It's Brain Splatter Time

Well, I might be able to babble a while. That last post was kind of lame.

The other day, Honey by Bobby Goldsboro came on the radio. My memories of that song were that it was a kinda sappy song that made me all sad. But listening to it now, again I notice myself turning into quite the jaded individual. When I heard it again now, I thought gees what a needy woman! I think I'd go mad if I were him! Crying because he wasn't home just at the right time? It sounded like she was more like his kid than his wife for Pete's sake! He really enjoyed having someone so dependent and so...well...kinda dumb? What's wrong with him? I wonder does he miss her, or now can he actually live his life? So is it me, or is it the song? Maybe it's a little bit of both.

Man the huppy's growing up. He can talk in sentences, he can count to at least 5, knows his full name and you can almost have a whole conversation with him. He's always trying to help me, and the other day he tried to tell me my boot had come untied. All he could manage was "Carin! Your brown boots!" But the way he said it I knew he was trying to tell me something. And he was just an itty bitty baby not too long ago. He hasn't even turned 3 yet.

Back a while ago, I mentioned that wicked cold. Well, now it's left a bit of a legacy. I still have a bit of a cough and can't seem to get enough air. But my chest x-ray is clean. I'll be going back to the doctor hopefully Monday so we can try and figure this out. I hope it's an easy fix. Something similar happened to me years ago and all we had to do was change a medicine, so hopefully that's the case this time. It's not a comfortable feeling having to take huge deep breaths just to get a normal amount of oxygen. A couple of times, I've wondered if I should get my buns to the ER. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Here's a commercial I don't get. It's for the cheesy bites pizza from Pizza hut. I can't find it, damn it, but you hear this woman say "I love what you've done to the place." and then you hear the kid say "I told you this would be fun." and then you hear the adults sound like they're about to hurl going, "Yeah, real fun." and then it ends with a guy telling us to make dinner time fun time with the cheesy bites pizza, with 28 fun cheesy-filled bites.

Whaaa?

Even if I don't pay attention to the weird dialog, what's so fun about some cheese on a pizza? And cheesy-filled? Makes me think there's no cheese in there at all. At any rate, I really don't want to try one.

Now on to some Trixter talk. I have discovered she's very picky about her water! Either that, or she just hates the water cooler at work. I would always fill up her bowl, and she would never drink out of it. Then she would come home, tank up like mad, and need extra pee breaks. I thought it probably wasn't healthy for her to drink like that, and Steve thought maybe she didn't like the water out of the cooler. So I started bringing water bottles filled up from the tap from home, and she definitely drinks more of that water than the water cooler stuff. Trix, you're odd. But at least you're not drinking all your water at night.

I've noticed the last little while that if we walk a long way, she will need extra chances to pee than she used to. She used to only maybe pee once, and maybe poop once if we went really long. Now, she pees at least twice mid walk, once at the beginning and once at the end. Is this just an older dog thing? She doesn't seem to need extra relieving times when at rest, but there are definitely more pee breaks on walks.

This winter, or near lack of it, has had Trix all confused. By January, she was acting as if spring had sprung. Silly pooch. I'm sure she was very disappointed when more snow came.

Man, Trix was mad about the new bus locations. Well, it was more that she couldn't go on autopilot after a long walk. She knows where the old bus to go home was. Unfortunately, that's nowhere near where the bus pulls in now. So when I asked her to go to the new location, she pretty much threw a fit! She thought we weren't going home, and she wasn't having it! Ah Trix, you've forgotten. We get on the bus over *here* to go home now.

I don't know what it is, but lately I've had more fears about Trixie retiring. It's a scary thought that she's almost 7, and the average dog's working career lasts until they are 8 or so. So when I see things that are of concern, they really play into my fears. It's probably unnecessary, but I'm a worry wart, it's going to happen.

First there are the wee little things. Stuff like the amount of stretching she does when she gets up. She used to give it one good stretch. Now, she has to stretch one way, then another, then stretch again, and then she's ready to go. That's probably just her getting older, but I notice it. I also notice her doing the full body shake, like she's shaking off water, more often. I've heard that can be a stress thing, and I worry that all this zooming to Kitchener and back is stressing her out, even though I don't think so because I've done my best to keep her actual schedule close to what it was.

