all in a day's work

funny how friends are the only ones allowed to highlight one's own stupidity and still live to see another day, at least in my books =) *beams*

in other news... i spent a whole day at the GP's. kudos to them for dealing with patients from all walks of life. it's almost like the ER except things tend to not be as urgent. now and then, you'll come across the odd patient who needs to be sent to hospital by ambulance for an impending septic infection or cardiac doom but that'll depend mostly on one's patient base. no prizes for guessing that you'll get more of these emergencies when you plonk yourself in the retirement capital of australia.

anyway, i came across a variety of characters today. each had their own tales to tell ~

• a bloke who managed to cajole an eccentric top-notch surgeon with non-existant bedside manners into doing his first tennis elbow operation in 8 years. he's now recovering. no more jackhammering for him tho.
• a very prim and properly dressed dude complete with a tweed golfer's hat and cardigan with very scary rage issues who let loose all versions of the eff word as sparingly as one would use spaces. he keeps a sawed off pool cue in his old volvo and clubbed some young punks across the head whilst waiting at a red light last weekend. should you ever feel the need to yell expletives at strange volvo drivers, please think twice. you never know if you'll meet this guy.
• a depressed but very sweet father of three, who bashfully reported that things were going well and that his wife couldn't keep her hands off him during that final week. he went to bed happy on sunday night and came home on monday after work to be faced with the fact that his wife's dumped him and had an affair with her first cousin in the meantime. thank goodness they don't have kids... yet.
  
• an elderly lady who hobbles with pain at her every step due to chronic pain issues. she's been spinning the same story for the past 15 years, every single week. the pain will be in her knees one week and in her shoulder a few weeks after her knee replacement surgery. her whole goal is to get the doctor to give her the green light to drive whilst on morphine. hell no, lady.
• a cute 9 year old kiddo who's had four fractured arms since he was diagnosed with celiacs disease at age 4. no, he's not a mutant. he's fractured each arm twice on separate occasions in the past five years. he's being sent for a bone density scan, given his strong family history of celiacs.
• a lady who would do gretel killeen proud ~ think longer blonder hair, more wrinkles and lines and 10 years older trying to pull off a look 40 years too late. she very proudly said she'd given up her ciggies, so why was she still out of breath? so out of breath that she had trouble climbing up 2 flights of stairs despite being only 40 years old. it wasn't because she was asthmatic. she was still smokin' dope with tobacco a few times per week. d'oh.

i suppose i could go on and on and bore you all. it just amazes me everytime i go out on a GP placement how different each person's life can be. personally, i think that the sad part about trying to help people is that it makes one very cynical. bitter almost. you get to see all the ugly facets of human nature at its best and sometimes think that some people, to save themselves from their pain and hurt, would really be better off dead.