CRASH COURSE
onfession is good for the soul, as the old saying goes. So here is my confession. I guess I’ll make it anonymously since, a.) who I happen to be is irrelevant, b.) many, many people can relate to what I’m about so say, so the topic is universal, and c.) the statute of limitations may not have run out on some of this stuff. But maybe it will still be good for the soul.
remember that was me not so long ago. I think I was maybe 50% in complete denial, 50% proud of my awesome driving skills, and let’s throw in another 10% for guilt and shame. As you can see, it just didn’t add up.
{ { REALLY?
This confession is about aggressive driving. By me. Lots of it. Years of it, and all the things that go along with aggressive driving: speeding, tailgating, reckless passing the works.
I’m not proud of this sorry history, but at least it is that: history. I don’t drive like that anymore. I would have to check with my wife for an exact number (which will surely be much lower than the number I’m about to provide), but I would estimate that I’m around 98% cured, with only a brief occasional relapse. Being a former offender makes it easy for me to spot current offenders. I shake my head and wonder why they drive so crazy, but then I
What was so important that I had to risk my life (not to mention my passengers, if any) and someone else’s with a dangerous pass just to be a car length or two (translation: an entire second) ahead of another driver?
Let me give you a couple examples from the past week to illustrate the kind of driver I used to be (and still am a little bit).
The other day I came down Wheeler Road to the point where it becomes Flowing Wells Road. At that point there are two lanes for turning left onto Wheeler Road. I was in the outside lane, which ends fairly quickly, requiring a prompt merge into the left through lane. I chose that lane because the vehicle in the inside lane was an old, beat-up pickup truck. When the light
Please see CRASH COURSE page 5
ONE
IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER
In 2023 the U.S. Surgeon General issued a major report calling loneliness and isolation a health problem of “epidemic” proportions. The report cited scientific research that up to half of all American adults report experiencing loneliness, and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic.
You might wonder why the top health agency in the land would weigh in on a topic that is so personal and so self-definable. After all, the very circumstance that would catapult one person into the depths of loneliness and despair would be perfectly fine to the next person.
Think of it this way: a patient might say, “I think I have glaucoma.” After examining the patient a doctor may be able to state with certainty, “No you don’t.” But if someone says, “I’m lonely,” who has the ability — or even the right — to say, “No you’re not”?
It is a condition where the patient’s self-diagnosis is all that matters. If someone says they feel lonely and isolated, we might feel like they shouldn’t, but we have no choice but to accept their assessment.
Why is it important? The Surgeon General’s report, citing clinical research data, says loneliness is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia,
Please see LONELINESS page 9
PARENTHOOD
by Dr. Warren Umansky, PhD
You are frustrated that your wife lets your five-year-old daughter sleep in your bed every night. Your daughter has never slept in her own bed. In fact, mom lies down with her in your bed at 8:00 so she will fall asleep more quickly. Then, she tries to get up after your daughter falls asleep. Often, your daughter will wake up when mom tries to get out of bed and your wife has to lie down longer. Sometimes, your daughter is still awake when you are ready to go to bed. What do you do?
A. Just avoid dealing with; it’s a wasted effort. Find another place to sleep.
B. In lots of cultures, family members sleep together. It’s not a real problem.
C. Suggest to your wife that this might be a problem and the two of you should speak with your pediatrician or a mental health specialist.
D. Resign yourself to the reality of the situation. Let it go. It won’t change, so just settle in and try to get as much sleep as you can.
If you answered:
A. Your wife might realize it’s a problem when you start sleeping elsewhere. It is a problem. Your daughter does not fall asleep easily and might not be getting enough sleep. This also interferes with parental intimacy. This is not a status quo you should accept.
B. Family members sleep together mostly in cultures where the children never leave home. In modern cultures, children are always being prepared for their roles in adulthood. They are nurtured in their early years to seek knowledge, to love, to be appropriately social, and to learn independence. Co-sleeping into the preschool years is likely to interfere with one or more of those goals of childhood.
C. This is a good choice if nothing else has persuaded your wife that your daughter should go to sleep in her own bed.
D. Don’t give in. For the good of your daughter’s safety and healthy development and for the preservation of your marriage, you are wise to pursue a speedy (it’s well overdue already!) remedy to this arrangement.
There is body of research about co-sleeping with children of different ages that talks about safety issues, long term sleep problems, and behavior problems in childhood. You want your child to feel secure enough to go to sleep easily in her own bed. You can let her know that you will check in on her periodically so she knows you are there and she is safe. It’s okay if she shows up in your room in the middle of the night. You can give her the option of lying down next to your bed where you have put a blanket and pillow or returning to her room. If she comes in your room close to wake-up time, it’s okay for her to crawl in bed with her parents and enjoy cuddle time.
Dr. Umansky has a child behavioral health practice in Augusta.
NEXTISSUE
NEW FEATURE!
THOUGHTS ABOUT THOUGHTS THOUGHTS
PANIC DISORDER
Editor’s note: Written by local mental healthcare professionals, this series shares thoughts on how people think and act when affected by common and not-so-common mental health conditions.
Laurin is a 25-year-old student who had her first panic attack eight months ago. Although she’s struggled with anxiety in the past, she’s never seen a therapist before. The panic attacks come out of nowhere and last about 10 minutes; her heart races, she feels sweaty and can’t catch her breath.
“I feel like I’m going to die,” she says.
A few months ago, she went to urgent care after a particularly bad attack, worried she had a heart problem. The doctor told her that she’s physically fine, that it was probably anxiety, and suggested she see a psychiatrist. Laurin has taken that advice since the panic attacks have become more frequent; she has them several times a week. They’re so bad, she’s stopped hanging out with friends and switched to virtual classes since she’s worried that she’ll have a panic attack and feel embarrassed.
About 1 in 10 people in the U.S. experienced a panic attack in the last year. Those attacks progress to a panic disorder for about 1 in 50.
A panic disorder diagnosis means:
• You’ve had regular panic attacks for at least a month
• The attacks aren’t related to a medical or other cause (like a heart problem or too much caffeine).
• They cause changes in behavior, like avoiding friends or social situations.
