Apples to Apples and Monopoly

“He once had an awkward moment, just to see what it felt like.” –Dos Equis The Most Interesting Man in the World
* * * * *
Here is what I could consider an awkward moment: Being asked a question and being unsure if it is hypothetical or not; or, thinking the question is hypothetical when the person is expecting an answer.
A few years ago in my residency I was working with a doctor. He was telling me about someone he did not get along well with. He told me, “He’s a game player, you know.(?)” I, trying to be agreeable (man, it seems like I do that a lot), nodded and smiled, probably with an “um hmm.”
It caught me off guard when he said, “Yes, yes he is. And Erin, what’s his game?” That’s what I get for trying to seem understanding. I felt like I was digging myself out of a deep hole. I wanted to say, “Monopoly?” Instead, I said, “He’s… manipulative…?”
I think that was a generic enough answer to get me by. That one caught me off guard. I still makes me laugh to think about it. I’m still not sure the “right” answer.
* * * * *
My husband likes to ask hypothetical questions. Except he usually wants an answer. I feel a little off guard when he says something like his favorite, “How do you like them apples?” and I can tell he is waiting for a response. I don’t usually know what I think of “them apples.”  I guess the thing about hypothetical questions is, they usually don’t have a good answer and they often don’t have an answer, period. And if they did, I think you usually know the answer: I don’t think people usually like the apples.

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So, how do you like them apples?
Better than granny smith but not as well as honey crisp.

The Tongue of Angels

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I think I’ve mentioned on multiple occasions some of my frustrations with how I am occasionally treated as a practitioner by rude patients. In trying to be compassionate, avoid legal issues, or trouble with my boss, I often feel like I don’t have any choice but to put up with at least some of their negative behavior.
Here are some of the worst things I have been told by a patient:
“I wanted a doctor, not some kid!”
“You don’t look like you are coming from the beauty parlor, that’s for sure!” (or something similar about my poor appearance. I hope she was referring to my blue lunch lady hat and my pretty yellow gown and not my appearance in general, although I wouldn’t argue too much about that while I am at work.)
“You can numb me but you can’t use the needle!” –How else am I supposed to do it then?
“What kind of patients do you have that can’t lie flat?!” After I asked if it was okay that I lay her back in the chair.
“They are so rough!” To my staff doctor about me and my assistant.
“If I don’t like what you are doing, I’m going to poke you in the gut!”
“OWE! She’s hurting me!” To my assistant, like I’m not there and as if I am hurting her on purpose.
“Because you are a woman! I hate/don’t trust women doctors.” In response to the question, “You don’t seem happy with me. Is there something that makes you uneasy about me?”
“That DAMN gauze!”
“Why are you numbing me there when there aren’t any teeth back there?”
“Are you even a practicing physician?” Actually, I am a practicing dentist.
“It’s my teeth, not my brain, that are bad!” After I asked her to state her name and birthday for our “time out.” I didn’t dare ask her the procedure again, as I was berated for asking about what we were doing that day earlier on.
Unfortunately, these aren’t a collection of quotes from the last few years. They are a collection of quotes from a single appointment with a single patient.
I think I remained patient and calm throughout the procedure. I tried to be my absolute gentlest. But it doesn’t help you receive the best care when you are constantly berating your clinician, questioning their every move, and being uncooperative. And the gender bias, coming from another woman, made it that much worse.
I don’t understand why this is acceptable behavior. No one deserves to be treated that way. I was there to perform a service she was requesting. I gave her the opportunity to leave when she seemed unhappy her appointment was with me. I offered her to stop during the appointment when she continued to be unhappy, and she kept asking me to proceed. I guess I get tired of the physical threats, prejudices about my age or gender, and people taking pain or other discomforts of the procedure personally. If I treated patients in a similar way that they sometimes treat me, I would be in a lot of trouble. But they get away with it, and expect great care after they humiliate/threaten/question my abilities.
Go hug you dentist! They probably need some luv’in.

