lean scraps and whatever else a billionaire mouse might eat.

The little guy also has disturbingly white hands.  Leaving aside the perplexing question of how a rodent has human hands (and feet), what we’re probably seeing here is Reynaud’s phenomenon.

In itself, this is a circulatory system peculiarity that is not medically-concerning.  However, it can be very painful.  Mickey appears to be in the early stages of the process.  Likely shortly after his portrait sittings, his hands turned bright blue, then eventually into a deep red.  Throughout the process, he would be in quite a bit of pain.

Of course, I can’t be sure if he isn’t wearing gloves (assuming that garish white color IS his skin, frequent glove use makes sense).  Gloved or not, we still have the problem of clearly HUGE hands, suggesting edema like that described above in his feet.  Assuming, however, that we do in fact have Reynaud’s here, the concern is of an autoimmune disease in the category of lupus.  “Lupus” is a reference to the facial rash often seen in the disease and how it mimics the fur-pattern of the red wolf.  Given that wolves engorge themselves on mice whenever possible, this diagnosis is insult to injury for our poor little entertainer.

Furthermore, lupus typically causes joint and connective tissue pain.  It can lead to heart problems, anemia, serious lung problems including emboli and hemorrhages, kidney damage and neurological problems.  There is no known cure, although the disease can be managed usually to good effect with oral steroids (not of the Lance Armstrong type…we’ll get to that), but the Mickster here clearly needs to get them started.

Mickey Mouse Bus
On The Way to Rehab?

Next, the rotund belly.  This is the physical sign most associated with diabetes and other metabolic diseases (or could be another sign of his CHF).  Termed by doctors as “central obesity,” this malady affects a HUGE proportion of American men, especially.  To our knowledge, little else puts a person more at risk for big metabolic problems.  Mickey lives at Disneyland, where he can expect to eat things like spun sugar, rock candy-encased apples (I presume of the sort that felled Ms. S. White) and shovel-fulls of sweetened popcorn.  So, as a nearly 90 year-old mouse, he can be forgiven the “Gaston Gut,” as it were.  Still, a strict diet is highly recommended.

Another thing:  look carefully, and you’ll realize that Mickey’s head is larger than his entire thorax (body sans legs).  Babies exhibit this phenomenon – watch a toddler reach overhead…only the hands extend beyond the giant head itself – but adults don’t.  Mickey may have been born with something called hydrocephaly that was inexplicably untreated for 80 years.  Maybe he was too busy as a child prodigy mouse, or maybe everyone thought it was “cute.”  He may also be suffering from Cushings, an overabundance of the steroid cortisol.  He has some other physical signs to support that diagnosis too.

Lance Armstrong and John Korioth in the team t...
THESE Guns Don't Come With Serial Numbers

But he also could be doping.  By doping, I specifically mean HGH, or human growth hormone.  Lots of athletes do (or did) it, like Barry Bonds (yep, I passed judgement…don’t care about some goofy trial) and probably Lance Armstrong.  Here a note to Armstrong supporters:  almost EVERY top-5 pro cyclist, and every one of Lance’s main competitors over his winning years, has been busted for doping of some sort.  Except him.  Savvy, not legitimacy, I say.

Anyway, HGH makes you huge, but it can disporportionately affect the bones, especially in the head.  Of note, HGH isn’t bad in itself, per se.  It stimulates muscle growth in a way that can be very helpful to geriatric patients, for example.  And, as with many Hollywood elites, The Mickster shows his age about as much as Dick Clark who looks 40 but was actually personal friends with Moses.  So, I think Mickey can be forgiven for taking a shot or two from the possible fountain of youth.  But, unfortunately, that HUGE noggin gives it away…to me at least.

So, let me say that DisneyLand was a great adventure for our 4 kids.  I, however, kept getting dragged into unnecessary endeavors like rides or shows even as I frantically searched high and low my latest, and sickest, patient.  Sadly, I never had a chance to warn him of his predicament.  So, the onus is now on you, dear SW101 nation.  Find him.  Tell him.  He’s sick.  He needs help.

Next Week: Goofy comes out of the closet and reveals that he has Marfan’s Disease…and everyone pretends to be surprised.