Women are two times more likely than men to be diagnosed with a panic disorder. And panic disor-
Stopping the panic
Psychotherapy or medication are the two main treatments for panic disorders. Both are effective, and patients can decide which they prefer. Do they have time to meet with a therapist and would rather not take medication? Or are they busy and would like to try medication first? Some patients may also benefit from both.
der tends to run in families. Common signs and symptoms include:
• Chest pain
• Racing heart
• Difficulty breathing, such as feeling like you’re going to hyperventilate
• Feeling dizzy or like you’re going to pass out
• Feeling sweaty
• Tremors or shakiness
• Nausea
• Intense terror
• Tingly or numb hands
• Feeling like you’re choking or your throat is closing
• Feeling like you’re losing control
• Feeling like you’re going to die
Although people who have panic attacks tend also have an anxiety disorder, that’s not always the case. A panic attack can happen out of the blue, even when there’s no trigger. No one really knows what causes panic disorders, although they could be related to our “fight or flight” instinct.
With psychotherapy, patients typically meet with a therapist once a week, for a specific number of visits. Treatment can include cognitive behavioral therapy, which helps the person recognize their fearful thoughts and reactions and come up with ways to cope. For example, they might tell themselves, “My heart is racing, I’m having a panic attack. I need to slow down and practice my breathing.”
Therapists can provide breathing or grounding exercises to help patients navigate through an attack. A grounding exercise helps a person focus on things around them, such as five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.
Another option is exposure therapy, where patients expose themselves to what triggers their panic. For example, if someone is anxious about the thought of going to school, a therapist might suggest the patient sit in the classroom (when class isn’t in session) for about five minutes, then longer, until they can work their way up to attending class.
24/7, free, confidential mental health hot-line that connects individuals in need of support with counselors across the United States and its territories. People do not have to be suicidal to call. Reasons to call include: substance use disorder, economic worries, relationships, culture and identity, illness, intimate partner violence, depression, mental and physical illness, and loneliness. +
With medication, psychiatrists might prescribe an SSRI (serotonin reuptake inhibitor) like Zoloft or Prozac or an SNRI like Effexor for up to a year, depending on how patients respond to treatment; both are antidepressants. Anti-anxiety medications like benzodiazepines could also be prescribed; a psychiatrist would reevaluate a patient’s need to stay on this medication every 30 days.
A newer option is propranolol, a beta-blocker. Typically used to treat blood pressure, when taken in small doses, the medication can help shut down a body’s fight or flight response.
MEDICAL MYTHOLOGY
THE COST OF
There is no denying it: human beings, in case you haven’t noticed, are imperfect. We all make mistakes. Even doctors.
Unfortunately, all mistakes are not created equal. Some are inconsequential. Others are death-dealing. A watercolor artist might just throw his mistakes in the trash, but as the old saying goes, doctors bury their mistakes.
The debate is, just how often do they bury their mistakes?
A lot of big numbers are mentioned whenever this debate surfaces. A few years ago a study was published which claimed that medical errors were such a massive problem that they amounted to the third-leading cause of death, right after heart disease and cancer. That ranking has been repeated often in the decade or so since that study’s release along with specific number es-
MISTAKES
timates: between 250,000 and 400,000 deaths each year are allegedly the result of medical errors like botched surgeries, misdiagnosed diseases, and improperly prescribed or administered drugs.
Stop and think for a moment about what those numbers would look like if they were true.
To facilitate that, it’s helpful to know that the medical errors study which made these alarming claims focused solely on hospital-based deaths, of which there are approximately 700,000 per year.
So if true, the numbers released would mean that medical errors cause a minimum of 35% — call it a third — of all hospital deaths; and if the true number is closer to 400,000 then nearly 60% of all hospital deaths are the result of mistakes. Way more than half!
What hospital could sur-
vive numbers like that? They would be investigated and micromanaged to the nth degree — if the doors weren’t padlocked.
Overall, there are an estimated 2.7 millions deaths every year nationwide, give or take, meaning that backing away and looking at the bigger picture, if this study was true medical errors would be responsible for some 10-15% of all deaths, hospital-based or not. Again, those are huge numbers.
Medical researchers have been trying to debunk this myth since its publication, but sometimes myths are pesky and persistent critters.
They point to various flaws in the original study, which was released by Johns Hopkins University. Incidentally, one of its two principle authors was Marty Makary, MD. If that name sounds slightly familiar, Dr. Makary is Donald Trump’s nominee to head the US Food & Drug Administration.
By contrast, the Institute of Medicine’s 2000 report, To Err Is Human, pegged the annual U.S. death rate caused by medical errors at between 44,000 and 96,000.
Not one person in medicine thinks even those numbers are acceptable, but they are certainly more palatable than 250,000 to 400,000.
WHAT ARE STEROIDS?
First, they are not rocky bodies in space orbiting the sun that occasionally plunge into the earth’s atmosphere as meteorites. The word for them is asteroids. One letter makes all the difference, right?
But in a related development, steroids have a reputation for creating rocky rock-hard bodies on earth. Weight lifter types take steroids to accelerate their body building program. That’s because these anabolic steroids are synthetic versions of testosterone, the so-called male hormone.
Simply put, they work by signaling cells, especially muscle cells, to build more protein, resulting in more muscle mass. They create quite a laundry list of side effects, including heart disease, elevated cholesterol levels, and higher risk of heart attack, stroke, and anger issues, sometimes called “roid rage.”
Their most puzzling side effect in men is growing man boobs and causing testicles to shrink. Why would testosterone of all things cause those side effects? It’s counterintuitive.
When the body detects surplus testosterone, it signals the testicles to stop producing more. Their shutdown leads to shrinkage. Conversely, the body can also convert excess testosterone to estrogen, the primary female sex hormone. This, in turn, can lead to the development of breast tissue in men, known as gynecomastia.
These anabolic steroids are the ones people are referring to idiomatically when they say something like, “The Augusta National is like Putt-Putt on steroids,” a comparison we’ve all heard hundreds of times.
But wait, you might be thinking, my doctor prescribed steroids for me when I had a rheumatoid arthritis flare-up. Or colitis. Or COPD. Or asthma. Or allergies. Or lupus. Or multiple sclerosis. Why do I need to bulk up muscles for those issues?
There are two very different categories of steroids. In addition to anabolic steroids discussed earlier are corticosteroids, prescribed for all the reasons listed just above and many more to help reduce inflammation. Corticosteroids can be anything from pills to nasal sprays, topical creams and even eye drops. They have their own separate benefits and side effects. +
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Who is this?
There are two sides to every story, a maxim perhaps never more true than in the life story of this man.
