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.

Recipe By:

King Arthur Flour

Yield:

24

Ingredients:

½  cup butter
1/3 cup + 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract*
1 large egg
¾ cup whole wheat flour
¾ cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons orange juice, optional**
2 cups chips, nuts, and/or dried fruit, optional***

 Directions:

1. Beat together the butter, sugars, salt, baking soda, baking powder and vanilla until well combined.

2. Add the egg, beating until smooth. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Beat again until smooth.

3. Add the flour and oats. Beat to combine.

4. If you’re making cookies using chips, nuts, etc., beat in the orange juice, then the add-ins.

5. Cover the cookie dough. Refrigerate until thoroughly chilled: at least several hours, or overnight.

6. When you’re ready to bake, heat oven to 375°F****. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.

7. Drop balls of dough onto the prepared baking sheets, spacing them about 2″ apart.

8. If the cookie dough has been refrigerated, bake the cookies for 13 to 14 minutes, until they’re a very light golden brown, and a bit darker around the edges. For unrefrigerated dough, bake for about 11 minutes.

9. Remove them from the oven, and cool right on the baking sheets.

 Notes:

*When I made them with no floaties, I put in triple vanilla and they were very buttery and the extra vanilla flavor was wonderful. They got lots of good comments from the appreciative crowd in the ED.

**If you’re making plain cookies, without add-ins, omit the orange juice.

*** 2 cups of floaties for this much dough is twice too much for me. I put in a cup of Heath chunks and they were very flat and flimsy. They stuck to the parchment so badly it was nearly a catastrophe. I had to cut the parchment and take them to the hospital like that. People had to pull them off the paper in pieces to eat them. They are better plain or with chocolate chips.

****375°F for 13-14 minutes is too long for my oven. I would use 350°F or cook for no more than 10-11 minutes. Watch to make sure they are brown around the edges but not over done.

The more bags I make, the more they get around. Here is one lost in the subway of Manhattan!

This is a very basic and easy to make recipe. People went pretty crazy over them in the emergency department Thursday night!

Recipe By:

Taste of Home Cookbook. If you Google this recipe name, you can find many different versions.

Serving Size:

36

 Ingredients:

¾ cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar, packed
¾ cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 ¼ cups flour
2 ¼ cups oats
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 package toffee bits*

 Directions:

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees.

2. Combine flour, oats, soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

3. Cream butter and sugars.

4. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla.

5. Gradually beat in flour mixture.

6. Stir in toffee bits.

7. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes until just turning brown in the bottoms and around the edges.

 Notes:

* I think the original recipe had in mind little toffee bits like Hershey’s Heath Bits ‘O’ Brickle Baking Pieces. The cookies are a lot more interesting if the pieces of candy are bigger. I lightly smash a 10-ounce bag of Werther’s toffee candies. I put them in a Ziploc bag, place the bag on my anvil then hit each piece one time. This keeps the pieces pretty large which is what makes these cookies interesting.