Bathroom inequity

Recently, I took a trip to NYC and had the opportunity to see the musical Wicked.  I had been wanting to see it for like a decade and we didn't cheap out on tickets.  Like, I'm talking over a hundred dollars each.

By the intermission, I really had to pee, as did my daughter.  We got to the bathroom as quickly as we could, but the line went across the room FOUR TIMES.  The line for the men's room went around the room half a time.

I knew we only had 15 minutes for intermission, but I didn't have a sense of how large the bathroom was.  I assumed that since the show played every single night, they wouldn't create a situation where women couldn't go to the bathroom.

I was wrong.

With three minutes left, we weren't anywhere close to the bathroom.  I had to go very badly and was nearly hysterical.  After paying over a hundred dollars for a seat, I wasn't even able to go to the bathroom during the intermission???

What finally happened is they let us go to the men's room with supervision.  We had 30 seconds left at that point before they locked us out of the show.  We didn't even have time to wash our hands.  My daughter was nearly in tears.

I've talked on here before about the horrible inequity in toilets.  This happens EVERY TIME. Women have smaller bladders, they take the children, and they can't use urinals, so the line for women is always orders of magnitude longer.  Why is this never compensated for???  This was especially disappointing though, since we had waited so long for this show, paid so much money, and we weren't even allowed the basic necessity of a bathroom.

Stress Reduction

My new goal in life is stress reduction.

Correction: There's no way to actually reduce stress.  Life is stressful.  In my line of work, I see people every day who are dealing with much more stressful situations than me.  I could say that once my kids are a little older, things will be easier, but there's no guarantee of that.  From everything I've heard, dealing with teenagers isn't a walk in the park.  The job I took that was supposed to be part time and low stress has evolved into something that's not really part time and somewhat stressful.

So my goal is to improve the way I deal with stress.

A little background:

I'm someone who tends to somaticize my stress.  This has manifested itself in many different ways throughout my life.  In my mid thirties, it's mostly been musculoskeletal.  For a while, I was doing well, but a recent big stress caused everything to get worse. Lately, I've had constant tightness in my upper traps that I can't seem to get rid of. When I'm feeling good, I can ignore a little muscle tightness, but when I start focusing on it, it becomes this terrible pain that takes over my whole life.  As a physiatrist, I know and use every modality there is, but I recognize that a large part of it is psychological.

My problem is that I'm not a spiritual person.  The idea of sitting and meditating is very, very hard for me.  I've tried countless times with little success.

How can I achieve my goal of stress reduction? Has anyone been successful with this? I'm determined to do this, because I see myself going down a path that frightens me.

Firefighters

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I think firefighters are heroes.

I recently was trying to fill out some disability paperwork for a firefighter who was injured in the course of his job.  It was a specific form just for firefighters.  Unfortunately, one of the most important Yes/No questions about how the injury pertained to the job was The Most Confusingly Worded Question Ever.  I think it had a triple negative.

I wanted to help the firefighter by getting him the disability benefits he deserved, but I could not figure out how to answer this question in his favor.  I showed the question to three other physicians and NONE of us could figure it out.  I finally picked one, because I had to.

It turned out to be the wrong answer.  (We were able to redo it, fortunately.)

I'd just like to thank whoever developed that paperwork to help deprive heroes of the benefits they deserve.  I hope you sleep very well at night.

The Hard Questions

I get asked questions in the course of my day that can be hard to answer.

"Will I ever be able to walk again?"

"Will I have another stroke?"

"Can you fix my back pain?"

So sometimes it can be a relief to hear a medical question that I absolutely can answer:

"Mommy, since you're a doctor, can you tell me.... is a thumb a finger?"

"YES.  It is."

"Mommy says it is!!  I told you so!"

My dear friend

Does anyone else refer to patients as "friends"?

I'm not saying that you are actually friends.  I'm not suggesting anyone takes their ICU patient out for a beer.  But I feel like I hear things like this:

Nurse: "Our friend in room 305 is asking for more morphine again."

In writing this post, I'm realizing that we tend to use the word "friend" to refer more to difficult patients.