Then there are the bigger things. For a while it seemed like she didn't like jumping into the truck with me. As we headed to the elevator, she would walk all slow. I also noticed that sometimes, when navigating my work space, she didn't seem to know what to do. Going around the pole seemed like an impossible task. And once, recently, she got really confused at a complicated intersection and targeted the island in the middle of the road. This floored me because she knows not to hit that island and to go all the way across. I'm hoping that was just a freak occurrence. But other days she is just fine.

Then yesterday, after we had done a big walk downtown, when we set off to Dairy Queen, she fought me all the way. It could have just been that she didn't like to walk in the falling snow and sensed it would get worse, but it scared me.

One day, she stepped on something that bothered her paw. But she didn't lift the paw like she usually does. She dug all four paws in and wouldn't move. I could not for the life of me figure out what was wrong. She wouldn't even heel, and we were headed towards home! It was at this point that I felt panic set in. Was she telling me she was done? Out of desperation, I rubbed each paw, and once I fixed the one that was bothering her, she took off like normal, but I didn't like the way that putting on the brakes made me feel.

Then other days she's awesome. It scares the hell out of me to think that that awful day is looming far sooner than I expected. Hopefully not, but only time will tell. I was hoping Trix could work until she was at least 9 or so. Hopefully I get my wish.

And I think that's all I can think of. I hate to end things on a downer like that, but I'm all out of ideas.

Observations, Updates, And Other Goofiness

Here comes another giant pile of thoughts.

The other day, the oldies radio station was on and The Poppy Family That's Where I Went Wrong came on. And, unbidden, my only thought that came out loud and clear was "oh that poor bus stranger!" At that point I just started laughing. I didn't feel one bit of pity for the woman in the song...I just wanted her to shut up. Yes, go to sleep and forget him for a while. Then maybe that poor fellow who randomly selected the seat beside her can get some peace for god's sake!

Maybe that's because I've been that poor bus stranger, and we probably all have. You sit down, someone plunks beside you, and suddenly you hear their every tale of woe they have. Don't get me wrong, I've had lots of awesome conversations with seat mates on buses. But sometimes, oh lordy. I don't remember if I ever wrote about the time I had to pretty much babysit a fellow passenger, but that was an instance of me being a poor bus stranger. I was glad I did it, but oh man. I think experiences like that turned that song on its head for me. The thing is I've thought it I don't know how many times on a subconscious level, but this week, it came out loud and clear.

For some reason, one day I said something to Steve about "way down yonder in the Paw-paw patch." Then I immediately wondered "what the heck's a paw-paw? I guess it's a kind of apple, but it's funny how we just sing stuff and have no idea where it came from.

Last Wednesday I had an, um, interesting afternoon. Apparently my parking lot at work can get pretty ugly as hell in the winter, so the guy who drives me to work thought it would be good to get one of those accessible parking passes. At first I wasn't sure if I felt right about it since I thought most people who use them have actual physical injuries or lung problems that prevent them from physically walking from A to B. But now that I think about it, knowing we could always park in the same spot would mean it would help my orientation. I could probably walk from car to door on my own, which would be pretty awesome. Plus, it would reduce the amount of time I'd be mucking around in the parking lot amid people who potentially aren't the best drivers in the world.

So I decided to get one, and I have learned one thing for sure. The doctors I asked about this thing had no clue about it. I had to see the doctor I'm a not so huge fan of, and he scribbled down a note and told me to take it to City Hall. City Hall? How about no? This is done by the province I'm pretty sure. At that point he said he hadn't a clue how it worked.

So I went to a new walk-in clinic we have, which makes me happy as hell that we have another clinic, and it's being well-used. But the doctor there couldnt' figure out what category I fit under, even though there's a box for visual acuity. That'd be me. But he did the form, and all is right with the world. I have a pass, and will have a permanent one soon.

But that afternoon's travels were full of crazy loopy things that kept happening to me. First up, as I entered the clinic, I ran smack into a chick who was desperately afraid of dogs. I mean she started hyperventilating and totally freaking out. I felt horrible because I had nowhere to go. We were squished into a tiny space between two doors.

But she made me roll my eyes when I was finished at the clinic and went to leave. She was still there, and sat right by the door, ya know, the exit door. So as I approached it, she started freaking out again! Hello lady, I have to go that way. If you're so afraid of dogs, move the hell away from the door! You've been warned!

