Control Issues

My two year old has taken to carrying an old remote with him- all over the place. He even sleeps with it. As he is walking around, he asks me,"you want to watch this?" and clicks. It is as if clicking the remote will change his reality and the way things happen around him.
I can see he would like to control things around him and a remote, to him at least is a good way to go about it- gosh, his father does it all the time!

How the economic crisis affected me today

My usual, rather hackneyed question to my patient is- "How are you doing today?"
His response was "I just lost my job- I work at the senior center as a driver for the day care center and they let me go, as they have lost so much funding".
My usual second question is "How can I help you?" "Hire me- I am a good jack- of- all trades".
He will be living out of a car with a wife that needs insulin for her diabetes.The insulin needs refrigeration, how will they manage?

Missing a Diagnosis

My first patient of the day was a young woman who is undergoing chemotherapy for recurrent ovarian cancer. After I had examined her and dealt with the medical issues that I- as a Primary Care doc- needed to take care of, she starts telling me about when she was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer. It seems like her belly started swelling, so she went to her doctor and told him that she thought something was wrong with her. He said- you really need to exercise- so, she did. Then she started having bloating, felt short of breath as she lay down in bed, she went to him again- again nothing was done. Finally, in desperation, her mother took her to the ER, where she had a ascitic tap and got admitted for further work up.
I asked her - did this physician ever examine you? She says I cannot honestly remember.
Wow! What's happened to us- what do we do with our patients? My take home point is- always examine the patient in the best way you possibly can. Their life depends on it.
Here is a review of ovarian cancer.

songs

During my seemingly interminable commute, I came upon this hauntingly beautiful song that I have to share with you, its from Bagdad Cafe.
This is just one of those songs that keeps haunting you- makes me want to go to see the movie which is a cult hit, I was told.
Then I went on to listen to Jeff Buckley who is am amazing artist- wish you were here.
A nice, atomospheric sort of weekend for me, but one which makes me ask- am I going through a mid-life crisis?

slumdog and others like it

Disclaimer- I have not yet seen Slumdog Millionaire.
People have been constantly mentioning Slumdog to me (probably,because I am Indian)- even patients I see in clinic want to know if I have seen the movie,and if I liked it. Most people say they thought it was great. I, obviously, do not know what to think about it. All I tell folks is that it is not really an Indian movie, financed by the French, brought about by a British team but it is Indian in that it was shot on site at Dharavi and it did have an Indian crew.
I am pleased that it makes people think about poverty, which we have plenty of, in India. It brings attention and that is good, just as "Smile Pinki" does. It may make us do more and that is all good.
Amongst the category of Indian films, sort of at least, which are Oscar winners is another documentary called "Born into Brothels". I have seen this one and it is probably one of the more hopeful documentaries/docudramas that I have seen. It made me appreciate the human spirit and not to take things at face value, as all of us sometimes do. See it, if you can.

"Keep calm and carry on"

I was driving to work one day and I heard this on NPR; it seems there is this poster from the World War 11, which has becomes seriously popular in these diificult times. This really resonated with me at that particular moment- I was driving to the outpatient clinic which is about 25 miles away from the hospital where I had rounded on a few seriously sick people and while on my way, I was called to let me know that my two year old had high fever.
I repeated to myself- keep calm and carry on....it did seem to help a little.
Check this out for the real thing .

men are from mars....

I feel it diminishes the human being when we talk about the differences in the sexes as being so important.I also think gross generalizations are not useful and do not help us, as people, to do better in our life.
But, this is a rant against the unfairness of life. I was talking to my husband, and just casually mentioned that I told somebody at work that I was really happy I could make it to my son's school for a pizza lunch when he has an early closure. He started off by chiding me...its not good to be so openly personal at work, I really should not be talking so much about my children and especially, going off to see my son when I am doing lunch.
It got me thinking of the ridiculousness of the whole situation, he can talk about his children, even down to discussing how our two year old has been difficult to wean off the breast- that just shows the world that he is a stable, family man while if I do something similar I may be painted as undependable.
I am still seething....