Time for that end of the year review, sort of thing. What do I remember best? What sticks out in my memory...............

Case Of The Year

Most memorable case
Of the year, who knows?
It might have been that fellow
With the dead, gangrenous toes.

I came on that evening
After a "minor surgery" in the room,
His foot was wrapped like a mummy
And there was a cloying smell of doom.

The day nurse was reporting
"Oh, by the way, please don't forget,
Send the dead toe to the Laboratory
I'll be temporarily in your debt".

I gave him a look, in the usual fashion
Right......; you could have had this done,
But why raise a fuss in the moment
When we can all share a bit of the fun.

What kind of packaging
And where do I send it?
Double-bag it, please
And try not to bend it,
It's a special collection
A pathological piece,
Don't place it on ice
And don't send the fleece.

So I got a couple baggies
The red specimen style,
Threw that toe to the bottom
Sealed it, and kept it a while,
Quite the conversation piece
"Hey, look what I've got?"
Billy-Bob's toe
And it's as ugly as snot!

Well, after all the jokes
About the toe-truck, and such,
I sent it to the lab
For that toe's final touch,
A specimen like no other
An unsightly black lump,
What does the Laboratory do?
They call, asking about the stump.

The dead toe scenario
Has a dismal outlook, indeed,
The odds are, the foot will follow
All the way up to the knee,
I've seen men lose two legs
And two arms, before it was over,
After surviving the beaches of Dunkirk
And leaping the cliffs of Dover.

Fibril_late;
12/27/10
_________________________

Revolving Door

Attack of the largest in life
2010 was memorable for sure,
Those super-sized clients of ours
Weren't coming to us for a cure.

But rather, some kind of repair
A secondary causation, due to weight,
Without reducing the underlying problem
We knew they'd be back at a later date.

Bettyjoe Bilotnik
Was admitted four times, I recall,
And it really, was quite surprising
That all of her children were small,
Her mother was built like a toothpick
While Betty's husband was shaped like a blimp,
Pushing Betty in the wide-bottomed wheelchair
Poor old Chester, had a heckuva limp.

Jimmy Johnson from Modesto
Got an ear infection, and an abscess in his neck,
Sepsis knocked him on his can
All 500 pounds of him, on last check,
“Wait, he's just twenty-eight
How in the heck, could he be so sick?”
That's what his sister said
When we had to intubate him real quick,
Because of respiratory failure
He was a smoking asthmatic, to boot,
Oh, he's always been a little heavy
But it never amounted to much; shoot.

Yes, we surely operate
A revolving door of care,
Without our frequent-flyers
I'd hardly know what to wear.

Fibril_late;
12/27/10