I picked up a young man in turnover. That means his care had been started buy my partner on the evening shift but he was still in need of care when I arrived so he became my patient.

He was in his thirties and came in saying he had been hit by a car. There was no witness and the police who took the report called his story into question.

When I arrived, he was getting his CAT scans and x-rays. After reviewing them, I determined they were all normal. I then went to check on him and get him discharged where I found him to be most disagreeable. I don’t think he was drunk but he was the kind of antisocial person that was just horribly obnoxious even when sober.

One example of this obnoxiousness was that he swore constantly. When I asked him why, he said he was a skateboarder so when he gets upset, he just has to swear.

After many efforts, I was unable to get him up and walking, though he didn’t seem to be injured. Since I can’t really discharge someone who can’t walk, I called the trauma surgeon with the bad news that they were going to have to admit him to the hospital.

When I went in to tell the patient we were gong to keep him, he said he was not going to stay. I asked him how he was going to leave if he couldn’t walk. He demanded a wheelchair and got mad and called me nasty things when I told him we didn’t have wheelchairs. “What the fuck kinda hospital is this if you don’t have wheelchairs?”

I told him we had wheelchairs but they were for hospital use and not for people to take home. “I’ll bring it back” was his promise.

When he finally understood there was no wheelchair for him to take home, he went down onto the floor in his underwear and said, “Then I’ll crawl out!”

I pointed out he was free to crawl out if he wanted to but he couldn’t leave with the IV catheter the trauma surgeons had placed under his collar bone. Hearing this, he reached up and tried to yank it out. I politely pointed out it was sewn in and I would be happy to take it out before he left. I then promised to take him in a wheelchair out to the waiting room and he could crawl from there.

At first he refused to let me take the catheter out because I was “a quack” and he didn’t trust me. I pointed out I had been nothing but nice to him and was trying to get him to stay so we could keep him comfortable and make sure he was OK. “I can’t fuckin’ stay in the hospital!” he bawled at me.

Eventually, he let me take his IV out. He took some clothes the staff found for him, then let himself be wheeled to the waiting room with no clear plan of where is was going or how he was going to get there. I have no idea what happened to him though I imagine he probably walked away.

When we were in Montreal this summer, we were standing in line at the Dairy Queen waiting to order our Blizzards. In front of us was a young man with a back pack that had a HUGE zipper. I came home and went looking for one. On etsy.com, I found http://gear.orgxiii.org/ which sells these giant zippers. Once I had one, I had to create something with it. Here is there result.

When I came across Kirschwasser as an ingredient in cookies, I had to try it. Here is one recipe I liked. There are also some that are chocolate. I will share if I find one I really like. I softened the cherries and put them in the Kirschwasser when I came home from work so they soaked all day while I was sleeping. They were nice and soft and had a nice bite from the liqueur. A 200ml bottle was about the right amount for this recipe.

Recipe By:

Allrecipes.com

Yield:

66

Ingredients:

2 cups dried cherries
2/3 cup cherry liqueur, Kirschwasser
1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour, 13.5 ounces
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup macadamia nuts, coarsly chopped

Directions:

1. Immerse dried cherries in boiling water for 2 to 3 minutes. Drain and set in a small bowl with the cherry liqueur to soak, the longer, the better.

2. Heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

3. In a medium bowl, cream butter with brown sugar and white sugar.

4. Stir in egg, vanilla, and almond extract.

5. Sift together flour and baking soda. Stir into creamed mixture.

6. Gently fold in cherries, with liqueur, white chocolate, semi-sweet chocolate and macadamia nuts.

7. Drop cookie dough by 2 tablespoons onto prepared cookie sheet. Leave 2 to 3 inches of space between cookies.

8. Bake for 12 to 13 minutes in the preheated oven. Cookies should be lightly browned.

9. Remove from baking sheet to cool on wire racks.

A 30-year-old woman had a seizure. She had never had a seizure before. Understandably upset, her husband called 911 and the patient was brought to our emergency department.

By the time she arrived, she was still a little confused as is common after a seizure. I examined her and ordered tests to see if there was an identifiable cause of the seizure. When all of the tests came back normal, I went back to tell the patient and her husband the results.

I had noticed that, while we were talking, the patient kept her eyes closed and was tearful. I assumed this was from being emotional about this potentially life-changing event.

When I asked them if they had any questions, they wanted to know why her eyes hurt so badly. This explained why she had her tearful eyes closed but really puzzled me. I knew nothing about having a seizure that would cause one to have painful eyes.

When I looked at them more closely, they were very red and swollen. Staining with fluorescein dye showed both of her corneas (the clear front part of the eye) were damaged but just on the bottom halves.

I had no idea how to explain this so I asked more questions. As it turned out, when the patient had started to seize, the husband tried to “bring her out of it.” To do so, he threw rubbing alcohol in her face. She was unconscious and her eyes were half open so the irritating alcohol went right into her eyes causing damage to the corneas. When she recovered from the seizure, she was aware that her eyes were burned and painful. She went home with treatment for “chemical keratitis” with anticipation that it would be all healed up in a couple of days.