XBox – A Medical Necessity

On By SW101In disease, family, health, humor, learning, life, media, medicine, money, politics, scienceLeave a comment

“Dr. SW101,” Says the curly-haired assistant, “will you sign this memo.”

I don’t look up.  As usual, I don’t read the memo, reaching for the closest pen and signing as fast as possible.  I look up at him, smiling cheerfully.  “What’d I just authorize?”

This is a photo of my Xbox
Image via Wikipedia

 

“Oh, you just told General Forth that the unit has medical need for 6 additional XBoxes.”

I pause, wondering why I’m so morally opposed to all paperwork that I can’t bring myself to even look at paperwork unless I absolutely have to.

“Xbox,”  I say, brows furrowing.  “Do you get ’em at the pharmacy?”

“No!”  He says, cloyingly earnest.  “You’re SO funny, Dr. SW101.  You should write a blog!”

“I do.”  I say, feeling sardonic, looking dour.  I reach for Volume I of Harrison’s Internal Medicine.  I lick a thumb and start flipping through the thousand-page tome.  “Hmmmm, Xbox.  Nope.  Nothing here.”

Assistant waits dutifully, no doubt inwardly rolling his eyes while clutching his well-typed letterheaded memo, with my signature still drying at the bottom.

“OH!  Right.  I’m only in Volume I.  Stupid me.  I should be in Volume II, where the X’s are.”  I pause.  “Just a minute,” I say, reaching for the second book.  A few minutes of earnest searching, “Nooh.  Darn.  I just don’t see anything talking about how XBox is an accepted therapy for anything.  Not even my favorite disease of all time – mitochondrial infectitis.”

“You’re kidding, right?”  He says, now looking worried.  “We can get the Red Cross to buy XBoxes for the unit if you say they’re medically warranted.”

“So, my patients – most of whom have seizure disorders, PTSD and post-combat anxiety – can sit around all day blowing each other up and staring at flickering lights?  Maybe I should prescribe a Rave too, so we can add drugs to the strobe lights.  Or would they be used for the Xbox version of Myst or something?”

Regions of the brain affected by PTSD and stress.
Bzzzt. What I need is some rapidly blinking lights and simulated death right now.

 

Assistant gets all serious, fearing the loss of his beloved memo.  He starts reading some of the Pulitzer Prize material, “Gaming has become a central element to the Soldier’s past time.  When they return from war zones, the lifelike quality of the Xbox combat games approximate the environment they just left.  For many, this represents a “return” to their former lives, thus producing a sense of calm and reassurance.”

“I said that?!”  I exclaim, eyes wide.  “What kind of crap-pile hash was I smokin’ when I wrote that letter?”

“Oh, huh.  Um.  Well, if you didn’t notice…I wrote it.”  Says the assistant, looking dejected.

Short of tearing the letter out of his hands, and no doubt derailing an already fast-moving train with lots of passengers, I know I’m on the hook.

“Ok.  You win.  Xboxes all around!  On me.”

Relief, profusion, gagging urgency and more of that I-want-to-help-soldiers-but-won’t-listen-to-reason earnestness.  “Oh, THANK you!  Man, you have no idea what this will mean to the guys.”

“Can we just agree that you got me to sign yet another of those goofy Army things where you’re not really asking for medical opinion but if I sign the memo about 25 people will have busy stuff to do and somebody somewhere will get something to further the impression that they’re entitled to things that the average American pays for?”

“Um.  Sure.”

“Can we further agree that Xbox is not an accepted medical therapy for anything?

“Yep.”  Confidence growing…clearly the doctor is too weak to actually stop any administrative freight trains now.

“Fine.  You have your memo.”

He turns to leave.  Then turns back, “Oh, and about that memo for the massage chairs…”

But I don’t hear him.  I’ve crawled under my desk, looking for the Lost Thumbtack.  I don’t “find” the thing until I hear my door open and close.  Carefully I look up….he’s standing there, hand on the doorknob.  He’s smiling, one of those serious smiles that makes perfectly clear that nobody’s fooling anybody.  “Find your thumbtack?”

I sigh.  The sound is tired in my ears.  “Yes.  But I just tossed another one down there to go look for later.”  He doesn’t say anything.  “Yeah, the massage chairs.  Bring me the memo.  Until then, take this script-” I scribble onto a piece of paper.