Canker

A few weeks ago I had a canker sore. I know other people get them all the time, but I rarely do. This one was awful. Poor me suffered through it for days. I felt pretty sorry for myself, what with it really hurting, especially when I ate and was preparing to go on my cruise (heaven forbid it interfered with some of the eating I planned to do there!). Poor me. It didn’t seem fair. And it took so long to go away.
Then I found out my husband had one too. He just hadn’t said anything. He showed it to me and his was much bigger than mine. I had no idea. And I’m a mouth person. People come to me (or COULD come to me) when they have canker sores. But because he didn’t say anything and I don’t routinely look in his mouth, I had no idea.
This is a silly story, but it made me think. How many people, even those close to us, have canker sores and are in severe pain every time they eat. Or swallow. Or move their lips.
And then I really got to thinking…how many people around us are hurting inside (and I don’t mean physically, inside their mouths), and we don’t know. We can be so acutely aware of our own problems that we don’t often realize that others around us are going through similar situations. We tend to put our best face forward and don’t always let people in to our hypothetical canker sores.
I think blogging is often this way. We post pictures of our fun trips, us looking especially thin (while eating beignets?) or beautiful, activities with all our our many friends, or accomplishments. I find that sometimes while I try to feel connected to others through blogs (or facebook or other social media), I start feeling boring, unattractive, or very lonely. I wonder why I don’t get to go on fancy vacations every week, why I don’t have a million friends, or eat the fanciest meals I prepared myself each day in my fancy well decorated and exceptionally clean house.
And then I realize, I do go on fun trips. I have some cute pictures of myself. When I occasionally do things with friends I am more prone to blog about it. Logically, you may be having the same feelings reading my blog that I have reading yours. But I also have canker sores. And reactive airway disease. And interrupted nights of sleep while I am on call, a messy house, and a lot of bad hair days. I try to be real but I know I am guilty like the next guy of editing my life for the web.
It is so easy to compare and compete. I’m going to try harder to stop comparing my worst to others best and to look for the signs of canker sores around me. Maybe if I focus on noticing and helping others around me own canker sores wont matter much.

Trippin’ it

It’s been one of the busiest weeks I’ve had in a very long time! Long hours at work, minimal sleep, sewing up a lot of faces, and not much else in between. Good thing Abe and I took a weekend vacation last week to prepare. And yes, having a full weekend off, especially if you leave home (and all of the tasks behind) is a VACATION in my book.
We left right after work for Chicago Friday evening. We usually stay downtown but we decided to be a little more adventurous (and cheap) and stay closer to the airport.
The next morning we took the metra and bus to Wrigley. We were starving so decided to get some Chicago style dogs before the game. Maybe a little unconventional timing but also about half price! And a few things I like about Chicago are their hot dogs and their pizza.
   
We made our way to the stadium. Did you know Wrigley is located on Sheffield street? This is the less picturesque side of the stadium, unfortunately.


Want to go to Montana? A saw a lot of billboards and busses advertising Montana.
 
Here I am with “The Sheffield.” I may have to start referring to him this way, on this blog and in person.
Our friend shared his season tickets with us and we were able to sit in the bleachers which were actually great seats. Although I’m not fond of watching baseball on TV, I really enjoy attending games in person. Wrigley is a really cool place to visit, even if you aren’t huge on baseball. The field def has preserved that historic feel with the old fashioned scoreboard changed by hand and the ivy covered wall.


The Cubs pulled it out with a 5-1 victory over the Reds. We stayed until the end to be sure we got to hear the awesome “Go Cubs go” song which is still stuck in my head.

Did you know they have rooftop bleachers on all of the buildings surrounding the field? I’d be curious in seeing what this is like.
We decided to start walking from the stadium towards downtown after the game. We stopped for some frozen yogurt. In the meantime, Abe (now AKA THE SHEFFIELD) kept talking about how his hat didn’t fit because his hair was too long. We happened upon a corner barber shop and decided we couldn’t pass it up. While watching I realized one thing, The Sheffield has a lot of hair (and this picture if only half way through). And then I realized a very wonderful thing, this guy does not have a problem with thinning hair or male pattern baldness. At least not yet. I hope our future children get his full locks.

We continued our happy walk with The Sheffield’s much shorter ‘do and my happy realization as stated above. And we continued and continued and continued about 4-5 miles. Until we reached our destination:
Grand Lux Cafe –we’ve been adding this into our list of Chicago traditions

Beignets! Which if you are unfamiliar are extremely yummy N’Orleans style donuts. If you’ve been following me for awhile, you’ll appreciate when I say “Don’t worry, we ate them all,” –that’s right, just the two of us, and after dinner. (One of my pet peeves is when (always skinny) people feel the necessity to give the disclaimer that they didn’t eat all of their food. Yes, I was worried until you told me otherwise that you ate the whole cupcake yourself.)