On my way down to the clinic, Trix had to go poop. I picked it up, but had no idea where a garbage can was. So there I was with a bag of poop in my pocket. Total suck. But I had to chuckle as kid after kid was rushed into the bathroom at the clinic. I think the parents thought *their* kids were causing the stench! Although I was embarrassed about having a bag of dog doo, I couldn't help but snicker.

And in my final piece of adventures from that day, I went into the grocery store in that plaza. It used to be called Price Chopper, now it's Fresh Co. Whatever. I went in to buy two things. Seriously, two items. The girl helped me, and then said she talked to her manager and her manager said I really should call ahead if I'm going to want help.

I'm sorry, did I have a list as long as my arm? No. I wanted to buy two items. I do not think I have to call ahead for something that small. Hell, I pick up more things at a convenience store than that. I would totally call ahead if I was getting a whole heap of things and needed an escort around the store. But two things? Seriously?

They have kind of been difficult from time to time, constantly asking "are you done yet?" when I've had 4 things on my list, but this was pretty offensive. In future, I'll probably just avoid that store. If I'm such a burden, they can do without my business.

But on a happier note, there's a Tim Hortons that opened up pretty close to our house. Oh baby. I see danger on the horizon. Resist the urge for Timmie's! The girl was really nice there, although when I said I was blind and couldn't find the Tim's, she didn't think I literally meant blind. Oh boy, she's going to have stories when she gets home. I kind of feel bad for getting a little annoyed with her, but there were no pedestrians on that stretch of sidewalk, so I called the place, told her I was blind and her immediate response was "Well can't you see the sign?" Poor girl, she felt really sheepish after that. So the moral of the story, people, is never assume the person telling you they're blind is speaking in metaphor. Chances are they *are* blind. Or do more people just say "I'm blind" when they say they're lost? Am I just oblivious?

And in another piece of happy news, my ailing Trekker is on its way back to the land of the living!

Here's the scoop. I finally went to a store that had the means to voltage test the charger. Then, to my shock and horror, they said the charger was fine. We eventually deduced that it was that piece on the end of the splitter that started breaking so long ago. So, because of that series of things, and the three-way splitter mess, I was hesitant to call up Humanware and ask for any more parts. So I tried charging the PDA using my sync cable. But because the battery had drained so low, when it asked for power, my computer said it was asking for too much power and would not allow. It did this on a couple of machines. At least I'm hoping that's what the problem is.

Well, with the buses completely changing routes in January, I was getting desperate. I've come to realize that that piece is likely only sold by Humanware. So I bought a new one. But it wasn't $60 like the guy claimed, it was $35. You'd think sales reps in Humanware could get their facts straight. Let's hope when it arrives, it's the right part. But if it is, at the end of the day, my Trekker should be back in business.

I think that's about it for now at least in this post. I have other ideas that's for sure.

Keep Your Friends Close And Your Enemas Closer

Hmmm. This is just weird.

This is the story. Wish I had more details. One sunday afternoon, an unnamed man who is apparently pretty close to blind got a knock on his door. "I'm here to give you an enema," a woman said. He had just had some intestinal surgery, so thought maybe this was ordered by his doctor. So, he let her in, she gave him an enema, then left.

Then a couple of days later, he started to wonder if this was normal. So he called police. They checked with his doctor and found that no enema was prescribed or ordered.

Um, oh boy. Now he's wondering exactly what she gave him, although he has suffered no ill effects, and the police have no physical description of this woman, nor do they have any identification cards or anything.

That's just weird. I wish they'd solved the case, because I'd love to know what motivated this woman to give a random enema to a random man. And has she done this before? Where most people do a good deed for someone, does she go out seeking random enema patients?

Taking "Tiles And More" To A Whole New Level

Here we go with another episode of hey moron, that's not a doctor.

I don't know about you, but I don't think I've ever gone to a doctor's office in the back of a floor tile store. I've seen houses converted into medical offices, but it's usually not in the back room.

At any rate, that's where Elena Caro went to receive buttock enhancement injections.