On the one hand he was a bona fide medical pioneer whose innovations are still making their mark and saving lives to this day. Still on that hand, however, some of the revolutionary changes he instituted haven’t exactly stood the test of time.
But on the other hand, his vices were such that his esteemed colleagues staged numerous interventions to try to derail him from the path of destruction he was traveling. In fact, in 1886 he was admitted against his will to a place in Rhode Island known as the Butler Hospital for the Insane, not even ten years after he graduated at the very top of his 1877 Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons class.
Clearly a fine physician in the making already, he then traveled to Europe for two years to study and train in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, meccas of advanced medical skills at the time, learning from a virtual Who’s Who of physicians famous to this day, more than a dozen of them.
Upon his return to America in 1880 he set about to put his advanced training to use, and to share it with as many as possible. He was puzzled by the reluctance of American physicians to accept and implement the new techniques.
Undeterred, he revolutionized surgery by elevating three concepts: pain control, preventing and/or controlling bleeding, and practicing the strict hygienic practices to prevent infection. He transformed the field of surgery from what one biographer described as “rushed butchery into a meticulous, sterilized art.” Journalist H.L. Mencken wrote in the 1930s, “The old method was to slit a man from the chin down, take out his bowels, and spread them on a towel while you sorted them out. [But he] held that if you touched an intestine with your finger, you injured it, and the patient suffered the effects of the injury.”
Even so, he is considered one of the major proponents of the radical mastectomy, a breast cancer treatment where the key word is radical. Years later, another surgeon introduced a much less invasive mastectomy procedure to replace one he described as “brutal.” (See “Who is this?” in the Nov. 15, 2024 Examiner at issuu.com/medicalexaminer).
In an ironic twist of fate, it was one of his own medical advancements that led to severe consequences for this brilliant surgeon, even prompting him in shame to sign in to Butler Hospital for the Insane as “William Stewart” instead of by his full name: William Stewart Halsted.
He and several colleagues had read in the literature about a promising new anesthetic. They even tested it on themselves. It was called cocaine. And it worked — too well.
As Halsted’s use of this then-legal wonder drug became a powerful addiction, well-meaning friends tried to intervene, kidnapping Halsted for a 2-week sea cruise, and another time taking him on a 3-month voyage abourd a schooner bound for the Windward Islands. The detox cruises worked only briefly.
His 7-month stay at Butler Hospital accomplished just one thing: it changed his lifelong addiction from cocaine to morphine. Halsted died in 1922 at age 69.
Fun Fact: Halsted’s wife was Caroline Hampton, the niece of Wade Hampton III, one-time Governor of South Carolina. +
Middle Age
BY J.B. COLLUM
One side effect of getting older is the length of your prayers. At least for me anyway. You know so many more people who are suffering from some illness or just the normal aging process, that you feel the need to mention in your prayers. Then there are those you’ve recently lost to that old enemy, death, and you feel the need to pray for their loved ones who are no doubt mourning them long past the time that it is evident to outsiders. You’ve lost a loved one; you know what I mean. Anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, even smells and locations will bring them back to mind. Only time can turn those sorrowful reminders into moments to cherish the memory and smile, and there is no timetable. Everyone is different. There is no shame in feeling your grief nor in expressing it. Durng our recent trip to Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge, I ran into so many of those memory-inducing reminders that this column wouldn’t have room to share them all, but I will share a few.
My father loved the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and almost everything surrounding it. We spent many vacations there across different seasons and enjoyed them all. Late in his life, after the dementia and other ailments kept him from driving or even walking very much, we took him and my mother with us on our trips there. The interval between the last two trips was about one year but the difference in his capabilities between the two trips was stark.
On our penultimate trip, he was able to still get around with his walker and we went to his favorite knife store (Smoky Mountain Knife Works) and didn’t leave until we had visited every counter and until we had purchased a few knives to add to our collections. I think we spent at least two hours there. On what turned out to be his last trip there, we didn’t even make it an hour, and he was sitting on a bench for the last part of that, waiting on me. He was ready for coffee. So I took him to Krispy Kreme and we had some coffee and donuts along with my son. We got some photos of us all wearing the Krispy Kreme paper diner-style cap they give out free there. It was goofy, but he was game for it.
On this most recent trip, my son wasn’t with me, but my grandson was, so I kept up the tradition and went back again with him, both to the knife shop and Krispy Kreme. If you are wondering, yes, we did get photos with the hats on. We started a new tradition, I got my grandson his first knife, and we made sure my wife, daughter, mother, and sister all got a knife. My granddaughter would have gotten one too, but she said she’d rather get some books, so we had our time together at a
bookstore and she got the books she wanted along with some I suggested.
We also visited one of my dad’s favorite places in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cades Cove. It is a slice of history as they essentially moved the people out when the park came into existence and kept the little town the same. There are cabins, churches, graveyards, an old grist mill, barns, and many other structures to visit and walk around in and around. My father was a simple man and a simple life was all he really craved. He could have been dropped down into the pioneer days of our nation and been happy as a clam. Hard work wasn’t something he avoided, he sought it out. He loved to build, plant, fish, and just spend time in nature, so Cades Cove would have been an ideal life for him. It has been three years now, so it is a little easier to see these things without shedding a tear as I tend to concentrate on the fun memories I have of him enjoying these places.
Whether you believe in or practice prayer or not, you can and should help your friends who may still be grieving, especially if they are a new widow or widower and most certainly if they are living alone. In addition to praying for them, I try to make a note in my calendar when someone dies so I can get a reminder to make a phone call or drop in to see the ones left behind long after the initial wave of support is gone. Our mental and emotional health can be greatly impacted by grief. If we could make those little notes and check on them maybe a week after their loss, and then again a month later, along with keeping anniversaries and other important dates in mind, and perhaps then keep a pattern of checking in on them for a while, it will most likely be much appreciated. If it is appropriate, maybe even take them out and do something fun with them to get their mind off of it for a while. Too many times, once the dead are buried and the funeral and post funeral meal is over, these people are forgotten by others. It isn’t malicious, we’re all just busy, but we need to make an effort to not let it happen. That’s what friends are for.
Our journey and adventure in middle age will eventually claim the lives of all of those in our traveling party, but until it does, let’s not forget one another along the way. Instead let’s make our travelling party just that, a party — a party to remember.
