I had gone to the hospital last Wednesday to visit my uncle. I was told I’d have to wait a few hours while he finished some tests so I decided to wait in the hospital cafeteria and have lunch instead of wasting more time traveling, I picked a quiet table to eat a sandwich made of white, white, bread, so trim and prim it looked like a bandage compress. That didn’t stimulate my appetite at all. While I looked at that supposedly edible Johnson & Johnson looking thing, a trio of doctors in scrubs sat near by. They talked loud so I heard everything – especially Doctor Card’s story. The Doctor was well named because he was famous for his quips, stunts, and anecdotes when he was “off the record.” It was just a coincidence he was a cardiologist.
Dr. Card did most of the talking and the other two, an anesthetist and a nose and throat guy, listened, nodding and smiling. The doctor’s story lasted way beyond my sandwich but I didn’t want to miss the end so I nursed my iced tea.
Dr. Card could eat and talk at the same time so his story unwrapped like a cat with a toilet paper roll. The doctor started out, “ You know my brother-in-law, Jeb Shrub, the tort lawyer at Cheetham and Howe? Jeb tried to outdo me with a practical joke and riled me up a bit so I had to get even. He had called me and said that there was to be a suit filed against me for medical malpractice and would I come down to his office Monday morning to discuss it in private? I didn’t know of any complaints against me let alone a law suit so I wondered and worried about it all weekend and I even blew my golf game and had a fight with the wife.”
“When I got to Jeb’s office Monday morning, he hemmed and hawed and then admitted he was joking about the malpractice but he wanted some advice. The rascal had set me up so he could bill me for info he wanted rather than me bill him for giving it. That aggravated me big time. Jeb had just become a father which I knew since it was my sister that had actually suffered for it. Now he figured he needed some life insurance but he was worried about a heart murmur. When I asked about the murmur he said that when he was ten, a childhood friend had received a doctor kit for Christmas. The kid had listened to Jeb’s heart with the toy stethoscope and then told him he had a heart murmur like it said in the book that came with the kit. Apparently Jeb never told anyone else about it even though he played football in high school and soccer in college. Now he was worried about it because he had a son and didn’t want to take a chance on leaving him behind with no money. I was ticked off that he had never had the same thought about my sister who worked long shifts to put him through law school.”
“I told Jeb that I could see him next Monday and run an EKG test and a blood test that would detect if he had any unusual heart rhythms or any other likely heart issues. I told him he would have to fast for 24 hours before the test and no alcohol for 48 hours prior. I knew that would really upset his routine since he really liked the sauce. I even warned him not to touch alcohol until a policy was issued if he really wanted to protect his son. That took the wind out of his balloon and he began to shrink up before my eyes. Then I hit him with a cigarette taboo and I thought he would cry right there.”
“ Monday I looked at his EKG before I did any revenge. Now most people are surprised that a lawyer has any heart at all but Jeb’s could be a stand-in on a race horse. I figured I could safely take my stunt to the next step, the blood test. Jeb whimpered that he didn’t want to see his own blood so I knew I had him.”
“After taking the usual sample of two vials, I taped a tube to his arm with no connection and covered it with a bandage. I passed an end of the tube over his arm into a two liter flask. The input to that tube was from a pump that was primed to pump ketchup into the flask. I told Jeb I was going to draw another pint of his blood and when it got up to a line I had drawn on the flask, he was supposed to press a button for a nurse.”
“Jeb hated to see what he thought to be his own blood, dripping into a flask. I was observing him through a one-way mirror and after five minutes I sped up the pump. I could see Jeb’s eyes getting bigger and the pulse rate on a monitor increasing. I bumped the pump speed up again and within a minute ersatz blood was half way up to the line. He was really starting to fidget as I increased the pump even more and ketchup and froth shot past the line. The flask was half full now and heading for overflow at an obviously fast rate. Jeb was pushing the nurse button with the speed of a first rate typist but no one came. Just before the flask was about to overflow, Jeb fainted. I stopped the pump, reversed it and sucked the contents of the flask back into the ketchup source.”
“When Jeb woke up after a sniff of ammonia, he started to babble about loosing all of his blood. He was astounded when I pointed out that the flask was empty, contrary to the near overflow that caused him to faint.”
“Jeb!” I said gruffly, “you were hallucinating. The alcohol and nicotine content of your blood is high and just the slightest tension set you off.” You need to cease all alcohol, tobacco and other stimulants because you might flip out again under any stress – like in court. I’ll prescribe several addiction rehab programs so some of the cost will be under insurance – contingent on your staying on the wagon. Your son will have inherited the very genes that create these effects. They are on the Y chromosomes that pass from males so your father had it too.”
I could get by with that fairy tale because I knew that his father was an alcoholic and a heavy smoker who had died young. The bad habits were only slightly to blame because it was a fire that killed him when his highball torched off as he lit-up a smoke while he was plumbed up with oxygen. I also told him that second-hand smoke was surely a factor that would make his son tobacco dependent.”
“That was all six months ago and Jeb has been faithful to his rehab program. I keep scaring the hell out of him about how dangerous it would be to restart. My sister is happy as hell and now that Jeb has some free time by not chasing cigarettes and booze he has actually started to act like a husband and father.”
Dr. Card looked the other doctors right in the eyes when he finished his story. “You know what guys, that has been the most effective doctoring I have done in my career! It improved things for a whole family instead of just stretching out one person’s role. I think there maybe something totally unappreciated about shamans and witch doctors and we have been belittling them for years!”
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