He crossed the room and takes the script from my hand, smiling.

Massage Chair
1, bid.  Do not swallow.

 

Interview with A Virus

On By SW101In disease, family, health, humor, learning, life, medicine, pregnancy, red blood cell, science, sex, UncategorizedLeave a comment

SW101: I’m sitting here today with Herpes Simplex Virus, type 2.  It has agreed to answer a few questions for SW101 Nation.  Thanks for joining us today, um, is it…Mr. Simplex?

HSV: “Mr.” Simplex.  Sure.  I’ll go with that.  (rolls eyes, muttering “humans”).

SW101:  Tell me, what do you regard as some of your greatest accomplishments, to date?

Mr. Simplex: We’re awesome, basically.  We like to consider ourselves ubiquitous, yet cosmopolitan.  We are particularly fond of the human idea of “make love, not war.”  mmMM.  Huge for us, that one.

SW101:  Ubiquitous?

Transmission electron micrograph of herpes sim...
Self-Portrait: Mr. Herpes

 

Mr. Simplex:  You got an ulcer on your nether-parts after a groovy night wearing nothing but beer goggles?  Probably us.  Any version of sexually active with any version of human being (we don’t like animals)?  Excellantae!  30% chance we’ll be right there with you.  Me and my posse are hanging out with 30-45 MILLION Americans.  And that just in the, ah, “middle” parts of the human landscape.  We got some cousins who live in the windy North quite happily.  We cross paths from time to time.

SW101:  Wow.  Qute a party.

Simplex: Yep.  And we’re inviting picking up around 300,000 new groupies every year.

SW101:  How’s that?

Simp:  We’re launching out all over the atmosphere much more often than people realize.  Those blistery sores we cause?  Well call ’em “pleasure domes,” referring to what they do for us as well as how our gracious hosts acquired them in the first place.  Anyway, we don’t just blast out from the popping penile blisters.  Usually, we send out early drones before the sore even forms.  We’re terribly proud of this tactic.

SW101:  Soo, when does the ‘party’ end?

Simplex:  That’s the best part.  Pretty much never.

SW101:  Like, never?

Simplex:  Oh sure, we take a break sometimes.  Lots of times, actually.  We hide most of the time.  But once we’re in a body, we don’t really ever leave.

SW101:  What do you hide from?

Simp:  There’s two things we don’t like in this world, and the Great White Army is the main one.

SW101:  Um, you refer to Tsar Ivan III‘s anti-Bolshevik Imperial Russian Army in the 1920’s?

Electron microscopic image of a single human l...
Human Lymphocyte. Non-friend to HSV's everywhere (everywhere it thinks to look, that is)

 

Simp:  What?!  What kind of freak-show wonk are you?  No!  The human immune system.  All the cells in that army are white.  Or clear.  Or something.  Scary, those guys.  They can blow us up, eat us, chew us up, spit out pieces of us so their comrades can eat the rest of us…it’s disgusting, really.  It’s like a bad horror movie.  Ugh!  Look at that picture of the immune cell!  Don’t you have any shame?  I didn’t walk in here holding up pictures of car accidents, or guys who accidentally fell into meat grinders, did I?  Why don’t we just sit around and ponder Charles Manson, and all his fabulous exploits?  Oh, actually, that guy was pretty good for us, as I recall.

Anyway, where was I?  (fans self, leans back weakly).  Oh yes, when it’s up and running full-bore, the human immune system it a giant headache for us.  We try to lay low.  No sense in getting our heads knocked off.  The good news is that it gets stretched pretty thin trying to cover all the problems that come up in those unnecessarily complex organisms of yours.  It’s pretty easy to come out and play once the person is stressed, sick, too hot or cold or with some disease that naturally keeps the White Army back in the barracks, so to speak.

SW101:  So, you hide in the nerves, right?

Mr. Simplex:  (looks left and right conspiratorially) Yep.  Broadly speaking.  This is the secret to our survival, by the way.  Our lair.  Your nerves.

SW101:  And, specifically?

