Yesterday I was out running when I came across an ice cream bar wrapper on the sidewalk. There were still flecks of unmelted ice cream on it, so I figured it must have been discarded only moments before. Half a block ahead of me a 12-year-old boy was pushing his bicycle up a hill. I jogged over to him and asked: “Did you just eat an ice cream bar?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is that the wrapper back there on the sidewalk?”
“Yeah.”
“You shouldn’t throw your garbage on the ground. That’s called pollution, and it’s bad for our community.”
He thought about it for a second and then grinned.
“Okay.” He rode back to the wrapper and put it in his pocket.
Perhaps there’s hope for the future after all.
My Organic Patient
I’m back in the emergency department, my home away from home. Run, rabbit, run… .
Mrs. Organic and her 14-year-old daughter are waiting to see me in cubicle B. Organic Jr. has a suspicious-looking mole they’d like to have looked at. It’s black, irregular and raised. Lately it’s gotten a bit bigger.
“Well, I think this mole needs to be removed. It’s a little too busy for me to do it right now, but if you like I can take it off tomorrow afternoon.”
“How is that done?” O.J. inquires.
“I inject some local anaesthetic, remove the mole with a scalpel and then sew up the skin.”
“How is the anaesthetic developed?”
“What?”
“How is the local anaesthetic manufactured? Do they use any live animals in the testing of it?”
“Our little Organic Jr. is very much against anything that’s bad for the environment and endangered ecosystems,” her mom pipes up. She’s practically glowing with pride.
“I have no idea how it’s manufactured.”
“Do you think I could have the procedure done without any freezing?” O.J. asks hopefully.
As long as you don’t wiggle around and scream too much! Your Birkenstocks might fall off!
“I wouldn’t really recommend that – it would be quite painful for you.”
“I think I’ll research it on the Internet and then decide.”
“That sounds like a great idea! I’ll await your call!”
The Wonderful World of Golf
Today my golf game was more frightening than The Exorcist. Anyone following me around with a movie camera would have had an instant horror classic on their hands. Divots the size of meteorites. Drives that dribbled to a halt less than 10 feet away. Missed putts any fetus could have sunk. Bizarre sideways shots that defied all known laws of physics. And let’s not forget those complete whiffs that left me looking like The Incredible Human Pretzel. I was so pitiful, even the blackflies stayed away from me. It didn’t always used to be this way. Believe it or not, I coulda been a contender. This is my sad tale.
I used to shake my head at golfers and their harebrained marches down the fairway. Who in their right mind would voluntarily spend hours of prime time chasing an irrelevant little dimpled ball all over hell’s half acre? Obsessive nutbars, that’s who. “Get a life!” I’d feel like yelling every time I passed a platoon of fanatics in Bermuda shorts traipsing around a golf course.
Near the end of my first year in medical school some of my classmates decided they were going to learn how to golf. They invited me to join them. Naturally, I declined. “A group of golfing doctors?” I scoffed. “How cliché can you get? Thanks, but no thanks.” Over the years many more invitations came my way, but I avoided them all like the plague.
Last summer my sister-in-law and her husband somehow managed to coerce me into playing a round of golf with them. As I prepared to tee off on the first hole I remember thinking, “This is going to be brutal.” It wasn’t. By the end of the game I was golf’s newest convert. I began hanging out at the local driving range. Within a month I was cranking out fairly consistent 200 yard drives. True, they were often directionally challenged, but let’s not quibble over details, okay? I bought a set of clubs and started playing regularly. To my surprise, I wasn’t half bad! My drives, chips, sand work and putts, though rough and unpolished, were respectable enough for a newb. Several regulars commented that my game had Potential. Delusions of future Tigerhood filled my head.
In October, cold weather terminated our short northern golf season. I put my clubs away reluctantly. “Next year will be awesome,” I told myself.
Come the spring my game picked up right where it had left off. Each outing was a little better than the one before. One evening I arrived at the course with hopes of getting a few holes in before dusk. I was preparing to tee off when a voice behind me said, “Mind if I join you?”
I turned around to see one of my patients.
“Certainly,” I replied.
My drive went 180 yards. His topped 300. I was impressed. We hopped into his cart and zoomed down the fairway. At the end of the first hole my score was six and his was three.
He led off on the second hole with another towering 300-yard blast. As I set my ball on the tee he said, “Would you care for some advice?”
“Sure!” Any tips from a player of his stature could only serve to strengthen my game, right?
“Well, first of all, don’t bend your knees so much. And try to keep your left elbow straight when you make contact with the ball. Also, make sure you keep your head down – you tend to look up to see where the ball went. Another thing I’ve noticed is… .”
I struggled to incorporate his myriad suggestions into my swing. The end result was that by the time darkness fell I couldn’t even hit the ball.
That was three months ago. I’m still trying to unlearn the tips that vaporized my fledgling game that fateful evening. Welcome to the wonderful world of golf. Fore!
Oops!
Yesterday evening I was playing ping-pong with my daughters when the telephone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi Dr. Gray. This is Trish on unit 4. I know you’re not on call, but Mr. Arcularis just died and you had asked to be notified when that happened.”
“Thanks, Trish. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”
I drove to the hospital, retrieved my stethoscope from the locker room and walked over to the ward. Halfway down the hall I met one of our new medical students.
“Zhora, do you know which room my patient who just died is in?”
“Room 10, I think.”
“Thanks.”
I opened the door to room 10 and stepped inside. A dozen teary-eyed people twisted around and stared at me. I didn’t recognize any of them. Someone in a white lab coat was leaning over an inert figure in the bed. As I drew closer I realized it was the on-call physician. He appeared to be in the process of pronouncing a patient dead. A female patient. He looked befuddled when he saw me.
“Oh, I’m sorry Donovan,” he said. “Was she your patient?” Then it hit me. Two people died at the same time, and I’m in the wrong room!
The mourners were practically staring a hole in me. They probably all thought I had arrived to make some sort of earth-shattering announcement. Why else would I be barging in on such an incredibly private moment? I wanted to withdraw unobtrusively, but I knew that if I back-pedalled out the door I’d look like a complete idiot. I therefore strode up to my colleague, cupped my hand to his ear and whispered: “I’m in the wrong room! Act like I’m telling you something important!”
“Ah, yes, I’ll look into that right away!” he blurted. “Absolutely! One hundred percent!” He nodded sagely and stroked his chin a few times for added effect. It was a Razzie-worthy performance.