The monotoned announcement belies the urgency of the message: Stroke team. Hospital. First floor. Emergency room. The announcement is repeated twice more. We’re unsure as to the reason of the specificity of the location, since the announcement is being made in the hospital. Perhaps it’s because there’s a walk-in clinic connected to the hospital, and… Continue reading Hospital Observations
Category: Medicine
Hospital Observations
The monotoned announcement belies the urgency of the message: Stroke team. Hospital. First floor. Emergency room. The announcement is repeated twice more. We’re unsure as to the reason of the specificity of the location, since the announcement is being made in the hospital. Perhaps it’s because there’s a walk-in clinic connected to the hospital, and… Continue reading Hospital Observations
The Beatless
I made a couple of jesting comments on Facebook and Twitter about this article describing the first documented case of something called beat deafness, wherein a man named Mathieu “can’t feel music’s beat or move in time with it.” But it’s a bigger problem than those researchers probably realize. I’m sure that complete beat deafness is… Continue reading The Beatless
Brain Dead Man Not – Or Not
Update: Some instances of so-called “Facilitated Communication” have been scientifically debunked. Here are some media reports on those debunkings. Particularly damning is this one detailing the results of a double-blind test in which not one of 180 FC tests yielded the proper response. By now, you’d have to be in a coma not to have… Continue reading Brain Dead Man Not – Or Not
Book Review: “Proust and the Squid”
…the goal of reading is to go beyond the author’s ideas to thoughts that are increasingly autonomous, transformative, and ultimately independent of the written text. … The experience of reading is not so much an end in itself as it is our best vehicle to a transformed mind, and, literally and figuratively, to a changed… Continue reading Book Review: “Proust and the Squid”
Non Sense
I have a friend who “sees” the days of the week as colors. If you ask him about having lunch on “blue,” he’ll check his mental PDA and respond with something like, “Thursday’s not good for me, but brown…I mean, Friday…will work.” His son “sees” numbers as colors, so I suppose its an inherited trait.… Continue reading Non Sense
The Lowdown on Dropsy
I was reading in the Bible book of Luke last week, and came across this passage: One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. There in front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law,… Continue reading The Lowdown on Dropsy
Checking in on My Little Friend
Being the faithful, perceptive reader I know you to be, you no doubt recall that about six months ago a spot on my lung was confirmed to be nothing to worry about. Probably. Being the every-silver-lining-has-a-cloud types that we know doctors to be, I was advised to have a periodic check-up just to make sure… Continue reading Checking in on My Little Friend
Ha! Told you so…
I finally heard from the doc this afternoon, and while they aren’t exactly sure what it is, my little lung-dwelling friend is not cancer or even a tumor. We’ll do another CAT scan in six months to make sure it’s not changing, but I’ve basically been given a clean bill of health. Listen, folks…you don’t… Continue reading Ha! Told you so…
A $4,000 Nap
Just got back from getting a PET scan, which sounds like something leading up to a flea dip, but was actually done in an attempt to identify the little alien lifeform in my chest. The process is the stuff of bad sci-fi movies. We don’t have a permanent scanner in the Permian Basin, so one… Continue reading A $4,000 Nap