J.B. Collum is a local novelist, humorist and columnist who wants to be Mark Twain when he grows up. He may be reached at johnbcollum@gmail.com
turned green I hit the gas a little more than my normal semi-sedate start. I stepped on it. Lo and behold, the driver in the pickup truck had floored it. He was not about to let me get in front of him. If he did, he would be going down the road a full second — or even two — behind me. Unacceptable!
If you drive Columbia Road much, you know that the westbound lanes merge to a single lane just past Old Belair Road. And you’ve probably also noticed that drivers in the right lane, the one that’s about to end, aggressively speed up to cut in front of drivers in the left lane. The same practice is common on Walton Way where the outbound lane ends at Highland Avenue. Drivers speed up, ostensibly to turn right, then at the last second they squeeze left between cars going straight.
Stunts like these demonstrate several traits possessed by the drivers who do them: Maybe they’re geniuses, but they aren’t too bright when it comes to driving. I know; I was
THOUGHTS… from page 2
Final Prognosis
Panic disorders are highly treatable. Most patients do very well, although they do remain at higher risk for panic attacks compared to the general population. And like many other conditions, getting enough sleep, exercising, eating a healthy diet, and having a good support system can go a long way in helping to combat panic disorder.
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Dr. Crystal McManus is a physician at Integrated Psych Solutions. IPS provides inpatient and outpatient mental health services, with or without a referral, to help patients and their families progress through the care journey. To make an appointment, call 706-204-1366 or visit integratedpsych.care.
one of them. I was too dumb to realize all my ridiculous and reckless actions in pursuit of speed saved me no more than a few seconds at best.
In the process I — and the others like me — was a poster child for rudeness and selfishness. Who was I to think my destination or my schedule was more important than the lives and safety of other drivers around me?
And the thing about aggressive driving is that it isn’t about being late or needing to speed. It’s just a habit, and a very bad one at that.
For all of the people who drive like I used to — and I freely admit, there is nothing worse than a former smoker, former speeder, etc., who suddenly gets all pious and self-righteous — stop and think about what you’re doing behind the wheel. Take a moment and take stock.
I’ve been on both sides. I’ve been the ultraaggressive jerk, and I’m trying the safe and sane route now. This way is definitely better.
If you haven’t tried it, you should. You will be plesantly surprised.
Ode to V. D.
Valentine’s Day is coming soon, to Hallmark I must rush. But why are all the cards I see so full of rhyming mush? I cannot buy a card that reads, “Be mine ‘til rivers dry,” Or pick one up with a flowery front that says, “Yours until I die!”
Who writes these cards with vapid phrase that say “Will you be mine?” When we should know the answer is “Could be, maybe, sometime.”
Why can’t I find a card that reads “I like you man, you’re neat.” At least that has a ring of truth to sweep you off your feet.
Some things are better left unsaid; that you don’t have to tell. But this I say, no holding back, “I like you kid, you’re swell.”
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by Pat Tante
#2 IN A SERIES
Who is this?
Not everyone in healthcare can be Florence Nightingale, right? Despite the long-running series to the far left, there are clunkers in medicine, and we will examine some of them in this brief series that should be briefer. Unfortunately, there’s enough material to keep this going for a while.
This man has quite the claim to fame. Well, infamy. His name is Harold Shipman, and he was a bad, bad dude. He murdered so many of his patients that no one even knows the full total. But what is just slightly encouraging about his case is that he is the one and only doctor in the long history of British medicine to be convicted of murdering his patients. That says something good about the UK medical community.
It all started for Shipman, born in 1946, when his mother died from lung cancer. He was very close to her, and was just 17 when she died. Near the end of her life, doctors would come to her home and administer morphine to help ease her pain.
Harold was watching. Intently.
He decided to pursue a career in medicine, graduating from the University of Leeds School of Medicine in 1970. There were a few early telltale signs that trouble might be brewing: in 1975 he was caught forging a prescription for Demerol for his own use. He paid a fine and attended a drug rehabilitation clinic.
In the following two decades, Dr. Shipman continued to practice medicine, opening his own private practice in 1993 and becoming a respected member of the community, even being interviewed as a medical expert on news broadcasts.
In March of 1998, however, a fellow doctor expressed her concerns to the local coroner about the high death rate among Shipman’s patients. A cursory investigation revealed no evidence convincing enough to bring charges, and the matter was closed within a few weeks.
But just two months later, Shipman made a huge mistake. He treated a woman named Kathleen Grundy at her home. She was a former mayor of the town and was found dead soon after Shipman’s visit. Grundy’s daughter, an attorney, was informed by another attorney that her mother’s will excluded both her and her children, but left nearly half a million dollars to Shipman.
Grundy’s body was exhumed and found to contain morphine, the first of a pattern police discovered showing deaths of Shipman’s patients, many of them in good health, who were found to have been given lethal doses of morphine.
Police subsequently found a typewriter in Shipman’s home that was the very machine used to make Grundy’s forged will.
After examining the pattern of deaths among Shipman’s patients, police identified 15 “specimen” cases to investigate more closely. Shipman was charged in all 15 cases, each of which involved lethal injections of morphine. He was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Prosecutors felt that 15 separate life sentences made further prosecution unnecessary, but over time investigations confirmed 284 murder victims, although authorities cannot rule out the possibility of more. In all, 459 people died in his care, most of them elderly women Shipman hanged himself in prison in a successful attempt to protect his wife’s pension. +
LOUELLA, LOYALTY, AND LOGISTICS
Experience and treachery wins out over youth and skill any day. Natural ability fails to prevail in most cases. Louella was a master at reading people and crushing opposition. All I did was give her opportunities to glow.
The Las Vegas Hilton blackjack table held my attention.
The Hilton had the money edge, $5 million in the cage. I had $10,000, plus a welltrained brain, a highly honed strategically sound method, and an infallible partner. All out war. Them or us. Down to the last dollar. I exuded confidence that I did not have, while disaster lurked in the shadows.
flipped. Chips rattled. Bets placed. I played $100 black chips, usually one, two or four, depending upon the true count.
you might imagine. I knew what I was doing. I could count a deck in 35 seconds
BASED ON A TRUE STORY
(most of the time)
A series by Bad Billy Laveau
and tell you the last four cards with deadly accuracy. Counting a six-deck shoe was child’s play for me, even
Probability rules. Louella sat to my left. She kept the insurance count we developed. Her secret signals dictated when to surrender half my bet instead of playing my hand. Without an insurance count, never take insurance because it favors the house. Louella has turned a liability into a profit center for us. She was as reliable and dependable as Haley’s
silk Japanese kimono embellished with tasteful exotic birds. She made $500 a day against 10% of my profits, which ever was larger. She was college educated and spoke English, French, and Italian. The pit boss and the Eye in the Sky stared at her cleavage instead of me. Only a eunuch would do otherwise.
