Only In The BX: The Potato

I work in a Bronx County Emergency Department, in Tha Bronx, NY. Aside from the usual gun shots, stab wounds, & sniffles, we also see some weird shit you only find in the BX. Some shit that simply should not be going down. All stories in this series are true to the best of my knowledge, confirmed either by me first-hand or by reliable sources.


Only In The BX: The Potato

As a doctor in the ED, you usually take a glance at the chart before seeing a non-trauma patient. This chart comes prepared by the triage nurse, & contains the patient's chief complaint, meds, and some vital signs.


The chief complaint on this particular chart read: "I have leaves down there."

The resident was puzzled, but went to see the patient. He did the physical exam, & the patient wasn't lying, she had leaves and a small branch sticking out of her vagina. He pulled on it but felt too much resistance. Not knowing what to do or say, he moved on to the pelvic exam with a speculum, opened her up, and saw a potato sitting in the back of the vagina, near the uterus.

Some background: As women age, the ligaments holding up the uterus can become lax and the uterus can hang down or "prolapse" out of the vagina. Some women use a medical device called a pessary, which is inserted up the vagina and physically holds the uterus in place.

Apparently, this Bronxite had found a potato that was the right size and stuck it up her vagina to use as a pessary. The vagina, however, is a warm, moist environment, and the potato had sprouted stems and leaves. No joke.

The kicker? When the resident finally said "Um, ma'am, do you realize you have a potato in your vagina?", her response was "I know about the damn potato! What about these leaves??". She was very insistent about keeping the potato in, so the resident just did what he could to make her happy...he trimmed the leaves and sent her on her way.

The Cave

I'm writing this on a bright Friday afternoon, but I only know that because the clock says it's 4:00pm right now.

My roomates and I live in an exposed-brick 5-bedroom, 2-bathroom ground floor apartment, housed between a popular wine-bar and a vinyl record store. We've lovingly dubbed it "The Cave" because, thanks to flanking tall buildings and minimal natural light, you can never tell what the weather outside is like. I've stepped out of my apartment on multiple occasions to find myself surprised that the sun is still out, or that it's a cloudy day, or that it had rained earlier.

Unlike the ever-changing outside world, the scene inside The Cave is usually pretty constant: Being that all our utilites are covered with rent, & that it's summer, when you walk in you can usually count on all the AC's bumping full blast. There's likely to be a beer-pong table in the middle of the living room, with tons of cups and beer cans lying around. There will usually be music playing, and one of us 5 interns will home on the couch ready to get fucked up with you.

This is true at any given time of the day or night. I remember getting home at 1:00am from a 12-hour shift in the ER, tired & expecting to crash soon, only to walk into The Cave and find music blasting & 15 people pre-gaming for the night.

Well, I guess I'm going out. A quick shower, shit, & shave...and let the night begin.

I'd Assume...

...that you've missed me. Especially considering you're here reading this now.

I'd assume you may want a follow-up to that last post, back in March, that I left a bit hanging. Well, looks like I'm gonna be spending some of the best years of my life, 26-30, in the best city in the country. Let the good times roll, New York.

I'll still be doing my ER thang in The boogie-down Bronx (rep yo' hood!), but me and 4 of my closest loco's from med school officially have a place in The City. Should be a good, busy, sick 4 years.

I'd assume you've seen The Hangover. If not, definitely worth watching. Damn near worth doing.

I'd assume my social life is gonna go to shit, what with my 60+ hrs of work each week, there probably won't be time for the partying, the girls, and the good times......yeah, I'd assume that, if I didn't know better.





I've missed ya'll, too.

The Envelope

Well then.

In exactly 8 hours and 35 minutes, I'm going to open an envelope whose contents are going to dictate, swiftly and certainly, the course of my life for at least the next 3-4 years.

They'll definitely dictate the location, which will dictate the weather and, with it, the general vibe of life. The words will strongly dictate the course of my social and romantic lives, on various levels. Then, of course, they'll dictate the program that will train me to become an Emergency Medicine doc.

Heh, medicine is startin' to feel like a dictatorship. But she's just a selfish mistress. No matter what happens tomorrow, the fact is I'm GOING to be an Emergency Medicine doc...so fuck it. Let's get fucked up tonight.

Well then.

Good times with bad decisions (Part 2)

Well, at least I'm consistent.

In the words of my boy the Whale-Hunter, "Duuuude, Akshay, you grimed it out, man! You show up for like 6 out of 24 days of Neuro, all our site-director ever said was 'Who's Akshay?' or 'Where's Akshay?', instead of finishing studying you go to a Metallica concert the night before the exam, get hammered, stumble into the exam and fuckin' pass it!"

So, yeah, I passed the Neurology exam. Sweet, didn't break my pass-streak.

And in terms of days partying so far in February, I'm still batting 1.000 there, too. It's a shame that Step 2 will soon break that...but so goes the life of a medical student. 25 days isn't bad though...sorry Booty-B, it may be the year of you, but this month's been mine.

Mas musica:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2v_XY-wsjs
Another by the man himself, Many Chao. In this world of unemployment, global warming, and violence, a call to Bob Marley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rZrWtjEKv0
Everything is easy, baby, just leave it to Weezy, baby. Rock that siren.

Just About 9497 Days, Now...

Another year down, just another year brown. Kinda.

So I'm 26 now, and I gotta say this past year rocked. Which, for some time now, is par for the course.

February has basically been a birfday month for me, I think in terms of days partying I'm batting 1.000 so far.

Unfortunately, it's time to pump the brakes a bit and get to passin' Step 2 CK and knockin' out a 15-page ISP paper. But there'll be time for that. For now, enjoy the Manu Chao.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNrVeggdPFk
(Mellow out to the greatest love song, especially if you speak a bit of Spanish and French.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-m7hxzwW0qw
(Mind you, this is actually 2 separate songs on the album. But both are good. The 2nd is better if you speak some French.).

Good times with bad decisions (Part 1)

It's that time of 4th-year, we're about 4 months away from being MD's and all motivation has gone to shit.

Well, I guess I can't say all motivation. We're always motivated to take care of our patients. And we're motivated to spend the rest of the time partying as hard as possible.

Intern year is gonna be nothing like the time we have now, and we've been doing this so long now that all pretense is out the door. We're all ready to be the doctors we set out to be so long ago, and SO over the extra garbage like impressing residents and taking exams.

So, where was I 12 hours before my Neurology Shelf exam? Why, trashed at a Metallica concert, of course.

The concert ROCKED, they still have it. And though my boy LaPorta got us sick seats, sneaking down to general admission made the experience perfect. It had been a while since I'd gotten dropped by a big dude in a mosh pit, carried surfers overhead, and pushed up with the crowd near the stage. I was very overdue for a good GA rock concert. Perfect.

Flash forward to waking up the next morning:
Hangover, check. Neck stiffness & pain from headbanging, check. Hurts to bend my left index finger after a bad fall in the mosh pit, not enough sleep, didn't finish even 1 book in preparation for this exam, check check & check. Let's go.

Here's the beautiful part, at this point it's a pass/fail exam and, if I fail, I just take it again next month. So really it's a pass-now/pass-later exam. I'll let you know how it went in a future blog update.

I kinda didn't wanna ruin my streak of never failing an exam in med school...but I kinda wanted to go to a Metallica concert, too. Kinda down.