Just finished a string of shifts and finally have a few days to breathe and put all the posts I have in my head into writing.

One short thing that happened to me last night …
I was busy writing admission orders when I saw my phone light up.
A call from home. Eight year old Junior WhiteCoat is on the other end. Usually they call Mrs. WhiteCoat, but she was at her office and daughter WhiteCoat was watching the kids.
Me: “Everything OK, buddy? Kind of busy in the hospital right now.”
Junior: “Yeah.”
Me: “So what’s up?”
Junior: “Where is the drill and the soldering iron?”
Me: “Ummmm. Let me talk to your sister.”
Junior: “Oh, she’s outside.”

Was then going to call the fire department and send them to my house, but opted to call a neighbor to go and hide all combustible items, electric tools, and sharp objects from our garage immediately. Fortunately, Mrs. WhiteCoat was on her way home.

Reminded me of one of those Calvin and Hobbes cartoons.

Had a few things come up that are going to keep me away from the blog – probably for the rest of the week.

May publish a quick post, but don’t expect much for the week.

In the meantime, enjoy the heat and check out some of the other great blogs in my “Blog Links” section to the right.

It was a close vote, but here are the winners for WhiteCoat Challenge #6:

#14. A toast to MikeMD with the story about the boy who peed red wine
#18. Nurse K’s story about the hypochondriac who peed on his hand
#38. Hawkeye’s story about the patient’s vision that went from 20/20 to “just 20″
#42. Dr. JC’s story about the woman whose genetalia had a stroke
#46. Michael Kirk’s history of one personality stabbing the other in the genitals with scissors.
#56. Gregsky’s chief complaint of “coughing up small animals and scrotums”.

Winners please visit EP Monthly’s online catalog, pick a prize, and e-mail your choice and where you want the prize sent to editor-at-epmonthly dot com.

Thanks to everyone for their stories. You made this challenge another great success!

Just got back from an unexpected trip out of town for the past few days.

Will be back up and running soon.

I’m going to take a break – probably for the rest of the week. Grandma WhiteCoat is having unexpected surgery and needs our family support. I have several ideas that I just have to expand upon, so I may toss up a short post, but don’t expect much. If you want to do a guest post – now would be a good time. Just send your post to editor@epmonthly.com.

While I’m gone, I would appreciate some feedback about a few things, though.

Is the new blog interface better or worse than the previous one? I like a minimalist approach and would like to know what you all think. Anything you would add or delete?

Also, just looking for what people like/don’t like in content on the blog. I admit things have gotten a little political lately, but only because of the events dominating the news now. Don’t think that describing whether my lawn has dandelions yet would be very interesting for anyone.

What should we have more or less of? News commentary? Patient stories? Medical studies/commentary? Case presentations? Contests? Is the Healthcare Update a good or bad thing? Rather see individual posts for the links in the Update or all grouped together in a weekly post as we have it now? Are there other things relating to emergency medicine that you think I should be including that I’m not? Product reviews? Are the star ratings a good or bad thing? Do they dissuade people from making comments?

It would help me make this blog better if you could give me an idea of what I’m doing right and what I could improve upon.

One last thing -
One of the things that keeps me motivated to write is the discussion that is generated. The topics presented are controversial and I don’t expect everyone to agree with me or to agree with anyone else who comments. I want this blog to be a forum where we can air our views.
Over the past several weeks, I have noticed that people have become upset and have made personal attacks toward others. We have to stay civil. I have no problem with others attacking someone’s ideas. Just don’t make the attacks personal. “That idea is ridiculous, here’s why …” is fine because it leads to further discussion about the views. “You’re a [insert pejorative term here]” or “That’s why I hate [insert class/ethnic background/political party/profession here]” aren’t OK because all they do is start flame wars. You are an intelligent and insightful bunch. Please keep things civil.

Happy Easter to everyone if I’m not back by then. Enjoy time with your family.

P.S. I took the picture above at a pier in San Francisco. Afterwards, I sat down and talked to the fisherman for a while. Interesting guy.

Come on. Allergies to fresh fruit and vegetables?

Guess all the chemicals used in processing are good for the immune system.

I don’t rant a lot about my personal life, but tonight you’ll have to bear with me.

I’ve had problems with chronic pain due to a disease I have. It comes and it goes. Some days I hardly realize it’s there, sometimes it is significant. The past couple of days have been particularly bad pain days.

I went to bed last night and Mrs. WhiteCoat was trying to talk me to going to the emergency department as a patient and I basically told her that would not occur unless one of my vital bodily functions ceased to function. Even when trying to hide the pain, I had difficulty moving around and difficulty finding a comfortable position. A few ibuprofens gave me a sour stomach, but took the edge off the pain enough for me to fall asleep.

Today was a little better until I tried to put on a shirt. When I reached over my head, I felt like someone shanked me with a hot knife. I couldn’t take a deep breath and started wondering whether or not I had collapsed a lung. Slowly the pain died down to the point that I could move again.

I sat at the computer and typed out a few e-mails, shallow breaths and all, trying to find the position that caused the least amount of pain. When I was done, I had to decide what to try to do with the rest of the day.

I took our new dog outside for a little walk in the snow. Watching him run around and flip snow in the air with his nose took my mind off of me. By the time we got back, I decided to shovel the driveway.

Yeah pushing the shovel hurt at first. As I tossed the snow in the air, the dog started to jump up and bite at the snow in the air. I started to laugh. Then he started to run along side the shovel and bark at the snow. I started flipping snow at him randomly as I was shoveling. He jumped up in the air and flipped backwards into the snow banks biting at the snow I had flipped in the air. Before I knew it, half the driveway was finished and the dog was running in circles in the yard like he had just snuck a couple of Red Bulls out of the fridge in the garage.

Funny thing happened. The pain was better.

Don’t get me wrong. I still hurt. But when the kids came home from school, I wasn’t chewing a hole in my lip when I gave them hugs and had them sit on my lap to tell me how their day went.

Sometimes the less you dwell on pain, the less you have pain.

Goes back to the difference between life and living.

You have to live your life, but you do it living with a disease, not living for a disease.

Sometimes it does you good to tell the disease to get lost for a while.

Had a couple of things come up and am going to be away from the computer until next week.

Enjoy all the other great blogs on my blog links page in the meantime. If your blog isn’t on the list, drop a comment in the comments section on the page and I’ll add it when I get back.

If you’re interested in doing a guest post in my absence, there’s an open mic. Whip something up and submit it to the editors at EP Monthly (editor@epmonthly.com). The jucier, the better.

Let’s see what you’ve got.

I heard stories of something like this happening during my residency training in a large city hospital, only in my case, it was a psych patient trying to escape from the guarded psych room. I thought it was just one of those urban legends.

Here’s proof from Serenity Now Hospital – pictures and all – that patients really do try to escape the emergency department by crawling through the ceiling.

Unfortunately, the tensile strength of ceiling tile usually has an adverse effect on those attempts.

Amazing.

By a vote of 32-66, today the Senate rejected an amendment to the health care bill that would cap plaintiffs’ lawyers fees to one-third of the first $150,000 of any judgment and one quarter of any amount above $150,000. Democrats reportedly stated that the amendment was “unfair” because it did not limit fees for defense lawyers in malpractice cases.

Ahhhh. Legislation will be rejected if it doesn’t apply fairly to people on both sides of an issue.

So are Democrats next going to toss out the whole bill because it is unfair that Democratic members of Congress vote against accepting the same public option health plan they have designed for the American citizens?