TV Star

I was running a little late this morning, and I was hoping that upon my arrival I would see a vacant waiting room at Disability Physicals. Unfortunately, I opened the door to the office, and saw four unhappy faces staring up at me. So, not only was I late, but my 9, 9:30, 10, and 10:30 were already there. I nodded my head in a brief hello, they scowled back, and I ducked into my office. The first patient was a Air Force veteran who had hurt his knee while "shuffling papers on the job." He said that, aside from getting a total knee replacement, the VA wouldn't pay for anymore treatments, and since he was eight years too young to get a total knee, he was out of luck. In addition, he stated that he had been thrown out of the local homeless shelter since he was "trying to get all my stuff that everyone had stolen out of my bag," (I'm sure there was more to that story) and therefore was really anxious about the upcoming winter storm later this week. He stated that he "really needed that disability check now, so I can get a good motel or something," to which I unfortunately had to tell him, "it usually takes about another month after this visit to receive any benefits." That apparently made him really mad, because he jumped right up out of his seat, and stomped out of the room, kicking the door on the way out. Apparently his knee wasn't bothering him anymore.

The next patient said that he too had hurt his knee, but also complained of some shoulder, elbow and neck pain that he acquired after "falling through a four-story roof." He stated that he had hit "a bike, a bathtub and a big clock," on the way down, and therefore couldn't work. I questioned him a little more about his injury, and he admitted that "I wanted to go back to work that day, but I ate lunch instead and I got fired." Interesting... Now, I understand that his story by itself is not too strange, but this gentleman was one of the oddest people I've met so far. Throughout the interview he proceeded to hit himself in the knee, face, neck and ear with the reflex hammer, measure the circumference of his face with my measuring tape, and, after slamming his hand with the tuning fork, put the tool to his ear and said, "I've never heard a sound like this before." Not only that, but he kept trying to touch me, even after I moved away from him multiple times. Now, I normally don't have a problem with physical contact, but if someone obviously doesn't want you to touch them, maybe you shouldn't, you know? I was wearing my Med school scrubs, complete with stiched logo, and he kept trying to pull the logo off, making statements like "there's something on your shirt," or "I like your colored pants, can I have them." After a brief (very brief) physical exam, I bid him farewell, and he touched me once again, stating "you're really young to be a doctor, I bet I could be your daddy." I responded, "I'm older than I look, and have a good day."

The 10:00 patient was totally normal, no problems at all. Then came the 10:30.

He walked into the exam room, swaggering with his pants halfway to the floor. He was around 5'1", weighted approximately 250 lbs, and had his hair in beads, standing almost straight up in the air. He sat down, and the following conversation ensued.
"So, what keeps you from being able to work?"
"Well, I was working down in Dallas, at a daycare center run by my old lady. We was doing good, we had a couple of kids that were good, then I started doing the PCP, and we got shut down."
"Well," I said, "that could make running a daycare center pretty difficulty, so are you addicted to the drug now?"
"Oh hell no," he responded, "Now I teach kids to stay away from gangs and drugs and everything. You see, I came home from the job one day, and found my girl in the bed with another dude. We got into a fight, and I got shot six times, and stabbed in the belly. I was like 'hey, why you with my girl?' and he was like 'I gonna kill you fool!' Then he shot me!"
"Ah, so you can't work because you got shot?"
"Yeah, I can't feel my right hand - the bullet blew out my armpit. It got my left fingers, too, but they're ok. But my girl was like 'why ain't you dead, fool?' and I was like 'oooh, call an ambulance!' so she did, and I'm here. But I wanted my money, so I took on Ricky Lake for some justice, but Ricky found that I was cheating! But I ain't, I walked in on her!"
As you might imagine, I didn't really know what to say to this, so I just nodded, and proceeded to the physical exam. Wouldn't you know it, he had lots of scars, and couldn't move his right hand. As he was leaving, he said, "I hope y'all are better at figuring out the truth than Ricky Lake!" I hope so as well...

And after all of that, do we really need quotes of the day?

Until later,
-DD