Being a doctor, sometimes it’s hard to keep faith in the human race. The other day, an obese patient visited me for his annual physical.
“You’ve gained five kilos since your last visit,” I noted. “Are you sure you’ve stuck to the diet and exercise regime I prescribed for you?”
He shook his head. “It’s been very hard to fit exercising in my schedule.”
“It was only one hour a day.”
“Like I said, I just can’t find the time.”
“Let me ask you,” I said, deciding it was time for some tough love. “What will fit your schedule better – exercising one hour a day or being dead twenty-four hours a day?”
A woman brought her baby in to see me, and I determined right away the baby had an earache. I wrote a prescription for eardrops. In the directions I wrote, “Put two drops in right ear every four hours.” I abbreviated “right” as an R with a circle around it.
Several days passed, then the woman returned with her baby, complaining that he still had an earache and his little behind was getting really greasy with all those drops of oil.
I looked at the bottle of eardrops and sure enough, the chemist had typed the following instructions on the label: “Put two drops in R ear every four hours.” Obviously, the chemist erred in not circling the “R” or spelling out the word, but the woman knew her baby had an ear ache, not a bum rash.
I referred another patient of mine to a cardiologist for his coronary artery disease. A few days later, he came in for a check-up.
“How are feeling now?” I asked.
“I’m having trouble with the patches,” he said.
“The nitro-glycerine transdermal patches?”
“Yes. The nurse said I should put on a new one every eight hours, but I’m running out of space.”
Sure enough, when the man removed his shirt, he had over forty patches all over his body. I checked his medical file and saw clear instructions to remove one patch before applying another.
And in case you still wonder why I shun relationships, a female patient of mine visited me with rashes all over her body.
“When did these rashes first appear?” I asked, taking notes.
“Maybe about a week now,” she said.
“Since they’re all over, it could be an allergic reaction to something you ate. Anyone else complain of stomach issues in your household?”
“It’s only me and my husband, but he hasn’t said anything to me.”
“Okay. Have you eaten something you’re not used to? Or at a new place like a hotel or something?”
“Not really. But I thought you might ask about any recent changes.” She removed a tube and placed it on my desk. “My husband brought me a new cream that I’ve been applying. But it doesn’t seem to be doing anything for my skin.
I hold back a sudden urge to laugh out loud.
“I think we have a culprit,” I say, struggling to hold a straight face. “Your skin is reacting to KY Jelly in this tube. Ma’am, it’s a sexual lubricant, not cream for your body.”