Simplex:  Well, you guys have no hope of actually finding us, so I’ll just go ahead and tell you.  My guys hang out in the roots of the nerves that extend from the sacrum.  S2-5, usually.  In the ganglion.  It’s nice there.  Our version of what you’d call waterfront property, I’d imagine.  Our cousins hang out in similar nerves in the face.

SW101:  You mentioned two things you don’t like, what’s the other?

Simplex:  Condoms.  We hate ’em.

SW101:  That bad, huh?  Your great nemesis?

Simplex:  Well, actually, our relationship to them is a bit complicated.  Maybe like Ariel Sharon vs. Yassir Arafat.

SW101:  Surely you’re referring to the Israeli-Palestinian former leaders…both dead now?

Yasser Arafat at 'From Peacemaking to Peacebui...
Ariel Sharon thinks I'm a punk. I told him the feeling was mutual over tea this afternoon.

 

Simplex:  Dead?  Really?  I don’t think we had anything to do with that.  We try not to kill our hosts…bad for real estate, as you can imagine.  But yeah, them.  They hated each other, but at the same time, they created lots of business for each other too.  Get it?  People don’t like using condoms, for some reason.  But those that do are WAY lax about concerning themselves with us.  Since we don’t just hang out in areas covered by those suffocating, smothering latex udders, we get around pretty well when condoms are in the mix.  People jump into their illicit affairs, thinking they’re safe…and forget to ask anything about us.

So, it’s a love-hate thing.  Overall, condoms are probably pretty good for business.

SW101: So, you hate condoms.  What do you love?

Simples:  Promiscuity.  We’re BFF’s.  Make love, not war, dude.  Preferably, don’t even look down at what you’re doing.

It’s not personal, by the way.  We’re just doing what we are meant to do…which is reproduce.  Everyone who is living with us now should understand that.  It’s one big happy family of organisms doing what they were meant to do…mate, and reproduce.  It’s natural.  When you’re mating…so are we.  All I can say is, sorry for the inconvenience.

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RATIONal!

On By SW101In change, disease, health, jobs, learning, life, media, medicine, money, politics, publishing, scienceLeave a comment

Yes, throwing a few words out there again.  Can’t help m’self.  Been a bit.

Living in Europe insulates the average human from goofy, over-the-top language meant to get people to do and think in ways that OTHER people want them to.  So, I haven’t been very caught up in, or all that impressed by, all the politics and steamy language coming out of my home country these past months.

Demilitarized Zone, North Korea
We have fast government. No arguing. You like. Like pizza.

Now the election is finally over, we find that Republicans have “swept” themselves into a level of “power” that assures exactly zero will happen unless they work with all the Democrats and Independents that never lost their jobs.  Some people think all the upcoming wrangling is a bad thing; I think it’s great.  A super-active government rarely doesn’t do anything well.  There IS a type of government that “gets things done” almost immediately, with little debate.  It’s called a dictatorship.  If you’re smitten with that idea, move to North Korea and try THAT speedy idea on and see how you like it.

Anyway, I received a link to a very persuasive and scary speech given by an orthopedic surgeon named Dr. David Janda, wherein he outlined the horrors and sneaky tricks piled into the Obama health care bill.  His speech was in support of Rob Steele, a cardiologist-turned-politician likely because he was mad as hell at the terrible direction of the country (*yawn*, aren’t we all?).  Presumably, said cardiologist is now back in the clinic, since he thoroughly

Republican Party Handbill, ca. 1880
Image by Cornell University Library via Flickr

lost the election of the 15th Congressional District of Michigan to John Dingell something like 83k votes to 118k votes.  Apparently, the Dingells have run that district for generations.  If you’re looking for nutty, inflammatory, manipulative language, look no further than at a political battle between a challenger losing in the polls as s/he tries to unseat a longstanding incumbent.

The gist of Dr. Janda’s speech is how Obama intends to RATION health care.  This actually sparked my interest.  I don’t really care about health care system politics; I’d rather just see patients, frankly.  But I have to just say to my fledgling SW101 crowd, I SUPPORT RATIONING.  Of every public resource.  Food. Gas. Sex (um, although I’d readily opt out of the “public” option).

New Orleans, Louisiana, 1943. Line at Rationin...
The whole idea of capitalism is so you don't have to share. Sharing sucks.