We were all about logistics. Amateurs plan strategy. Professionals plan logistics.
Our $3,000 buy-in was growing ahead of schedule. Our goal was to double up and go. Never make a big scene by winning a huge stack. Hold losses to half our buy-in. Never play longer than 3 hours. Tip good. Stay under the radar. Don’t drink alcohol. Sleep eight hours each night. Eat four small meals a day. Stay hydrated. We might have been the only junketeers to ever leave Vegas fully rested, moneyed, and happy. Most were hung over, sleep deprived, and exhausted, looking like the broke losers Vegas so loves. Vegas doesn’t build casinos on the backs of winners.
As the cards flew, a gentle tap on my should was accompanied by a controlled and serious voice, “Doctor, Mr. Rizzo wants to talk to you.”
Over my shoulder was a middle aged, slightly pudgy non-smiling Italian. He was bad news, the kind all counters dread. “I don’t think I am acquainted with a Mr. Rizzo,” I said. “Maybe some other time. I’m busy playing right now.”
He left. Five minutes later he was back. Tapped my shoulder. “Mr. Rizzo wants
to talk with you. Now.” Two heavy-duty guys in leather jackets flanked him. Their deadpan stares were enough to chill Godzilla’s blood. Humor was definitely not their strong suit.
I said the only reasonable thing I could. “Mr. Rizzo sounds like a nice enough guy. Maybe we should meet.”
Louella skillfully scooped our chips into her stylish Coach purse and took my arm as we walked to the manager’s office. She was never more than six inches from my elbow when we were in action, except for powder room excursions, and then I stood at the door waiting for her. And she for me, when nature called me. She played the expensive mistress who expected and deserved the best of everything.
Mr. Rizzo’s plush office carpet must have been three inches thick, judging from the softness afoot. Large over-stuffed chair. Life size autographed pictures of Elvis. Framed gold Elvis records. Ornate mahogany furniture. Indirect lighting. A crystal canister of golden brown liquor with matching glasses.
Mr. Rizzo stood immediately as we entered. “Welcome to my office. Sit. Please.” A slight wave of his hand sent the goon squad away.
“Care for a drink, ma’am? Sir?” He was polished. Not a hair out of place. Perfectly tailored Italian suit. Diamond cufflinks. He had money and power and wanted us to know it.
Louella smiled royally and replied gently to his question. “No thank you, sir. We don’t drink. We gamble.”
TRYTHISDISH
by Kim Beavers, MS, RDN, CDCES
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Chef Coach, Author Follow Kim on Facebook: facebook.com/eatingwellwithkimb
CHEESEBURGER-TOPPED POTATO
This potato is filled with all your favorite traditional burger toppings, this fun new way to eat a “cheeseburger” will surely have the kids asking for seconds.
Ingredients
• 2 large Russet potatoes, scrubbed well
• 8 ounce fresh mushrooms
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1/2 pound lean ground beef
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup cheddar cheese, reduced fat, shredded
• ½ small red onion, sliced
• 2 small Roma tomatoes, thinly sliced
• ¼ cup dill pickles, sliced
• 2 cups shredded lettuce
Directions
Preheat oven to 400°. Pierce potatoes several times with a fork and place directly on the baking rack. Bake for 45-60 minutes, or until softened all the way through.
Place mushrooms in a food processor fitted with a metal blade. Pulse until finely chopped. In a large sauce-
pan, brown mushrooms until moisture has been released, approximately 5-6 minutes. Split baked potatoes lengthwise and spoon meat mixture on top. Add cheese, onion, tomatoes and pickles. Serve it all down on top of lettuce and condiments of choice.
Yield: 4 Servings (1/2 potato + ½ cup meat/mushroom
mixture, ½ cup lettuce)
Nutrient Breakdown: Calories 260, Fat 4g (1.5g saturated fat), Sodium 230mg, Carbohydrate 35g, Fiber 5g, Protein 23g.
Percent Daily Value: 15%
Calcium, 15% Iron, 25% Vitamin A, 45% Vitamin C
Diabetes Exchanges: 1 ½ Starch, 1 Vegetable, 3 Lean Meats
LOUELLA from page 6
Rizzo’s dark eyes narrowed and locked onto me. Niceties evaporated. “No, you don’t. You don’t gamble. You just take my money. That’s the problem.” His voice became tight and measured, with a gentle but sinister undertone from his brain, not his heart.
“Problem? I don’t see a problem,” I began, with a fake puzzled look on my face. “You run a casino for gamblers. I brought money to gamble with you. Both of us take our chances. Sometimes you win. Sometimes we win. Gambling’s the name of the game. We haven’t done anything wrong or illegal.”
He never blinked. It was as if I was a minor blip on his radar screen, something of no consequence.
“Clever. Real clever. No, you haven’t broken any laws. Let me explain my side of the table. My overhead is $300,000 a day. So when I get up each morning, I have a $300,000 headache. I have to win that much just to break even.
“A corporation owns us. So I must win some more money for the stockholders.
“Then I must win some more money so the board of directors can get a bonus. Then I must win even more money so my boss can get a bonus.
“And then, if I win some more, I might get a bonus. I got expenses. A kid in college. An expensive wife. So I don’t need you giving me a bigger headache. Right?”
“Look, we don’t win much. Hardly enough for you to notice.”
“I know exactly how much you win.” My eyebrows floated upward. “Really? How much?”
He said nonchalantly, “Usually about three grand. Today, about $3300.”
I nodded toward Louella’s Coach purse. She
opened it and counted out our $3,600 profit. He said, “Okay. The Eye in the Sky was 10 minutes behind.”
I flexed my shoulders upward, palm upward. “Small potatoes to you.”
“But they’re my potatoes. You’re a class act. Both of you. So here’s the deal. You leave. You don’t come back. I won’t tell the other casinos down the street I barred you. Go beat them all you want. They are nothing to me.”
“But we did nothing wrong.”
“Yeah, you did. You took my money. Certain people don’t like excuses. They like winnings.”
“This is a public place. We should be able to come back.”