With that in mind, it worries me a little that the teachers at my kids' daycare refer to all the kids as "friends."

Glitter is worse than herpes

I’ve got a terrible case of glitter today.

Don’t laugh. Glitter is a very real affliction. More people’s lives are affected by glitter than by stroke and heart disease combined.

Glitter is just like herpes. It’s not dangerous or deadly, but it’s super annoying. You think it’s just in one place, but then it spreads to other places. Most of the time, you’re not even sure where it came from. But once you’ve got it, it’s nearly impossible to get rid of. And you can give it to anyone you have contact with. Even if you just touch them. So really, it’s worse than herpes.

I mean, not that I’ve ever had herpes or anything. But I’ve heard stories. You know.

With a little girl in the house, we’re always in danger of a glitter attack. On one occasion, Leah must have stuffed some glitter in one of her pockets, because when I did the laundry, all of our clothing was covered in glitter. I remember my husband holding up one of his white dress shirts for work with a horrified look on his face when he saw it was covered in shiny specks. I can’t go to work dressed like Beyonce!

This morning, I know exactly how I contracted my case of glitter. Leah brought home a baggie of glitter from preschool, and she decided to do a project with it in the wee hours of the morning. By the time I discovered what was going on, there was glitter all over the floor of her room. I attempted to clean it up, but I was already dressed for work, so not only did I barely make a dent in our glitter infestation, I ended up catching glitter.

So during my entire drive to work, I’m busy brushing glitter off my slacks. To the point where I nearly crash my car dealing with this stupid glitter. Seriously, it is freaking everywhere. This is the worst.

When I get into the elevator, I give George the Elevator Guy an enthusiastic hello. George nods in my direction, looking critically at my glitter-stained clothing. I should have changed my clothes while I still had a chance.

As we approach the sixth floor, George looks down at the ground where I was standing. He frowns at me. “You got glitter all over the floor.”

I look down. He’s right. There must have been a glitter pocket trapped in the sole of my shoe, because there’s now glitter all over the floor of the elevator. I’m telling you—worse than herpes.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

He raises his eyebrows at me. “Aren’t you going to clean that up?”

We reach the sixth floor and the doors to the elevator open up. This is my floor, but George is still staring at me expectantly. Does he really think I’m going to clean the floor of the elevator? I mean, I don’t want to sound like a diva or anything, but is he kidding me? I work here as a doctor.

Maybe George doesn’t realize I’m a doctor. Even though I do walk around with an ID badge that says “PHYSICIAN” in big black block letters. Maybe he thinks I have some sort of housekeeping job at the hospital.

“You know, I’m a doctor,” I tell him.

George just keeps glaring at me. I don’t think I made the situation better.

I’m not cleaning up this glitter. Even if I wanted to clean it up, I’m not even sure how I’d do it. Does he expect me to find a janitor and borrow a mop?

Maybe he does.

“Sorry,” I say quickly. “I actually have a patient right now, but… I can call housekeeping, okay?”

George frowns at me.

“Is that okay?” I say again, more timidly.

“I guess it’ll have to be,” he says with a shrug.

I practically run out of the elevator. As the doors close, I check the soles of my shoes, which are absolutely covered in glitter. Oh God, it’s probably all over the floor of my car. Worse—I probably tracked it into the daycare and now Mila’s never going to let me hear the end of it. And the worst part is that it’s still all over my clothing.

I walk into Primary Care C, where Dr. Kirschstein is standing there in his white coat with a patient chart in hand. He looks down at the floor where I’m still somehow depositing glitter everywhere I walk.

“Sorry, Dr. Kirschstein,” I mumble. “My daughter… there was glitter in her room and…”

He frowns at me. I’m scared that I really am somehow going to get court marshaled for this. “I’m bringing you my wife’s book on child management,” he says.

“Oh,” I say. “Um, thanks.”

“This time I won’t forget,” he says. “I think you could benefit from it, Doctor.”

I stand by my original assertion—glitter is worse than herpes.

(But it’s better than play-doh.)

This was an excerpt from my new book, The Devil You Know.  Buy a copy on Amazon today for only $2.99!