So many people take the idea of rationing to be unequivocally bad…as if it’s totally wrong and even beyond debate.  That’s the tack of Dr. Janda.  It’s something we all KNOW is wrong.  Like sticking needles in the eyes of baby squirrels or stomping on halloween pumpkins.

Incidentally, Janda is a specialist, supporting another specialist.  Primary care docs like me aren’t especially pleased with how specialists have garnered power and money for themselves in the AMS (Am. Med. System).  In particular, I’m speaking of orthopedic surgeons and cardiologists.  Specialists make fabulous money by ordering tests and procedures, none of which have ever been regulated or rationed in any way.  Echo’s and caths pay for the boat, private school and vacations to S. Pacific islands nobody can name.  Don’t tell me the only force driving clinical decisions is scientific evidence and standards of clinical care…money is money.  But even so, I’m for rationing.

President Barack Obama speaks to a joint sessi...
Hey friends! Here's a really mediocre idea!!

Let me say that I’m not happy about Obamacare. It was said well @ a recent conference, “who’s going to do a better job coming up with a fair, affordable national health care plan, 189 laywers in a room for half a year, or 10 family doctors in a room for a week? Obama went with the lawyers, he should have gone with the docs.”

That said, I FULLY AND COMPLETELY agree with rationing because it’s a necessity. In training, I followed a patient in the ICU who was costing close to 1 million dollars a day of PUBLIC MONEY for the last 4 months of her life. Somebody, somewhere needed to compassionately deny further intensive care to this woman, instead providing dignified hospice end-of-life management. Her case justified ONLY taxpayer-funded hospice care but nobody had the cajones to tell her that.

Every precious resource, if pooled for the common good, needs to be rationed. It’s where we get the term ‘rational’ and there’s a reason for it. Closer to home, my sister apparently has a University doctor telling her that she needs a thousand dollar procedure (colonoscopy). The procedure is not done by this doc’s specialty, and my sister hasn’t even had a rudimentary work-up to justify the cost of the scope.  She has not had a professional analyze of the risks vs. the benefits of doing it, either.  Yet she’s already being told that she needs this procedure.

Remember…EVERY test and procedure has significant risk associated with it. Wouldn’t it be nice to know that the doc my sis sees for a scope is a specialist? And, since that specialist pays for the Benz and sailboat from scope income, wouldn’t it be nice to know that he moved in a stepwise fashion through the GI workup process, a process that is peer-reviewed and widely accepted as essential before a scope is ordered?  This is the ‘rationing’ process that Obamacare advocates.  It puts serious limits on specialists in the provision of their care when it comes to big-ticket stuff like scopes, imaging and surgery.

But remember, we’re talking about rules in effect ONLY if you intend to get your neighbor to pay for your health care. YOU are welcome to pay for your own scope any time you wish. YOU can fund your own health insurance – one that doesn’t make docs do ANYTHING before they dig into your body – if you want.  I watched it work this way in Israel, and it was a pretty good deal.

However, the fact is most Americans believe they are SO important that they have the right to be treated like kings…paid for by peasants. But ethically, Americans have no right to whatever care they want whenever they want it, if they also expect someone else to pay for it.

Hugh Owen Thomas (1834-1891), British orthoped...
Trust me, I'm a DOCTOR! We ALL are.

The AMS does too many procedures and tests. The result of both is astronomical costs and HARM TO PATIENTS (through false-positive test results and procedure errors). So, not only is care rationing ethical and less costly, it is absolutely safer for patients. Healthcare is NOT safe. There is a risk-benefit ratio that must be considered any time a patient comes in contact with the health care system. Waiting for non-urgent care (knee replacements) and rationing of tests and procedures is ethical, cheaper and flat-out safer.

Incidentally, I argued this point in a debate in med school…waay before Obamacare. I have seen nothing since that time to sway my opinion. In fact, training and practice have only solidified that opinion with real-world facts.

Obama didn’t make our health care system right, but he did make it better. The Tea Party idea of repealing the new law is lunacy. If they REALLY want a free-market system, they need to dispense with EMTALA laws which dictate that ER docs (and now other specialties too) are required to see any and every patient.  THIS IS UNIVERSAL HEALTH CARE!!  It’s just the most inefficient, ineffective and expensive system in the world. We do have a social healthcare system. We just need to make it rational…starting with sensible rationing of limited resources.