“Fine. You can come back and play anything except blackjack. If you want to go to show or have dinner, I’ll comp you. Even a room, if you want.”
It was time to see if he was serious. “We haven’t had dinner.”
He signed a comp slip and said, “The lobster is excellent tonight. Enjoy.” He motioned toward the door. Leaving on our own was better than the goon squad escort.
We cashed in our winnings, ate honeydew melon appetizer and steamed lobster, and left.
For months we took our act elsewhere. Other junket trips were easy to find if you put up-front money. We had a network of card counters, and we acted as references for each other.
Once at to the Sahara Casino, Louella hinted to a pit boss she wanted to see Wayne Newton at Caesar’s Palace. Actually we had seen him several times before and had no desire to go again. But it was
part of our game to keep the pit boss busy while I counted.
Louella demanded the casino limo to go to the show.
The regular admission line had about 200 people waiting. Our passes were for the Invited Guest line. Louella picked out a middle-age pair of ladies in the regular line. They looked out of place. Nothing flashy. Off the rack dresses from the Midwest. Purses purposefully held tight as if expecting armed robbery any moment.
We found out the ladies had made reservations two weeks earlier for their vacation and would have to pay at the door.
Louella engaged them comfortably and introduced me. Without explanation, I walked the two ladies through the Invited Guest line and tipped $20 as we were escorted to our reserved booth. I signed for two dinners and a bottle of wine. I tipped the waitress $20. Our ladies were wide-eyed astounded and appreciative of my generosity. They got a $200 show and dinner for free from a strange man and a gorgeous lady they did not know and would never see again. Most likely they still tell their story in Kansas bridge clubs and speculate about who we were and why. Maybe they look for us in TV shows or movies.
The Sahara Casino would check to see if I used the comp. Taking the ladies inside and signing the ticket covered us. All was well in the casino world. The next day we thanked the pit boss for providing such great entertainment.
We hustled them as they hustled us. It was a game with a thousand moving pieces. To be continued...
WE’RE BEGGING YOU
We’re never too proud to beg. What we’re begging for is “Everyone Has a Story” articles. With your help, this could be (should be) in every issue of the Medical Examiner. After all, everybody has a story of something health- or medicine-related, and lots of people have many stories. See the No Rules Rules below, then send your interesting (or even semi-interesting) stories via e-mail to Dan@ AugustaRx.com or by mail to the Medical Examiner, PO Box 397, Augusta, GA 30903. Thanks!
“And that’s when I fell.”
“He doesn’t remember a thing.”
“It was a terrible tragedy.”
“I retired from medicine seven years ago.”
“She saved my life.”
“I thought, ‘Well, this is it’.”
“They took me to the hospital by helicopter.”
“Now THAT hurt!”
“OUCH!” NOTHING SEEMED TO HELP, UNTIL...
“The cause was a mystery for a long time.”
“The nearest hospital was 30 miles away.”
“I was a battlefield medic.” “We had triplets.”
“He was just two when he died.”
“I sure learned my lesson.”
“It seemed like a miracle.”
“It was my first year of medical school.”
“It took 48 stitches.”
“The ambulance crashed.”
“I’m not supposed to be alive.”
“This was on my third day in Afghanistan.”
“I lost 23 pounds.”
“At first I thought it was something I ate.”
“My leg was broken in three places.”
“Turned out it was just indigestion.”
“The smoke detector woke me up.”
Everybody has a story. Tell us yours.
stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death. “The mortality impact of being socially disconnected,” said the report, “is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day, and even greater than that associated with obesity and physical inactivity.”
What can make loneliness especially devastating is to experience it while surrounded by masses of people. The high school or middle school student who is shunned by all of his or her classmates; the office worker without a single work friend; the wife who feels utterly alone despite living in the same house as her husband (or vice versa).
Loneliness isn’t a simple problem. It’s easy enough to blame it on social media, people who have their nose buried in their phone every waking moment. That may be a factor sometimes, but overall that’s a lazy definition.
What about old age and chronic disease? What about impairments in mobility? What about the explosion of work-from-home jobs and online learning,
from elementary school to college? What about economic circumstances that result in working to or three jobs, leaving no time for relaxing and socializing? What about racism and prejudice that leaves some people ostracized from much of society, on the outside looking in?
Obviously such a multifaceted problem requires a multifaceted approach to solve. Many of the suggestions offered in the Surgeon General report are broad and systemic: build communities that foster social connections; weave the essentials of social skills into educational organizations; train healthcare workers at every level to recognize the signs of social isolation and create strategies to promote social interactions and build awareness; in the entertainment and media industries, create content and story lines that encourage greater connectivity.
Those things and others are all great suggestions, and over time they can have a significant impact. But what about today and tomorrow?
Each of us can and should recognize the personal
ARKS HARMACY
value of connecting with others and the consequences of isolation. Be willing to invest time in reaching out to others each day, whether friends, family members, neighbors, or others, including (or especially) those with different backgrounds. Focus on conversations. Work on being a better listener. Minimize distractions. Help others. Control social media use. Seek help and companionship during times of loneliness.
Parents can model a healthy relationship in their marriage for their always observant children, investing further in quality interactions with grandparents and extended family members, neighbors, teachers, and friends. Even more directly, make sure the relationship you have with your children is built on listening and communicating. Be attentive to how your kids spend time online, and encourage them to participate in various group activities.
We have all just been through a pandemic, so an epidemic is not unfamiliar territory. We know it takes a massive effort to fight. So let’s do it. Let’s work to connect with each other. Face to face even.
HAVE YOU HEARD?
HEARING ASSOCIATES OF SOUTH CAROLINA
welcomes patients from South Carolina and Georgia
NORTH AUGUSTA
105 E Hugh St., Suite 103 North Augusta, SC 29841 (803) 441-3937
AIKEN
39-A Varden Drive Aiken, SC 29803 (803) 641-6104
AikenHearing.com
Celebrating 20 years of giving sound advice to our friends and neighbors
The blog spot
— posted by
Dr. Farees Ahmad Khan,
MD on August 3, 2024
Today, I want to talk about how creative humans are. As physicians, we encounter patients with ideas that amaze us every day and make our lives interesting to say the least. The best ones are often the elderly, who have years of experience and unique ways of getting things done that differ greatly from the current generation.