I think the beignets did us in so we made our way back to our hotel ready for bed. We had a lazy morning, a nice breakfast buffet at the hotel, and made our way home.
And to show you how nerdy we are, we studied almost the entire way to and from Chicago. I’m lucky The Sheffield and I will have so much overlap in our fields because it makes studying so much easier and more fun to do. And it is great have a physician who can explain all of the medical terms and details I never learned.
Abe thought I looked like a teacher in this first picture. I was getting serious about mitral valve stenosis.
 
The only bad thing about vacation is that it makes going back to work that much harder. Can’t wait until May!

I have a question

People often ask me what it is like being on-call. When you are on-call you never know what you are going to get. Some nights are completely quiet. Others are non-stop in the ER.

A large portion of our time on call is answering patient questions by phone. We perform hundreds of tooth extractions and outpatient surgeries each day and you can imagine the number of questions that arise.

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Here is a typical call:

Caller: "They are still having XYZ problem."
Me: "Hello, can you give me some more information? Who are you calling about and what did they have done."
Caller: "They had surgery. They are having a lot of pain."
Patient in the background: "Tell them I am having a lot of pain."
Me: "Can you give me the patient's name. When did they have the surgery? What have they been taking to help with the pain?"
Caller: "Yesterday. They are taking the pain meds and it isn't helping."
Patient: "It still hurts."
Me: "Can you tell me exactly what they are taking?"
Caller: "What are you taking?"
Patient: "HydroCODEINE."
Caller: "HydroCODEINE."
Me: "Is he taking ibuprofen? How often?"
Caller: "How often?"
Patient: "Every X hours."
Me: "Have you tried the ibuprofen?"
Caller: "Have you tried the ibuprofen?"
Me, trying to interrupt all along the way: "Can I please just speak to the patient?"
Caller: "They can't talk."
Me: "I can hear them in the background, can I please speak to them?"

Here are a few of my favorite questions (which may help you next time you have a tooth out).

Q: My friend had their teeth out earlier today and are having pain. She hasn't taken any pain meds yet. What do we do?
A: Start by taking the pain medications you were prescribed. That's a good first step! Call me if that doesn't work.

Q: My friend had surgery about an hour ago. Their mouth is still numb. What do we do?
A: The local anesthetic (numbing medicine) we use lasts for hours. Give it a few more hours to wear off.

Q: My son had surgery a few days ago and has the hiccupps. What do we do?
A: I dunno...stand upside down, try to swallow water, hold your breath, scare him.

Q: My friend had surgery earlier today and can't talk or move her mouth. She also has a lot of other questions. What do we do?
A: How do you know what her questions are?

Q: My friend had surgery a week ago and her stitches just came out.
A: The stitches are designed to dissolve in about one week so that's great.

Q: My friend had surgery 3 weeks ago. When can he start brushing his teeth again?
A: Three weeks ago!

Not by the hairs of my (new) chinny chin chin!

Would you ever go under the knife?

This is a question I asked on this blog a few years ago. And I have a confession to make. I did consider. And I went for it.

It looks like I'm not the only one.

http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/16/11188357-for-cosmetic-surgery-chins-are-the-new-breasts-chinplants-on-the-rise?lite

I know that most people like to keep their plastic surgeries to themselves. I've debated about this off and on over the past few years. I guess this article prompted me to share. And as a surgeon who will be performing this procedure myself, I'd like my patients and friends to know that this is an option as I'm sure I'm not the only one unhappy with my chin (the article is good evidence of this), even at the risk of being the recipient of negative judgements in relation to how much vanity I possess.


I have never been happy with my profile and my double chin. When I started my internship in Oral Maxillofacial Surgery I realized that this was a pretty simple fix for me. Although many plastic surgeries use the "chin implant," our department is very adept at what is called "genioplasty." Essentially, this is modifiying the bony part of your chin rather than placing an implant or other device to augment the chin. I like this procedure over the implant for a few reasons. First, besides the metal plate and screws holding everything in place, there are no foreign bodies, which can be prone to infection or other reactions. Secondly, the procedure is done solely through an incision inside the mouth. No visible scars!

I had the procedure done in our clinic on a Friday afternoon. It took about 20 minutes while I was out using standard sedation drugs. Monday morning I was back at work (although an extra few days would have been great). I was bruised and puffy for a few weeks but back to normal pretty quickly.