I took care of these people when they came to the emergency department for care of their burns. I never saw anything like that before.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/07/23/several-burn-feet-at-seminar.html?utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=cheatsheet_morning&cid=newsletter%3Bemail%3Bcheatsheet_morning&utm_term=Cheat%20Sheet

Last week, I sent pictures of some of my earlier bags that were weaved. When my wife came in tonight with a bag full of groceries, I realized I had never taken a picture of the weaved bag I had given her to keep in her car for shopping. I gave it to her because it was my favorite. Though it is a bit dirty from a couple of years of use, I would like to share it with you.

As I have said before, an unusual ingredient will often prompt me to try a new cookie recipe. In this case, pomegranate seeds and juice. The dough is just luxurious and a joy to scoop (and eat.) If they are under-cooked, they are, in deed, fudgey but are soft and have no integrity. If cooked enough to hold together when handled, they are over-done and not good. So, to eat in your kitchen with some Breyers Natural Vanilla ice cream, they would be great. They didn’t tolerate the trip to the emergency department very well. In addition, though the idea of pomegranate seeds is appealing, the cookies really are not very pomegranatey and you often finish with some of the woody seeds in your teeth.

Recipe By:

Epicurious.com

Yield:

36

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened
1 ½ cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour, 9 ounces
½ cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pomegranate juice
1 cup chocolate chips
¾ cup pomegranate seeds

Directions:

1. Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy.
2. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix until well blended. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
4. Add dry mixture to butter-sugar mixture and mix until combined.
5. Mix in pomegranate juice.
6. Fold in chocolate chips and pomegranate seeds by hand.
7. Refrigerate dough for 2 hours or more.
8. When ready to bake, heat oven to 350 degrees.
9. Roll dough into balls and set on a greased or parchment-lined baking sheet.
10. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, then let cool completely on a wire rack.

Notes:

Consider dried pomegranate seeds or chocolate-covered pomegranate seeds.

When I first started making bags, I weaved them and had a lot of fun coming up with different designs. Most of these were given to family members as Christmas presents the first December after I started sewing bags.

Last week, my friend, Dennis, came over to fix the ice maker in our refrigerator. He commented on this blog and said I certainly must be making up my stories as they were just too weird to believe. I assured him they are all true. Every story I have told is true and from my own personal experience. And there are a lot more yet to come.

In the middle of the night, the medics brought in a middle-aged lady who was severely burned. They said she was a street person who had been drinking and lit her blanket on fire in trying to light her cigarette. They said her husband had left for some reason and returned only to see her engulfed in flames.

My first thoughts when she rolled in the door were, “She is going to die” and “It will be a merciful death.”

She had full thickness burns over her body from the waist up and other burns scattered over her lower body as well. Her hands were crisped so they looked like the feet of the Peking duck hanging in the window of King Egg Rolls. Having her whole face burned made her look like she had on a gruesome mask. It was grayish-yellow in color and tight so the eyelids were pressed closed, the nose was just a couple of tight holes and her mouth was a narrow slit.

She was moaning and thrashing around, resisting our efforts to try to help her. I reassured her we were going to give her medicine to put her to sleep, which we promptly did.

Next, we needed to get a tube into her windpipe before everything swelled up and we were unable to do so. Because her nose, mouth and face had been turned into a cruel, stiff leather mask, there was no way to pass the tube the way we normally do through the nose or mouth. The only option was to cut a hole in the front of her neck and pass the tube directly into her windpipe.

Once that was done, we had a lot of other things to do to stabilize her and get her up to the burn unit, which we did in short order. We were not surprised when her alcohol level came back at 465 (80 being legally intoxicated in this state.)

After returning to the care of my other patients, I was informed that my next patient was the husband of the burned lady. That caused me to take a gulp and prepare myself emotionally before I approached him to evaluate the minor burns he had suffered in the event. I found him to be rather uninvolved emotionally and not interested in my expressions of sympathy. He also had no questions and showed no interest in how she was doing. I attributed this to his level of intoxication. In fact, after being treated for his burns, he just rolled over and fell asleep.

When he later woke, somewhat more sober, he again showed no interest in his wife. All he could do was complain because none of the donated shoes we had was size eight-and-a-half. He took his prescription for pain medication and his discharge papers and walked out.

Later, I was walking down the hall of the hospital on my way home when I ran into him again. He had made his way to the Customer Service Department. Though it was still not office hours, a very nice lady had opened the door and tried to give him some advice about how he might find some shoes. He didn’t seem to recognize me and still showed no signs of any concern about the wife.

The next day, there was an article in the newspaper saying the police had arrested the husband and charged him with her murder! No wonder he seemed more interested in size eight-and-a-half shoes than in his wife.