BASIC BUT IMPORTANT
I came across an elderly patient in the office who had previously been diagnosed with ADHD but did not take his medication because he felt he did not need it. He came to see the doctor now because he saw an article online about ADHD medication improving cognitive functioning. Due to some recent changes in his life, he had a lot of work he needed to get done, so he wanted to start his medication again.
As we went into the session, he revealed that he had frozen the medications he had been prescribed years ago. When he needed a boost to get something done, he would take a bite out of the frozen pills. This unconventional method left all of us in the room intrigued—who knew that freezing medication was even a thing?
While this story is fictionalized to protect patient privacy, it highlights the importance of consulting your health care provider about proper medication usage and storage. Improper storage can decrease the efficacy of medications and may lead to unpredictable side effects.
Here are some general tips for storing medications properly: General tips for medication storage
Keep medications in their original packaging. This helps maintain labeling and provides protection from external factors.
Store out of reach of children. Always place medications where children cannot access them to prevent accidental ingestion.
Avoid extreme temperatures. Do not store medications in places that get very hot or cold, such as in cars or direct sunlight.
Keep away from moisture. Bathrooms can be humid, which might affect certain medications. Store them in a dry place unless otherwise specified.
Check expiration dates. Regularly check the expiration dates on your medications and dispose of any that are expired.
Carefully follow specific instructions. Always follow any storage instructions provided by your pharmacist or on the medication label. Some medications may have unique storage needs.
Proper disposal. Dispose of expired or unused medications properly according to local guidelines or take-back programs to ensure safety.
Farees Ahmad Khan, a graduate of Khyber Medical College in Peshawar, Pakistan, is an aspiring psychiatrist
he Examiners The Mystery Word for this issue: CAENVCTIA
by Dan Pearson
How was your flight? He came around eventually. Do tell.
Fine, but the weirdest thing happened in the airport.
ACROSS
1. Sleep disorder
6. 1975 blockbuster
10. Fed. med. agency
13. Unambiguous
14. Hawaiian island
15. Bar intro?
16. A movie star is often one
18. _____ glass
19. Consume
20. Temple (Archaic)
21. Rugged
23. Shirts and blouses
24. Hot ______
25. ______-Sinai
28. Farthest back
31. Music hall
32. Tantalize
33. Name for 13 popes
34. R. A. ______ Blvd.
35. Clean and treat a wound
36. Attired
37. Liberty Mutual mascot
38. What flooding rivers do
39. Plants
40. Yellow, crystalline dye
42. Half asleep
43. Thorax, in plain English
44. If you don’t care at all, you don’t give one of these
45. Willows genus
47. French city on the English Channel
48. Type of mask
51. Wound reminder
52. The act of enrolling
55. Type of bloomer
56. Underwater ridge
57. It leaves the left ventricle
58. Metal-bearing mineral
59. Couch
60. Downtown building
WORDS
While I was standing there waiting for my suitcase some guy fainted and fell onto the baggage carousel. Was he okay?
Simply unscramble the letters, then begin exploring our ads When you find the correctly spelled word HIDDEN in one of our ads — enter at AugustaRx.com
We’ll announce the winner in our next issue!
1. Continuous dull pain
2. Court statement
3. Tidy
4. Type of ring
5. Poetry or sculpture, etc.
6. Augusta-born artist Jasper
7. River in central Switzerland
8. Global health org.
9. Secondary category
10. Broad Street restaurant
11. Mr. Barnard
12. Askew
15. Abyss
17. Evening song?
22. Like some steaks
23. Stretched tight
24. Famine’s ironic partner
25. Ancient manuscript in book form
26. Swelling
27. Denounce; condemn
28. AU’s Summerville Library
29. Former occupant of 15th at
Walton Way
30. USA _________
32. The ___ Affair, a diplomatic incident between the US and Britain during the Civil War
35. Items of bedroom furniture
36. It often follows blood
38. She was once married to Gregg Allman
39. ____ assault
41. Monetary unit of Botswana
42. Female deer
44. Seaport in NW Israel
45. Capital of Norway
46. Disfigure
47. Musical symbol
48. Bug
49. Greek temple doorpost
50. The state flags of California, Texas, and North Carolina each have one
53. Nazi beginning?
54. 37-A-like exticnct bird
DIRECTIONS: Every line, vertical and horizontal, and all nine 9-square boxes must each contain the numbers 1 though 9. Solution on page 14.
QUOTATIONPUZZLE
DIRECTIONS: Recreate a timeless nugget of wisdom by using the letters in each vertical column to fill the boxes above them. Once any letter is used, cross it out in the lower half of the puzzle. Letters may be used only once. Black squares indicate spaces between words, and words may extend onto a second line.
on page 14. Use the letters provided at bottom to create words to solve the puzzle above. All the listed letters following #1 are the first letters of the various words; the letters following #2 are the second letters of each word, and so on. Try solving words with letter clues or numbers with minimal choices listed. A sample is shown. Solution on page 14.
THEBESTMEDICINE
ha... ha...
Aman got on an elevator and pushed the button for the 5th floor. The doors closed and the elevator went up to the 4th floor, then down to the 3rd floor, then down still more to the 2nd floor before finally going up and stopping on the 5th floor. As the doors opened and the man walked out, he noticed a sign on the door that said “Elevator out of order.”
A lone sailor had been lost at sea for almost five years before he was found alive on a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. Rescuers found that he had built three huts on the island, so they asked him what they were for.
“That first one is my house,” he said, “and then that one there is my church.”
“What’s the third hut for?” they asked.
“Oh, that’s the church I used to go to.”
Despite his best efforts, the police officer sometimes brought his work home with him. For example, some nights when he was putting his son to bed the boy just wouldn’t settle down. On such occasions the dad would lose his temper and yell out, “Stop resisting a rest!”
Moe: Why did the chicken refuse to cross the road?
Joe: Because he’s chicken. Duh.
Moe: How are things going with your new girlfriend?
Joe: Not so good. She broke up with me.
Moe: What? I thought you two were a great couple. What happened?
Joe: She decided she likes Latin men more than white guys like me.
Moe: Hmm. Sounds like she’s a pedrophile.
Moe: Know any good Groundhog Day jokes?
Joe: No, just the same ones over and over.
Moe: Know what a French groundhog sees on Groundhog Day?
Joe: I give. What?
Moe: His chateau.
Moe: What do you call two friends who like the same food?
Joe: Taste buds?
Moe: Did you hear about the bad doctor?
Joe: No. What happened?