Her daughter says it wasn't her time to die. On the contrary, I think she was given lots of chances to back out, and she went ahead. If there is a big guy upstairs pushing buttons, he was pushing, "continue, continue, ok, confirm? Yes."

She heard about this makeshift doctor's office from a close friend. I'm sure that friend feels like dirt right about now. But unlike our star of the show, she survived the butt injections, so she's not *in* the dirt. Caro first went for facial botox injections, and after that went well, she booked the buttock-enhancing shots. So, she went to this floor tile place not once, but twice, and still thought this was a good idea.

Her daughter drove her to the place for the shots and noticed there were no diplomas on the walls. Hmm. No diplomas on the walls, in the back room of a floor tile place. Hmmm. Two signs that this may not be the best decision.

Her daughter must have known in her gut that something was wrong, because she told Ruben Dario Matallana-Galvas and Carmen Olfidia Torres-Sanchez, the supposed doctors, to take care of her mom. But she trusted them because they treated her mom professionally and with authority. Yup, just like most con artists learn to do.

She got freaked out by the process, so left and said that she would come back in four hours when it was supposed to be done. Her mom did call once and tell her it was going well. But after that, she couldn't get a hold of her mom, and when she came back to get her, she found the room that they had used as an office empty and locked.

And here's where things get weird. Caro was found wandering around some remote part of the city in agony. They can only guess that someone dropped her off there. When an ambulance got her to the hospital, she died. It was all too late. In the meantime, our supposed doctors were trying to get on a plane and get back to Columbia. They were arrested and charged with murder. That's when they came up with all kinds of stories. She walked out of their office fine. We told her we didn't have the right equipment but we went ahead anyway. Yeah, because that's a good idea.

She wanted a firmer butt. Now she's kind of stiff all over. Please, people, when you go and get any medical procedure done in the back of a floor tile shop, it can't end well, ok?

Babies Wait For No Health Care System

I know rules are rules, but this is ridiculous.

A couple immigrated here from India. The mom was three months pregnant. Apparently, in Ontario, the rule is that you have to wait 3 months before you are elligible for OHIP, the province's health care. Well, the twins didn't want to wait that long. They were born in Sunnybrooke hospital, and by the sounds of it, they're doing well. Thankfully, their care was covered since they were born here, but mom wasn't so lucky. That'll be $22000, please.

I sort of kind of understand a rule being put in place to keep people from coming over, getting some kind of care they couldn't get where they were, getting it for free, and leaving, even though that seems like a far-fetched scheme. It's not easy to immigrate here. You would have to go through one hell of a lot of hoops just to leave again.

But even if I completely understood the rule, this was not planned. This was an emergency. Plus, what kind of trouble are we setting people up for if they can't get access to health care? What if someone who doesn't have a lot of extra money gets some kind of contageous disease and feels they can't pay for it to be treated? Wouldn't it end up costing the system more in the end?

The couple is saying they'll find a way to pay, and are amazingly not angry. But it's just ridiculous that no one wants to revisit the issue of this three-month waiting period rule, even though this case seems like the perfect reason to have a look.

He Asked You To Do What? And You Did It?

Wow. Speaking of frightening things people fall for...

Steven Demink liked to cruise through online dating sites. He would steal pictures of male models and use them as his headshots. He called himself a psychologist and single father. He would find mothers, and convince them that as some form of therapy, they should engage in sex acts with their children, and live stream him the footage. And seven women obliged, with kids ranging from 3 to 15 years of age!

Excuse me? How desperate and messed up would these women have to be to do this and not have it raise red flags? How could this not scream "Wrong!"? One woman even told her mother about what she did, at which point, her mom called in the cops and got the process rolling to catch this guy.

Seven women did this! Seven! How could they? So what if he promised them dates? So what if he said it would result in healthier children? How could they?

And if he can get charged with what he did, it's not much of a leap to charge William Melchert Dinkel.

I Call For A Code Blew My Mind

I saw this a while ago, but couldn't find a story on it.

If you collapse in a hospital, you would think that you would have help readily available, right? Apparently not at Peace Arch Hospital in White Rock, B.C. according to Stephen Braybrooke. His father collapsed feet from a nursing station, and the nurses remained in the station and called 911 instead of calling for a code blue and coming to the guy's aid.

What? Why? I'm sure the paramedics could not understand being summoned to help someone *inside* a hospital, ya know, where all the doctors and nurses are.

