Random Observations from the Clinics

1. The cervix can be significantly more difficult to find than you might think. It can be very wily, that cervix.

2. Also, it usually smells weird.

3. Speaking of smelling weird, the hands-down worst smell there is in medicine is the smell of an anerobic infection. It isn't exactly bad in the classic sense, it's just that it awakens something very primal in your brain which tells you to run away, or maybe yak.

4. Crazy people can be very funny, but they can also be scary. However, most of the time, they're just confusing.

5. If you're reading a magazine, you are NOT in 10 out of 10 pain.

6. Okay, in fact, if you are doing anything other than writhing and crying, you are not in 10 out of 10 pain. So it doesn't impress me that you say you are. It makes me not believe you.

7. The more medications someone tells you they are allergic to, the more likely it is that they have a personality disorder. If one of the medications they are "allergic" to is a mood stabilizer or antipsychotic, the likelihood increases 100 fold.

8. Related Public Service Announcement: "Messes up my bowels" is NOT an allergy. Antibiotics do that to everyone. Likewise, just because a certain narcotic makes you "sick on my stomach" or "real weird" does not mean you are allergic to it. It means you are responding fairly normally to the medication. It does NOT mean you need darvocet.

9. Also, if someone says the following phrase: "(Fill in name of powerful narcotic) doesn't even touch my pain", then you can be 95% sure they are drug-seeking. It is phenomenal, and phenomenally depressing, how accurate this observation is.

10. "I got the sugar and my blood is high" is southern for "I have type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure".