This Conversation Happened Today

This phone call took place as I was leaving the referenced parking lot to look for parking elsewhere.

Parking Office Employee: Auraria Parking Office, how can I help you?

Me: I was wondering if you are aware that the lift gate in the Maple Lot is not working? I've tried three times in twenty minutes to get in.

POE: Yes, there's someone headed over there now to lift the gate. We can't do it electronically right now. 

Me: Great, do you know when that person will be there?

POE: Let me check ... :puts the phone down:

POE: Ma'am, he's there right now. 

Me: Is he wearing a uniform of some sort? Or in a staff vehicle or something? Because I'm telling you I was there for twenty minutes and no one is there. 

POE: Yes, he's there because we lift the gates at 4:30 for evening parking without a pass. 

Me: But it's 5:30 right now. 

POE: Yes. 

Me: So the gate goes up for the night at 4:30 but right now it's 5:30 and no one has opened it?

POE: Yes. 

Me: :head explodes:

My Kind of Hand Dryer

No useless instructions.  No button to press and release, all automatic.  It blows air like a category 5 hurricane which means my hands are dry much faster.  Also, there's none of that awkward moisture that's left when lesser dryers stop and I don't feel like I should press the button again because I know my hands will be dry half way through the cycle but the dryer will continue to run through its preset time and waste electricity.









** This post is a follow up to this post from once upon a time. **

Useless Information

Is there really anyone out there who needs directions for an electric hand dryer? People who really don't know to press and release the button? To rub their hands lightly? That the machine will stop automatically? Really?

Walden Farms

Fat is bad.  Sugar is bad.  Carbs are bad.  Avoid all of them at all costs.  And if you do consume something sweet, make sure it is as low calorie as possible.  :deepdeepsigh: 

And with that I give you Walden Farms.  It's a line of food products that allows you to eat all the peanut butter spread, chocolate syrup, waffle syrup, ketchup and BBQ sauce you want without consuming any calories!  You could cut 10,000 calories from your diet every month and lose 34 pounds in a year!  It doesn't get any better than that, right?  I mean, all the taste of your favorite condiments but without those pesky calories and nasty things like fat and sugar. Yay!

/facetious enthusiasm

Let's take a look at the labels of one of these so-called 'foods'.  It's the peanut butter spread.  Some co-workers recently bought a couple products from Walden Farms in an effort to cut their calorie intake and lose weight.  I sampled some with them one afternoon at work.

Looks delicious, right?  Looks a lot like any other peanut butter jar you might buy at your grocery store, right?  Well, kind of.  I haven't seen 'whipped' peanut butter at the grocery store but I guess that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Wait a second.  No calories?  No fat?  Isn't peanut butter made from peanuts that contain fat and calories?  How do they do that?  I'm confused.

Hm.  There's also no protein.  There's actually no nutritional value of which to speak.  Unless you want to eat this only for its sodium content.  And then you might as well just grab yourself a salt shaker.

The ingredients list doesn't contain anything that could actually be called food, either.  Here it is: triple filtered purified water, cellulose gum, salt, cornstarch, xanthan gum, natural fresh roasted peanut flavoring (what the heck is that?!), natural peanut extract, caramel color, lactic acid, sucralose, sodium benzoate.  Good grief.

If I want to eat peanut butter, I'm going to eat peanut butter.  I use peanut butter occasionally to boost my protein intake and round out my fat intake for the day.  It's tasty on Triscuits or apple slices and it's filling and I really enjoy it.  I'd miss out on all of that if I ate this crap.

And the real kicker is that this stuff tastes terrible.  I seriously couldn't spit it out fast enough.  It left a gross, grimy film in my mouth, too.  It was disgusting.

Products like this do nothing to help people improve their health or eating habits.  They only encourage more bad eating habits with more fake food products.  No, thank you!

What. The. Heck.

What. The. Heck. #1
The patient is 14 minutes late and is a typical toddler so he does not want to follow his mother and me to the exam room.  A sensible parent picks up their toddler at this point and carries him or her.  The insensible ones fake walk away from their kids, trying to manipulate their kids into following them. (Bad idea all around, for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that it does not work.)  This mother was one of the insensible ones.  When her child plopped himself on the floor and cried, she took him by the hand and half dragged-half walked him to the room.  All this time, I'm standing there and thinking about the other 3 patients I have waiting on me and wishing I could educate this mother.