The hospital is extremely lucky that Jim Braybrooke survived, does not remember what happened, and is in good spirits. If the 86-year-old man died, there would have been a lawsuit for sure.

This Story Took Me To My Unhappy Place

Holy hell! This is just insane! It's insane enough that a nurse would steal painkillers from a patient, but more insane is that the rest of the team carried on the procedure even though the patient was in obvious pain! Excuse me? They had to hold him down to finish. Hold him down? Wouldn't someone have checked what he got? And the nurse that did this to him began to be unsteady on her feet and fell asleep and they just carried on? What kind of hospital is this? And all the spokesperson managed to say was

"It doesn't sound like something that we would want to happen to one of our patients. This isn't the kind of behavior we would want in our hospital."

Doesn't sound like? Excuse me?

I can't even imagine being told that they couldn't give enough painkillers, and to man up and take some of the pain. Then, while moaning and struggling, to be told to "go to your beach, your happy place."

I'm so glad he went to the police. Who knows how many people Sarah Casareto has done this to. And Abbott Northwestern Hospital needs a good wake-up call.

Custom-Built Pregnancy

I wasn't going to post about this, but it's bugging me.

Back in April, I posted about a case where a doctor aborted the wrong fetus in a set of twins. Well, apparently the practice of selective termination is becoming more common.

They call it a reduction. Way to sanitize the idea of killing off one fetus. At least "abortion" is an accurate portrayal. This procedure was originally created for cases where somebody was carrying a hideous number of fetuses, and carrying them to term could kill mamma and possibly some of the babbies. But now, some families who end up carrying twins are using this procedure because they just don't want to be bothered raising twins. Oh they have a career and they just couldn't be themselves if they had 3 kids a couple years apart. Waaa. Meanwhile, other families who were forced to terminate a fetus to save the mother are dealing with the grief for the rest of their lives.

So tired. This idea makes me so, so, so tired. I don't feel like I have the energy to flesh out the obvious reasons why.

I'm glad doctors figured out how to do this procedure, because I'm sure it has saved lives. Why did someone have to go and louse it up? Oh yeah, because it's human nature to take something perfectly good and twist its use into something questionable.

Disease Transplant?

Good lord. Please don't let our organ supply get so bad that our doctors start implanting diseased organs into patients awaiting transplants. A woman in the UK battling cystic fibrosis, for example, got a lung transplant. What they didn't tell her was she received the lungs of a chain smoker. She didn't make it long.

I don't have any words. I know it's hard to get healthy organs from people, since the person would in most cases have to croak first, but is it a good idea to give people organs from cancer-sufferers, people at high risk of carrying HIV, and obese people whose hearts wouldn't be able to go the distance anyway? Are you truly prolonging the life of the transplant patient, or are you just trying to check them off the list so it looks better?

How depressing.

You Can Walk In, But We Don't Have To Take You And We Don't Have To Tell You That

I should start off by saying that no, I didn't have a bad experience at the walk-in clinic today, in fact it was pretty great from a blind dude needing customer service perspective. Everybody I dealt with was nice and helpful, so thank you, Campus Estates. I'm glad I can say that, because if I had met up with the wrong end of a policy you seem to have, this post and the rant I likely would have unleashed in the building wouldn't be so nice.

If you're following the still kind of shiny new Twitters, you may know that I've been having some problems with my left eye. I got an eyelash in it the other day and it hasn't been the same since. At first I thought it was something that was going to take care of itself, but yesterday evening pretty much punched me in the face while screaming otherwise, so off to the clinic I went this morning. $40 plus on cabs and $30 worth of eye drops that weren't covered by my benefits later, I'm back home with some drops to take care of what they say is a simple little infection. Yay, I like simple. Simple is good.

But moving on, it's the $40 plus worth of cabs that I'd like to focus on here.

When looking up what we have for walk-in clinics in Guelph (it sure didn't take long since there aren't many of them), I saw a note in the listing for the only one in town that's open during the day that said "Please note: these hours depend on patient volume and doctor availability and are subject to change without notice." Without notice? Hmm, that's not good. I need to cab there because I'm not overly familiar with the area and even if I was, my eye was causing a distraction to the point that I'm not sure I'd feel completely comfortable walking and taking buses. I am however familiar enough with the area to know that getting from where I am to where the eye drops are via taxi ain't gonna be cheap. So I did the logical thing and called the phone number that was listed. I was greeted by a recorded message saying pretty much the same thing that the website had told me, basically that if they felt like it, they'd shut the place down. Conveniently, there was no way to speak to a human or even to leave a message. In a sense I totally get that because you don't need everybody and his brother calling you to ask about itchy asses and genital deformities, but it would have been nice to know that I wasn't about to spend a pile of money for no reason.

Thankfully I took my chances and was rewarded by an open clinic and quick service, but the fact that I might not have been so lucky and there would be nothing I could do about it is just plain wrong. There's no way I'm the only person who would be cabbing there, and I'd love to know how many people have been screwed over by this without notice stuff. If I had been I'd be raising hell to anybody I could find until I got my wasted $40 back, but a lot of people aren't me and would probably just shut up and take it.

This is one policy that needs changing for the sake of doing right by people, or at the very least if the volume of patients doesn't justify keeping the joint running, change the recording on the machine to reflect that so we'd know when we called that there's no point in making the trip. Doesn't seem to me that this would be all that hard, and I hope you'll consider it. It would be the nice, fair and proper thing to do.

Hope You Trust Your Doctor

*shiver*! If you need genetal surgery, make sure you get it from a doctor you trust. *shudder*. Otherwise you might end up like CAROLYN DeWaegeneire. She says that she went in to have a precancerous piece of skin removed from her vulva, but just before the anesthesia took her under, the doctor leaned close to her and said 'I'm going to take your clitoris too.' His lawyer claims he had to take it because the cancer would spread, and he never said that to her before she went under, but I have my doubts about the truth of that statement because of this little exchange.

The nurse allegedly told police she asked the doctor: "That's fairly radical surgery. Why are you taking so much?'"

He allegedly replied: "If I don't take it all the cancer will spread."

Nurse: "You would not be taking my clitoris no matter what."

Doctor: "Her husband's dead so it doesn't matter anyway."

Excuse me? Excuse...me?

That's just...scary. And if he has done this to her, he has probably done this to others.

*shiver*.

The Doctor Is Not In The Living-Room

Two questions. What is permanent makeup, and if you wanted laser treatments and breast injections done, would you let someone do those to you on someone's living-room sofa? If you see it here, you know the answer.

Hearing about how the supposed cosmetic surgeon almost tore off her patient's eyebrows and then the patient threatened to report her to the police makes me think of our tattooed friend. Maybe she should make the threats when Conchita Sadiua Caspillo's knife is nowhere near her.

I also love that the article says that a woman's face was permanently scared. You mean she permanently looks scared? Oh, scarred. I see.

People, the sofa is not a proper operating table.

Aaaa! That's Not Santa!

This story of a doctor's body being found inside another man's chimney just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

So it starts out that neighbours noticed a bad smell in the neighbourhood and they didn't know why. Then, someone who was checking on the fish at a neighbour's house happened to notice fluids in the fireplace, looked up the chimney, and oh dear dear! A body! Also, neighbours had noticed belongings of a neighbour's ex-girlfriend just laying around outside, so wondered if she'd been kidnapped.

Then it comes out that the body belongs to a local doctor by the name of Jacquelyn Kotarac and she had dated the inhabitant of the house. At first, investigators had thought the death suspicious, but it looks like she went in the chimney of her own accord. So I thought maybe she came over to help him with his fireplace, slid, got stuck, and died for some reason.

But then it seems that when she arrived at the house, the guy who lived there left to avoid confrontation. So she tried to break in by going down the chimney? And how come he didn't come back for a week?

But by the end, I started to wonder if it was a suicide. They were talking about all her tax liens, nearly losing her house, and her upcoming arraignment for defrauding an innkeeper.

I guess we'll never know why she slid down the flue. I think a lot of people will be scratching their heads for a long time.

I Think We Should Perform A C-Section. Yeah? Well I Think I Should Perform A Punch In The Teeth-Section...On You!

There has been stories of doctors in fistfightsbefore,but generally things turn out ok, most everyone laughs and life goes on. But in this case,not so much.

Laura Salpietro's gynecologist and the on duty doctor at the Italian hospital where she was giving birth had a disagreement over whether or not to perform a C-section on her. A fight ensued, delaying the birth by over an hour. The child was eventually delivered, but not without complications. Salpietro's uterus had to be removed and her baby was born with heart problems and possible brain damage.

Five doctors are now under investigation (I have no idea who the other three are or what they may have done or not done), and Ferruccio Fazio, Italy's Health Minister, has visited Salpietro in the hospital to personally apologize.

No word on any lawsuits or compensation, but I hope there will be both.

M Is For Mastectomy

I can't believe I've never written about Sheyla Hershey, but it appears I haven't. The story goes that she has wanted bigger and bigger breasts. The last size she wanted was an M cup. She went to surgeons in Texas to have it done, but they wouldn't touch her. not to be denied, she went to Brazil, and they put the implants in.

Then, when she was having a kid, she asked to have the giant implants removed and have a smaller set put in. Now, she's fighting a potentially life-threatening staph infection, and if she doesn't die, she might lose at least one breast.

And this is the point where I have to giggle. I giggle and chuckle. If she'd just been satisfied with what she had, then she likely would not be struggling to survive.

So ladies, bigger isn't always better. If you don't believe me, just ask Sheyla potentially soonn-to-be one-breasted Hershey.

It Sounds Like The Hospital From Hell

When you get to the hospital, you don't expect to get more injuries inflicted on you. But that's exactly what happened to Joseph Wheeler. He arrived at Prince George's Hospital in Maryland after being in a car accident. When he woke up, he wanted some food. The nurse said he couldn't get food because he was going into surgery. Surgery? Why yes, for the removal of a mass in his chest that could be cancerous. He looked at his bracelet, and saw that it had a woman's name, with a birth date 13 years prior to his.

Realizing that things didn't look too safe, after all they were about to pack a man off for surgery meant for a woman, he and his wife decided they should get out of here and get help somewhere else. But when they tried to leave, hospital security beat him up! Yes, they beat him up, giving him a concussion, several broken ribs, a ruptured spleen and a sprained shoulder, along with whatever injuries he had going in. Administrative staff even tried to bribe him with a private room and any pain med he wanted after he had been beaten up and thrown around. Uh, nope, I think I'll go to a hospital that's supposed to do its job. The Wheelers are suing.

Yikes. I hope they win their lawsuit. And in figuring out where this hospital was, I notice that it's a teaching hospital. I see they have some learning to do, starting with their choice of security guards. Next, the nurses need to be taught the difference between a man and a woman.

The Results Aren't Shocking, But The Experiment Is

Ow ow ow ow ow ow!

So apparently, there's this new way to do surgery called electrosurgery that involves a current being concentrated and creating an incision without actually cutting. I guess dudes who want a circumcision later, but don't want blades going near their penises thought this would be a good alternative. Some doctors weren't so sure about this, so decided to find out if they were correct. So, they experimented on themselves, and discovered that they were in fact correct. Bad, bad things can happen very quickly if you expose your wang to electricity.

Ow ow ow ow ow ow! I know you have to collect evidence to support a theory, but...um...did they really have to do these experiments? I mean, couldn't they find natural occurrences where some poor unfortunate souls had somehow zapped their private parts by some freak accident? Look at our blog. All kinds of strange things happen to all kinds of strange people. Couldn't they find enough data through medical journals? The one thing they said after talking about all the paralysis, disfunction and splitting that current to the unit could cause, they said no penises were harmed in this experiment. How is that possible?

Well, I hope they can win some kind of award for being so...brave.

Doctor Stripped Of His License For Getting Female Patients To Strip Naked Unnecessarily

Here's another case of a doctor tricking women into doing some pretty crazy stuff. Women, before you go to an acupuncturist, I think you should know there are no acupuncture points inside the vagina. Thankfully, it wasn't as bad as I originally thought. I thought he was sticking needles there. It turns out what he was doing was trying to do internal exams and saying that there were pressure points in there that he had to get at. Pretty bad, but not as painful as I originally thought.

Over the years, Dr. Grant Woo had squeezed women's nipples, tried to touch women inappropriately, and had put some kind of herbal powder inside one woman's vagina, apparently to help her with her digestive problems. Um, digestive? I know everything's connected, but what?

