Big Fish (Lost in Translation Part Deux)

(I first published this on Sept 16, 2007)

Well folks, had another migraine today and having recovered, decided to sit down and blog a bit. I wondered for a minute if there was a correlation between my migraines and blogging, but I have been thinking about blogging for a week or so and haven't had the chance to sit down and do it until today. I mean, I'm not some creative genius who is fueled/driven by inner demons--Vincent van Gogh comes to mind for some reason today (oh yeah, I'm just like some Dutch post-impressionist artist whose works have been stolen, studied, copied and hang in some of the great museums of the world) . Old Vince came to mind because I had a headache and I recalled that he supposedly cut off one of his ears and I thought I had read that one theory was that he suffered from tinnitus. Being the anal fool that I am, I had to Google him whilst writing this to find out about him cutting off his ear and now I'm a bit disturbed by what I've read--he cut off part of his left ear due to a mental breakdown but that's not what's bothering me. Another source (The Vincent van Gogh Gallery) discusses his mental and physical diagnoses in detail and the possible reasons why i.e., lead poisoning, bipolar disorder, absinthe drinking (a toxic alcoholic drink of the time), temporal lobe epilepsy and even sunstroke. None of this is getting my goat. HOWEVER--the article discusses a condition called hypergraphia. "A condition causing one to need to write continuously; this disorder is commonly linked to mania and epilepsy. Some believe that the massive collection of over 800 letters van Gogh wrote during his lifetime could be attributed to this condition." Well thanks a lot Google. Like I don't have enough to worry about what with Iraq, the upcoming presidential elections, global warming, gas prices, if Lindsey Lohan has underwear on today and will go to jail and read the Bible and get religion like Paris did and what I'm wearing to work tomorrow. I should have learned my lesson on Googling things before but I'm hard headed obviously.

Anyhow, to the subject at hand. My hearing problem has not gone away (but I'm not cutting off my ear). Several weeks ago I was at work and had a patient who had a problem with severe hypotension. This was when we had that big storm blow through town and the power went out momentarily at the hospital. The outage messed up some of the motors on the beds and this patient's bed happened to be one of them and she needed to be transferred to another bed. So we get another bed brought to the floor so she can be transferred onto it.
Well, I've got another nurse and one of NAs helping me get her scooted over onto the new bed. As we're all assisting her I ask her if she's feeling okay as even sitting up can make her feel like she's going to pass out. She says "Yes, but I feel drunk," to which I respond (joking), "No honey, you're not drunk, you're just a little inebriated." I had many a little old lady like this in the past who when feeling dizzy/vertiginous/presyncopal tell me that she felt "drunk," and this lady had felt all of these symptoms at some point or another. Can I tell you that the other nurse and the NA stopped in their tracks and stared at me when I said this? When they finally picked their jaws up off the floor, one of them said, "Suzanne, she didn't say she was drunk." "She said, 'Yes but I need to grunt'," referring to the effort it took to scoot from bed to bed. Thank God the patient liked me. My coworkers were all too happy to tell everybody how I went around calling my patients a drunk.

So then I'm at breakfast with a friend another time and we're sitting there talking and I ask her a rather obvious question to which she replies, "Is the Pope Catholic?" Then she asks, "Does a horse sweat in church?" Well, gee, I guess if the horse was a claustrophobic Clydesdale and the church was a really small chapel and the relative humidty was really high that day..... What? Does a whore sweat in church? Oh.

So I bet you're wondering what van Gogh, little old ladies and Clydesdales have to do with big fish? Nothing really, but hypergraphia or not this is my blog and if I want to meander all over the place to get from point A to point B I can. But if it's a fish story you came for.....

When I graduated from medical assisting school my first job was working for Dr. Meyer in his office, just me, another medical assistant Debbie and Hazel, the secretary along with Dr. M. at the time this happened. One night John, our son Jason (who was in grade school at the time) and myself went to dinner at Captain Bob's seafood restaurant on Berkely (where Neptune's is now). We get there and I order the same thing I always get-broiled flounder. First bite of the flounder and guess what happens-I get a fish bone stuck in my throat. I start gagging, try eating hushpuppies, drinking copious amounts of tea and nothing is making this stupid bone budge, and I'm gagging with everything I try. So we decide to box up everything and leave to try to do something about the bone in my throat. I get out to our vehicle first while John is paying and turn on the dome light and attempt to dislodge the bone myself with a plastic fork (not a smart move, I know, but I was desperate). No luck, but at least I can see that the problem is that the bone is not that big but it is lodged crosswise and stuck into my uvula (that dangly thing that hangs down from the soft palate near the back of the throat), and my uvula has swollen from the irritation. Great.
So John and Jason come out to the car and we're trying to figure out what to do. Decide to go the base ER which is not an ER anymore and see if they will give me something so I can get this out myself. Go over there (gagging all the while) and they say no way, don't want the liability. Gagging is getting worse and becoming gagging/retching at this point but I have an airway, so I'll be danged if I'm going to the WMH ER which is what the base suggests. Too embarrassed. Not going over there for a stupid fishbone. Like I said, I still have a patent airway. Just can't talk much for the gagging/retching going on. My throat really hurts too.
So John decides that since I"m refusing to go to the ER that he's going to drive over to Dr. Meyer's house and see if he's home. By golly, he is, and so are a bunch of other people because guess what, they're entertaining and getting ready to play cards or something. So John goes to the door and tells Dr. M. what's going on and comes back out to get me and have me come in. Dr. M. has his bag in the house and he's sure he's got something in there that he can use to get the bone out and fix me right up. So gagging and retching I go in and Dr. M. being his happy self is introducing me to his guests who are speaking to me with the introductions and all I can do is wave hello, shake hands and gag and retch in response. Well, Dr. Meyer's bag of tricks failed to yield anything that worked, so off to the office all of us go.
Finally, in the office a looong pair of curved forceps plucked the bone right out and all was right with the world again. Dr. Meyer was back to his house and guests and I was home to gargle with salt water. End of story, right?
The next work day I'm at the office along with Debbie and Hazel and Debbie is going down the exam rooms turning on the lights. She comes out of one of them holding the forceps with a puzzled look on her face. "Dr. Meyer wasn't on call this weekend, and I know these weren't there when we left on Friday!" She wouldn't leave it alone so I fessed up that he had to use them on me but wouldn't say what for. Not so smart because Debbie used to work in an OB/GYN office and since I wasn't talking she thought he used them for another purpose and when she told me what I immediately had to come clean on what he actually did with them. Well she and Hazel thought this was hilarious and Hazel went around making fish faces at me for the better part of the week. End of story? Noooo.....
Fast forward a couple of months. We're back at Captain Bob's, this time with our neighbor Brenda and her son Steven who was in school with Jason. Friday night, noisy as all get out in there and have to raise our voices to hear each other. Waitress comes to take our order and when she gets to Steven he orders broiled flounder. In one of those moments when everyone around suddenly gets quiet, Jason pops out as loud as can be: "Be careful Steven, that's the same fish my mom was eating when she got a bone stuck in her UTERUS."
There is evidently a familial trait going on here. I'm so sorry Jason. I think I'll paint some sunflowers now.


B