What. The. Heck. #2
This mother missed her son's 6 month, 9 month and 12 month well visits, therefore he's very behind on the standard immunization schedule.  This mother wants to catch up all the shots possible today.  That means 6 shots.  One of those injections has 5 components.


What. The. Heck. #3
Mother is concerned about his weight (which was okay, for the record.) so I asked how much he eats and what kinds of foods.  She states that he really likes sweets and that's about all he eats.  I advise that she stop offering artificial sweets and encourage better choices.  I say that eventually he'll eat and learn to eat better things.  Patient's mother nods and smiles.  Later when I return to give her child all 6 of his shots, she whips out a Dum-Dum for him before I can even blink.  So much for not offering sweets, huh?  Also, if she keeps a stash of Dum-Dums for any potentially bad situation, she's setting her child up for a lifetime of problems.

Again, I say What. The. Heck.

PSA 3

If your cuticles require the application of super glue before going to bed, be sure the glue is dry before removing your contact lenses.  If the glue is still wet you may get a blob of it on the edge of your contact lens requiring you to open your last spare lens the following morning.

Real Conversations

Real Conversation # 1

Patient's Mother:  Um, yeah, my son had his finger poked for a blood test this morning while he was in your office and he's felt sick and thrown up twice since then.  Is that normal?

Me:  Well ... no, that's not normal.  Is your son very upset about having had his finger poked?

PM:  Yeah, he was pretty upset and crying a lot.

Me:  I'd guess that he's probably fixating on the finger poke.  Or maybe it's purely coincidental and he is coming down with a stomach virus.

PM:  Oh.  So what do I do?



Real Conversation # 2

Concerned Grandmother:  If someone plays with an infant, say 7 or 8 months old, by dangling them by their ankles, can it cause brain damage?

Me:  I suppose it could.  I definitely wouldn't recommend doing that.

CG:  What could happen?

Me:  Well, there could be brain damage.  Or maybe stress fractures in the baby's legs or spine.  The spinal cord in infants isn't developed enough to handle lots of stress like that.

CG:  So how would you know if there was damage?

Me:  You might not know.  It would take x-rays to show fractures.  And if there was brain damage you wouldn't know until it's too late.

CG:  So what should I say to the people who might be doing this?

Me:  Uh, tell them not to do it?

Sick of Hearing ...

About ways to 'beat the recession.' I hate that phrase because it's being over-used and because it's inaccurate. You don't beat a recession. You ride it out. You save your money and you budget and you live sensibly; basically what everyone and their dog should have been doing for the last 20 years anyway. If they had, there mightn't have been a recession to beat.

What is Wrong With People?

I just watched as a woman left her mother sitting at the curb in her wheel chair while she moved her car to an empty portion of the parking lot. Then she came back to get her mother and pushed the chair half way around the building to the car. Why did they have to do this? Because someone with no business parking in a handicapped parking space did just that. This woman and her mother had no room to maneuver the wheel chair in a regular parking space. Seriously, what is wrong with people?

Huh?

One of my patients today was a little girl, barely 2 years old. She was in for a cough but on the way out, her mother asked me about night waking. She said the little girl has a 'very bad habit' of waking in the middle of the night and asking for water. If her mother says no, she cries and cries and cries and wakes the rest of the family.

I asked what happens if she gets a drink of water. The mother said she goes back to sleep. I stared at her, trying not to look like I thought that was an obvious answer and that I thought she was not very bright.

Then the mother said she can't keep getting up to get water. And then she changed her story. She said the little girl doesn't go back to sleep after a drink of water. She asks repeatedly for more water every 15 minutes. I'm not buying that.

But really, what's the problem with giving the girl a sippy cup of water to keep in the crib? She can drink all she needs and not wake anyone. I just don't get some people.

Common Sense: Blood Cell Reproduction

We can do a quick urinalysis in the office at work. It takes less than 2 minutes and tells if there are red blood cells, white blood cells, ketones, bilirubin, protein, nitrites, glucose and a few other things present in the urine. Understandably, the sooner we do the test after the sample is given, the more accurate it is. However, if there are things like RBCs and WBCs present in the sample when it's given, they will be there in the same numbers even if the test is run later. RBCs and WBCs cannot reproduce spontaneously in a cup of urine. They just can't. Someone I work with does not understand this. I do not understand how she does not understand it.

P.S. -- Happy birthday, Jennifer!