I have one question about this story. There's a picture which is tagged "naked female." Is it seriously of a naked woman? Was she ok with this? Or is somebody being silly with the alt tags?

Good Luck Sleeping After This Doozer Of A Dream

I had a really weird dream last night, and I think the weirdest part was I could actually feel things in the dream. I hate it when that happens. It makes me nervous.

I dreamed I had to go to the doctor for a check-up. But it looked like I was back at the children's hospital where I used to have to go. There were even kids playing with the big wooden puzzles in the waiting area.

The doctor came over to me in a hurry and told me to come with him. He had a big thick file in his hands that seemed to have everything in it that I had to go through from when I was a baby. He kept saying that way back at some point, I was sent somewhere in the states for a test, and had to go under general anesthetic. I said I don't remember that. He kept saying I did go through it, it says here in this file, and I was a baby, and the reason I had gone for that test has come back again. What he said was something like "demons from that time have come back to haunt you." I kept asking him to clarify, but he wouldn't tell me anything.

He led me into his office and slapped down that thick file again. He opened it, and was showing me charts, even drawing on my hand. But nothing in the charts seemed out of the ordinary to me. Then he said I had to have a CT scan. I said ok, but where would I leave Trixie? Then I said I guess I could tie her somewhere nearby and out of danger if it was only a 15-minute ct scan. He thought for a minute and said "I'm sure someone could look after her for a while while you recovered." Recovered? From a CT scan? I questioned him about that, but he would say no more. Then I wondered if they were going to try and sedate me because I was at the children's hospital, and they often sedated kids so they'd be still in the CT scan, so I said I didn't need to be sedated if that's what they were thinking, so I shouldn't need to recover. He said ok, as if he listened to me.

Then a woman came in, and started talking to me. Then she started combing through my hair as if checking for lice. I asked her what she was doing, and she said "Looking for a vein." She said this completely calmly, like this was normal. I kepd demanding to know what was really going on, at which point they only would talk to each other. Then she must have found what she was looking for, because something went into my head and god did it hurt. Then she said she had to make sure it wouldn't move and pinned it in place and that hurt too. Then my voice sounded all funny, like somehow the thing was blocking part of my nose. Then she said to the doctor, "When she starts having broken speech, we know it's working." It didn't matter what I said to them, neither of them would act like I was saying anything that required a response.

Then they made me stand up and we started walking. I kept asking if I was just going for a CT scan, or if something else was going on and if so, what was it. They kept saying everything would be fine, and that was all they would say. At this point, I wished my mom was there so I could ask her if I'd ever gone for this test they talked about. Maybe she could interpret for me what in hell was going on. Maybe she would talk to me like a person, unlike these two. But I knew there was no way I could get a hold of her this second, and soon, apparently, I wouldn't be able to speak. We got into an elevator and I started to panic. I wished I'd paid attention to where the CT machine was, whether it was up a floor or down from the doctor's office. Maybe then the elevator's movements would tell me once and for all if they were lying.

And I guess I started breathing all ragged and short in real life. In the dream, I was starting to hyperventillate, so that would make sense. Steve noticed, and sorta woke me up. I'm glad he did.

What the hell was that? I know that would never, ever, happen in real life, or I should hope not. I do think of that story Ann told about being sedated against her will when she was having a kid, but gees! This was just insane. I should think I have a little more faith in my family doctor than that! Where was this all coming from, and why? The closest comparison I can draw is I heard a horror story about things going bad for a guy in an ambulance who was having a seizure, but that's a stretch.

It was all so vivid. There were details in it that made the whole thing all too real. My doctor was there from when I was a kid, the room was the same room, I remembered facts that I knew from that hospital, like how little kids were sedated when going through CT scans and mom fought to make sure they didn't do that to me because she thought it might mess with me somehow, I can't remember how, and she insisted to them that she could tell me to keep still and I would. All of that was there in that dream, but then there was all that other wacky stuff. And there was the element of being able to feel pain in the dream. That always scares me, since last time things went crazy with me, I had a lot of dreams where I could feel pain. I'm pretty sure all is well with me, but I notice those dreams more now because of that.

I read that, and think I must look a wee bit insane. I sure felt insane when I woke up. Hopefully now I can forget about the dream.