stages of grief, as applied to the doctor's scale

my desk is within earshot of our scale, so about 40 times a day, i am privy to patients' comments as they are weighed.  it dawned on me that most of the comments fell into one of the five stages of grief:

denial -- 'something is clearly wrong with your scale!'

anger -- 'i don't see why i have to get on this scale!'

bargaining -- 'i just weighed myself this morning, can't you use that measurement?'

depression --  no comment, just silence and maybe a sigh.

acceptance --  don't actually hear that one very often.

well, that would be more fun than sleep apnea

i was typing a note today and meant to type "patient reports occasionally waking abruptly gasping for breath" and instead typed "patient reports occasionally waking abruptly grasping for breast"

good thing i caught that before i hit the sign button.

i keep my best ideas to myself (or - it is best to keep my ideas to myself)

i have two very creative, entrepreneurial sisters.  one owns and operates a music school and one is an artist.  the music school sister has a really cool mural painted on one of the walls of the school.  on another wall she has chalkboard paint so the students can draw and doodle on it.  it looks awesome.

my other sister, the artist, is opening a needle felting studio.  she plans to have a large sliding barn door covered in felted wool that class participants can felt things on.  that will probably look really cool too.

being the troubled, jealous middle sister that i am, i want a cool wall too.  i run my own business.  i'm creative, damn it!

but here's where it all goes wrong.  when i think to myself, what kind of wall could i do in one of my exams rooms, this is what i come up with:  feet.  yes, feet.  everyday i examine lots of feet.  as soon as i request that the person take off their shoes and socks i hear, 'oh, but i have the ugliest feet in the world!'  so i think i should take a picture of everyone's feet and put them up on my wall and then we could see just how accurate these predictions of ugliness are.  and that will be my mural - i'll call it the ugliest feet in the world wall.  people will come from all over to see it.

somehow i don't think it will look as good as the music mural...

dulls the pain and tasty too

my patient was told they would be putting a cocktail in her knee during surgery so she won't have as much pain when she wakes up.  I'd want a bloody mary with olives, please.