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Reader Q, Probable Farewell

On By SW101In change, family, learning, life, residency, science, Uncategorized, writing4 Comments

Q – I just discovered your blog and have had fun reading it, however, it seems that you have stopped blogging?

A – It’s true. I burned out a little. Well, that’s a simplification. Moving here (to Germany), emerging from survival mode from medical training and settling into a normal life opened up all kinds of new emotions in me that I didn’t anticipate. The most important of these was a distinct realization that I wanted to deepen and widen my relationship with my wife.

So instead of pounding out these blog posts, I’ve been cooking dinner once a week (“Daddy Dinners”) and spending the majority of my nights watching some show or other with my wife by my side as I run my fingers slowly through her hair.

I’m gradually putting together a new blog – “Lover, Daddy, Doctor” – that picks up where SW101 leaves off. But it reflects my new focus in life.  I’d anticipate some humor, occasionally more intensity, less medicine.  I’d even expect the occasional Bible verse to accompany an irrepressible proclivity to pepper my writing with a well-placed swear word (Hey, I’ve come a long way…plus I’ve long bet that God nods to honesty before Christian decorum).

To survive in medical training, you HAVE to make survival and success your number one priority. I would have sworn this wasn’t true for me, but it was. Failure anywhere along the training path is a conscription to a lifetime of insurmountable debt, even poverty. Now that I’ve survived, my genuine priorities have emerged. I love to write, so it’s natural that I would blog about this new direction in my life. But I’m not sure. This is personal. More personal than just the experiences of being a doctor trainee. Maybe the story of one guy’s quest to be a better man is better left to be pondered quietly in the heart.

So, I’m mulling my next “move”. Maybe I’ll just pick up where I left off and start up SW101 again (thanks, everyone of you who wrote in to ask where all the good times went). Maybe I’ll finally finish my book.

Ultimately, I just can’t tell you where I’m going because I myself don’t know.  I DO know that I’ve successfully grilled tuna fillets, invented a mango/pear/mint salad that everyone loved, and I can broil Portabello mushrooms all by myself.  I learned the difference between Goat Cheese and Feta Cheese.  I know where the measuring cups are in the kitchen.  I can tell you every character in Lost (and the top 4 theories about what the freaking show even means).

But what I REALLY know is that my wife looks at me with eyes I haven’t seen for 13 years.  And this stirs my soul in ways that make most of the rest of my life comfortably superfluous.  This blog got caught up in that eternal vortex…

When I know anything more than this, you will too.

SW101

“All that I am, all that I ever was, is there in your perfect eyes…they’re all I can see.”  -Chasing Cars, by Snow Patrol

It’s Not Just Sex

On By SW101In disease, family, health, humor, jobs, learning, life, medicine, politics, sex3 Comments

A good approximation of how sex and intimacy is regarded by the U.S. Armed Forces can be summed up in the phrase I heard recently: “If you needed a wife…we’da issued you one.”

These days, the U.S. Army is perhaps the most chaste and constrained military organization on planet earth.  No drinking on duty, no sex, no pillaging, no cavorting…and go easy on the damn swear words.

Contrast this with the Russian Army, and German, which frequently serves beer with lunch; the harder stuff after dinner.  And numerous armies – no joke – provide prostitutes to their deployed troops.  Effectively, a little mini-platoon comprised of practitioners of the world’s oldest profession gets sent to war zones right along with the soldiers.  No doubt this idea  is regarded by these armies as a Godzillian leap up the ladder of human rights.  In the past, when victorious they just raped the women (and men) of their vanquished quarry.  At times, a veritable sexual bonanza was promised as the leading incentive to engage in vicious battle in the first place.

Members of the U.S. Armed Forces by contrast, seem expected to never have sex of any kind.  If sexual organs didn’t come already attached to the bodies of their troops, I’m rather certain the Army would have confiscated all tissue related to human reproduction – and especially the related pleasures of it – on the first day of basic training, relegating every appendage to iron storage boxes next to the gold bars in Fort Knox.  “You can have your clitoris back after your 20, soldier.  Until then, kill stuff.  And like it.”