Moe: One of his patients was so upset by this doctor’s incompetence that he threw a chair at him.
Joe: Was he injured?
Moe: No. The quack ducked.
Moe: I weigh 175 with my glasses on.
Joe: What do you weigh with them off?
Moe: I have no idea.
Staring at my phone all day has certainly had no Effect on ME!
By popular demand we’re making at-cost subscriptions available for the convenience of our readers. If you live beyond the Aiken-Augusta area, or miss issues between doctor’s appointments — don’t you hate it when that happens? — we’ll command your mail carrier to bring every issue to your house!
NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE ZIP
Choose six months for $24 or one year for $42 . Mail this completed form with payment to Augusta Medical Examiner, PO Box 397, Augusta GA 30903- 0397
Dear Advice Doctor,
Dear Cover Charge,
Like perhaps everyone who read your letter, I commend you for your concern. You’ve raised a very important issue that applies to far more than just you and your coworker.
In fact, the CDC says people like you who keep their hands clean are making a major contribution to public health. Hand hygiene is vital for people who work in food service, the medical field, and the public in general.
A number of threats to health are prevented by frequent and thorough hand washing, including diarrhea, flu and other respiratory infections such as pneumonia and more.
But how and when should hand washing be performed? The answers might surprise you.
Despite heavy advertising, antibacterial hand soaps are not as effective as plain old soap and warm water. Antiseptic hand sanitizers are not considered to be effective for dirty hands, but they are efficient germ killers (but still not better than soap and water).
Surprisingly enough, soap can spread bacteria. That would apply to bar soap, which can transfer bacteria from one user to the next. For that reason, especially in a household battling colds and flu, liquid soap has its advantages, and a hands-free dispenser makes it even better.
In public restrooms, turn off water using a paper towel, and use it also to open the door.
The benefit of clean hands can be canceled out by dry, cracked skin which provides many entry points for germs. Moisturizing lotion can help prevent that.
For more information, read the cover story in the previous issue of the Medical Examiner. We just covered this!
I should probably be asking an attorney about this, not The Advice Doctor, but your advice is free, so here goes. I was recently fired from my job for stealing. The thing is, my hands are clean. As God is my witness, I have never stolen anything from my employer. But I know who did, and I haven’t said anything because that person is in desperate shape financially. I could easily retire or live off my savings for quite a while. I don’t need the job, but that person does. Still, I know my name and reputation are tarnished by my choice to protect a co-worker. Do you think I made the right decision? — Cover Charge +
I hope this answers your question.
Do you have a question for The Advice Doctor about life, love, personal relationships, career, raising children, or any other important topic? Send it to News@AugustaRx.com. Replies will be provided only in the Examiner.
THE MYSTERY SOLVED
The Celebrated MYSTERY WORD CONTEST
...wherein we hide (with fiendish cleverness) a simple word. All you have to do is unscramble the word (found on page 12), then find it concealed within one of our ads. Click in to the contest link at www.AugustaRx.com and enter. If we pick you in our random drawing of correct entries, you’ll score our goodie package!
SEVEN SIMPLE RULES: 1. Unscramble and find the designated word hidden within one of the ads in this issue. 2. Visit the Reader Contests page at www.AugustaRx.com. 3. Tell us what you found and where you found it. 4. If you’re right and you’re the one we pick at random, you win. (Winners within the past six months are ineligible.) 5. Prizes awarded to winners may vary from issue to issue. Limited sizes are available for shirt prize. 6. A photo ID may be required to claim some prizes. 7. Other entrants may win a lesser prize at the sole discretion of the publisher. 8. Deadline to enter is shown on page 12.
QUOTATION PUZZLE SOLUTION I have found that if you love life life will love you back. — Arthur Rubenstein
WORDS BY NUMBER
An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. — Lord Chesterfield
PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY
ACUPUNCTURE
Dr. Eric Sherrell, DACM, LAC Augusta Acupuncture Clinic 4141 Columbia Road 706-888-0707 www.AcuClinicGA.com
L. Carter, MD 1303 D’Antignac St, Suite 2100 Augusta 30901 706-396-0600 www.augustadevelopmentalspecialists.com
116 Davis Road Augusta 30907
706-860-4048 Floss ‘em or lose ‘em!
Late on a Friday afternoon we admitted an 83-year-old man being transferred from a nursing home with a fever. It was his 17th admission in the past 2 years. His chart list of medications stretched to two pages.
I saw the patient, disheveled and unresponsive other than an occasional grunt, so I did the exam and reviewed the huge chart and sent off
cultures, expecting to find yet another urinary tract infection since his chest was clear and the one ulcer he had on his skin didn’t look infected.
In reviewing the chart, I became more and more curious about his mental status since there didn’t seem to be any clear reason for him to be unresponsive, although it was not a new issue.
When his wife arrived that evening, I asked her about his mental status. She explained that he had broken his hip two years ago, and after the hip was repaired he was sent to a rehab hospital. While there, he became more and more obtunded, and at the end of the rehab stay he was transferred to a nursing home instead of returning home. His wife really had no
idea why he was no longer responsive; the nursing home physician had told her it was “old age.”
I asked her how he broke his hip and was surprised to hear that he broke his hip skiing, on a black diamond trail. Shocked, I asked about his general health and medications prior to the skiing accident, and she said he had high blood pressure, which was well controlled with a pill, but otherwise was very healthy, and played tennis and golf as well as skiing in the winter. I asked about all the other medications, and she said that before the accident and surgery he was only on that one pill for his BP. I dug through the 17 admissions, and it became clear that at each admission, he was on more and meds. It appeared that roughly two medications were added by the nursing home between each admission.
I was on-call over that weekend, so I decided to discontinue all of his medica-
tions except the antibiotics I was starting for his UTI. The nurses were a bit shocked, but I explained that since he was in the hospital, we could handle anything that happened and treat with medications as needed.
By early Monday morning, he was awake and alert, and when the team did rounds, he was sitting up in bed, clean-shaven, hair neatly combed, looking quite dapper and doing the New York Times crossword! Seeing that, along with seeing the reaction of his wife when she came in to visit that day, are tied as my best moments as a physician.
Instead of going back to the nursing home, he was discharged to his home on just one pill for high blood pressure. When he came into my clinic for his follow-up in two weeks, he had come straight from the court, and his first question was, “So doc, when can I start skiing again?” to which his wife added “But no more black diamonds!”
