Thursday, February 09, 2006

First, in what is becoming a semi regular occurrence in this blog, an apology to Pablo.

Pablo, you hear my whining and complaints in person on a regular basis and then you have to read about them all over again in this blog. I apologize for not being an interesting-enough person to avoid repeating myself on a regular basis. At least you can consider yourself lucky that you're not my wife. She hears all my stories about eight times each. I think she could tell the story of my family name (Oh, man, I just realized that I've never told THAT story here. Soon, my pets.) better than I could at this point. Plus, she also has to see me naked. *Shudder* So, be happy about that, Pablo.

Today I'm complaining about doctors.

Hank has been sick this week. Just like last time, she called the advice nurse to see if her condition warranted a trip to the doctor's office. Just like last time, the nurse replied that something was "going around" and that Hank should get some rest and drink plenty of fluids.

Genius.

I can't remember the last time that a doctor was able to actually assist me. Even when I snapped my collarbone, they just shrugged their shoulders (an act I was unable to perform at the time) and said there was nothing they could do. They recommended taking it easy for a couple months.

Don't doctors go to medical school for four years? What on earth are they learning? I'm guessing they cover "rest" in the first...gah...year? Then maybe "fluids" in year two? That leaves two more unexplained years. Maybe they spend that time watching E.R. or Grey's Anatomy to learn all the jargon they'll need in order to sound professional.

"Sexy nurse! 2 CCs of speculum! STAT!"

To be fair, there is a very narrow band of sickness that doctors can treat. I think the total range of sickness goes something like this:

0. Tip top shape
1. Common cold
2. Flu
3. Bacterial infection
4. Somethingosis (e.g. tuberculosis or halitosis)
5. Cancer
6. Limb chopped off
7. Death

Doctors are good at levels 3 and a bit of 4. When antibiotics got invented, that was the golden era of medicine. They've been resting on their laurels ever since. Aside from a few other diseases, like bad breath, they can't do squat. You get sick? You're pretty much on your own, sport. Have some juice. Slowly!

I can't wait to ditch my meat body and get uploaded into a computer. Then, my health will be the capable hands of nerds. Besides, nothing ever goes wrong with computers.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh please, no apology needed. Your stories, like a good ratatouille, improve with each re-warming.

--Pablo

Mike said...

I'd take that as a compliment if I didn't dislike ratatouille.

zelda1 said...

While I was a nurse for the first twenty years of my productive life, I have to agree with you on the state of the medical community, imparticularly doctors. I hate going to the doctor to have him ask him what I think is wrong. While I'm wheezing and hacking and my level of oxygen intact is getting closer to that of a decomposing corpse, I whisper Pneumonia? He then orders a chest xray. What a genius. Gives me antibiotics and either advises me to go into the hospital or home to recover in the safety of my family as opposed to the germ filled and negligent arms of the local pit stop. So, I hate doctors, am afraid of nurses, and wonder why after all these years they can put a man on the moon and yet they still can't cure the common cold, or invent a way to view a woman's cervix without using a huge opening instrument, or a less squishing mamorgram plate, or, and my big one, find a way to eradicate fat cells. Yes that's a good one that all those doctors in those labs should be working on. Then no more karate, no more deprivation, and no more specialty shops where they charge a fortune for only a few feet more of material, but the material is cheaper so they are really not ethically earning more money and that's another problem, fat men and women's stores.

Mike said...

If there were a machine that could detect bacterial infections, we could put the entire medical community out of business. I'm going to get to work on that.