This is shortly after the procedure with some lingering bruising and swelling. Abe didn't have a chin procedure (he already has a great chin!), just a funny coincidence (sliding injury in baseball) that we both looked like this.
I am very happy with the results. I think the results are subtle (did you even know?) but I feel like it made a big difference to me and I am very pleased. Let me know if you have questions about this procedure or feel free to call the college of dentistry for a quick consultation. It is a pretty quick outpatient procedure with a relatively low cost.


 These are my xrays before and after. Can you see what they did?

This one shows well the plate holding everything in place.

This is me before the procedure. 

And just a few weeks after.

Here is my before profile. Can you see how far back my chin is? (Okay, I know it wasn't THAT bad, but it still bothered me.)

This is my "profile picture" just a few weeks after the procedure. The clock was just a decoy so I could post this online for my family to see without anyone else knowing what the deal was.

What do you think of the results? Would you ever consider surgery yourself?

(Mis)matched

I remember in college when many of my friends were getting married, we would receive wedding invitations with engagement photos. My roommates and I would eagerly open the envelope to see (and perhaps make our critique) of the happy couple. There were multiple occasions I found myself disappointed. You know, I hate to admit it, but the times when your should-have-been-a-super-model friend fell for the chubby bald guy, or the guy you’d had a crush on all year married the girl who was definitely less pretty than you. Yes, there is often one person in the couple who is more attractive but if you deviate away more than a few points (on the hot scale) it becomes quite noticeable. It is silly, really, because part of me finds great satisfaction and a feeling of triumph in couples who clearly choose their partner based off less superficial qualities than their attractiveness. But there is something about the aesthetic value of couples that at that point at least, had a large impact on my feelings of if they were a “well matched” couple.

I know other people didn’t feel this way and had no worries about the matchability of their future spouse. But I, being again, (somewhat?) superficial, had some worries. I wanted to marry someone who people would think was attractive, but mostly, I didn’t want to be the girl who people said, “Wow, how did she end up with him! He could have done so much better!”

This is the engagement photo we sent out with our invitations. I guess I can only say what I think with accuracy, but no one has told me yet (and please don’t start) that we weren’t an acceptable (physical) match, except for maybe our almost 12 inch height discrepancy.

Recently, I have been thinking in different terms of how well matched we are. I still wonder about our physical appearances. He is so thin, it is hard to keep up! And people are always telling him he looks like _____ movie star, or that he should be a movie star, or he looks like he should like in Hollywood (you get the idea). His medical school friends used to call him the “Mormon George Clooney.” I don’t think I’ve had any stranger approach me and tell me I am so gorgeous I should be a model. The only movie star I get compared to is “Princess Leia.” My friends never told me I was like the “brunette Heidi Klum.” I’m not sure if this means we are mismatched but sometimes I wonder.

I started thinking about all of this with Match Day for Medical school. He is graduating with his MD/PhD in less than one month! I know he will be a great physician and he was certainly in high demand by multiple programs. I think he let me be “doctor” first, so I could feel important for a little while until he laps me with his dual degrees.

(These are his medical school photos for his first and last year, 8 years apart. Still looking good!)

He works very hard for our church. He has been serving as our Elder’s Quorum President (meaning he was in charge of the meetings, activities, and welfare of most of the men in our congregation). This week he was just ordained to be a High Priest so he could be in our Bishopric. He serves with a smile, even when he has to wake up early and attend multiple meetings.

When other women talk about “MEN!” or how their husbands are horrible about helping out at home, I have to hold my tongue. Abe has been the hugest blessing in my life, especially in relation to my residency. He lets me vent or unload all of the thoughts about my day (and there are usually a lot!), often makes dinner, helps with dishes, does the majority of laundry, makes our lunches, drives me to work on early mornings, etc etc. I hope to give him even a small measure of the support he has given me during his upcoming intern year. I didn’t even mention his awesome baking skills.

I figure if people use their blogs to brag about their kids, surely I should be able to brag about my husband. I guess what I have learned is that even though I feel our engagement photo didn’t evoke any strong negative gut reactions about our compatability, I have come to learn since we’ve been married that we are terribly, horribly mismatched. He is clearly the superior one in our relationship.  I hope he doesn’t figure this out too soon. But I’ve also changed how I feel about this. Now I know that I come out the winner (if I can just keep him around)! Before I was just looking for a good match. Now I know the key is to get the best you can get. Clearly some of the couples in the engagement photos figured that out already.

Poor Abe is stuck with me.