I’m a happily-married, loyal-to-death-do-us-part, honest-to-a-fault type of husband who, with the perfectly understandable exceptions of Rachel McAdams and Jennifer Connely, can provide infinite assurances to his wife that she has minimal reason to fear infidelity (in kind, if she ever meets Johnny Depp in a smoky, sultry, bean-baggy, beatnik bar…she has my blessing).  That said, I think the “Hooker Platoon” is a great idea.  Presumably, said professionals are well-paid, in control of their lives, and free of drugs.  Like it or not, humans are sexual beings and they go about obtaining it in a myriad of ways.  Might as well make it safe, fair, protected and consensual, even if questionably moral.

But what about the ones who aren’t deployed?  Or the ones who, by choice, remain celibate as they await – with admirable fidelity – their dear lover back home?  What about the people who have returned from over a year’s deployment, waay beyond ready to re-start a healthy, loving sexual relationship with their spouses?

Unfortunately, many soldiers return from war zones with major emotional and physical damage – and major problems having sex.  PTSD, insomnia, chronic pain, depression and anxiety all affect sexual ability.  And these problems are like cockroaches…if you have one, you probably have others.  Worse, the meds used to treat the above problems often severely inhibit sexual function too.  Am I the only one who sees the Faustian irony in “You can be happy…OR you can have sex.  Not both.  Your choice.”  For many (including me), that choice is an oxymoron…emphasis on moron.

While not always the problem, erectile dysfunction is one of the more common issues I deal with.  Given the ubiquitous commercials displaying medically-enhanced virile men, one would think ED wouldn’t be such a problem.  And it is true…a pill can solve the problem sometimes.  Cool, right?  A nice, easy fix.  The problem is that sex is considered by the Army to be something of a sport.  Golf, but morally suspect and generally distrusted.  As if to clarify their position, one of the more odd policies I’ve seen is the meet-you-1/20th-of-the-way idea of providing 6 pills of Levitra per month for up to 3 months for erectile dysfunction.  6.  For 3 months.  Then…good luck.

But 6 pills?  A month?  I know they’re expensive – something like 10 bucks a pill – but who came up with a number like that?  Was he (or she…or it) ever in a loving, happy sexual relationship?  Had it already donated the entirety of its copulation gear to NORAD for weapons testing?  Turns out the decision comes from the Department of Defense.  Yep.  The guys buying fiber-plated bombers and infra-red rifle sights and inventing bombs that suck your inner organs out through your maxillary sinus, are also the ones who decided that 6 sexual encounters a month should keep the average couple happy.

Truth is, for many of my returning soldiers, sex and intimacy isn’t simply a nice addition to their lives after over a year of living in austerity.  It is life.  This seems to be especially true of the committed, married soldiers I work with.  Their marriage, and the love they share within it, is often the only salve on wounds that cover their bodies and souls.  Imagine falling into the yearning arms of your wife after 15 months alone, after encountering horrors on the battlefield you will never describe, only to have to say you’re sorry, you just aren’t the same as you were…even as a lover.

A patient recently said to me (to paraphrase), “My wife and I LOVE to have sex, doc.  It’s an every day thing, if not two or three times a day.  At least, that’s how it was.  Now we spend most of the time we would have spent in bed – or in the kitchen, or in the microwave, or in the neighbor’s tool shed, or on top of the dresser, or under the aquarium, or in the chimney, or dressed up as Tonto and the short curly-haired lady from Cheers – with a counselor, trying to figure out what’s wrong with me.”

Most (not all) healthy, vital, loving relationships are comprised of sex more than just once a week with an occasional “two-fer” on the weekend.  Especially if one of the partners has been gone for over a year.  If returning injured soldiers have anything to look forward to, for many of them it’s their longsuffering, waiting, pent-up, willing spouse.  Divorce is a catastrophe, especially when it’s between a broken soldier and the person who typically is the last one standing in their corner when the world is running down.  Seems to me that we could forgo a couple of those useless air-to-air combat fighters everyone’s arguing about and use the money to give these soldiers as many nights of intimate bliss as we possibly can.