If this is so funny

then why am I not laughing?



Yesterday I discovered the hospital where I practice is "monitoring" this blog. I am not sure what monitoring means and I have tried to stay anonymous but it makes me nervous all the same. My "mouth" often gets me in trouble and that could be the case with what finds it's way to this space.

However, I am stiill going to tell you about my day. Before noon I had delivered a woman who was all of 23 years old. She has been pregnant 7 times, three children and three abortions. Now this seventh baby is here, healthy, and she did not want to talk about birth control when I visited with her this morning. She was distracted by the two older kids her mother brought up to the hospital for her to watch waiting on this baby to be discharged. The oldest child is in school. And no, she did not have her tubes tied because of the federal law that requires a 30 day waiting period after the consent for sterilization is signed. She was only seen at Major Medical Center once during this pregnancy. This is a problem universal electronic medical records would solve.

Another patient I delivered was 13 years old. That is right. Her birthday was 2 weeks ago. Yes, she was 12 when she got pregnant. By whom? That was the first question I wanted to ask but I waited until she was comfortable with an epidural to ask about the father of the baby. By this point I had already seen her genital warts and lesions of secondary syphilis so it was not a shock when she told me she didn't know who was the father of the baby. Yes, I suspect a boyfriend of her mother's but I was unable to seperate the two of them long enough to ask. Child protective services will do that this afternoon.

Finally, the last patient I want to tell you about weighs over 400 pounds. She is 33 years old and not pregnant. She needs to go to the county hospital where they might be able to help her but she "don't want to!" There is nothing I can do for her. In addition to her pelvic pain, she has diabetes and hypertension. All can be controlled with medication, which it seems she does not take except when she is in the hospital. Long term psychotherapy and bariatric surgery would be good places to begin. Judging by her blood pressures in the emergency room she will probably have a stroke before she is forty.

As I said, it seems funnier to me now that I am off and just reflecting on the day.