I haven’t been posting much in recent weeks due in part to my broken ankle and my inability to walk. I won’t drag this out because other people’s medical problems are truly uninteresting to most everyone else. Here is my short version of events.
Ankle Surgery – 2 days in hospital
Returned home to discover my better-half diagnosed with Covid-19
2d day I was also found to be positive for Covid-19
A total of 12 days of isolation for us both accompanied by all of the fun Covid symptoms.
Now that Covid-19 has been dealt with we can once again try to get back to some kind of normal.
Thats the extent of my whining, bitching, and complaining about this run of bad luck. I’m still not very mobile but on the bright side, in four or five more weeks I should be back to what I once thought was normal. Hopefully my blogging will increase as well.
Now that I’m laid up with this broken ankle, I thought I should delve into the medical profession for a few items of trivia. Unfortunately, most of my conversations these days are with doctors, nurses, hospitals, and those lovely insurance companies. I should mention that as a young kid I was bullied for almost a year which makes me very aware of people who bully others. I understand that medical folks are only trying to do good, but really their job is all about being gentle bullies and I tend to react badly at times. It makes me a little crazy. I’m sure that somewhere in one of the many medical computer files some well-meaning person has noted next to my name, “A-Hole“. So, sit back and enjoy some medical trivia from a proud, card-carrying A-Hole.
The Egyptian mummy was a standard drug of European pharmacology until the eighteenth century. Despite criticism within the medical profession, doctors prescribed mummy powder as a cure for internal ailments. Portions of many embalmed Egyptian dead were swallowed before science and common sense rendered the practice obsolete.
Sigmund Freud turned down a $10,000.00 fee in 1920 to spend six months in New York treating patients in the morning and lecturing in the afternoon. He calculated that he would return to Vienna poorer than when he left so he declined.
Opium was frequently used as a painkiller by Army doctors during the US Civil War. By the end of the war, according to conservative estimates 100,000 soldiers had become addicted to opium, at a time when the population of the entire country was only 40,000,000.
In the eighteenth century, there were American slaves who were physicians. They treated not only other slaves and free blacks and whites as well, until restricted by law to serving only the black community.
Approximately 3500 men were practicing medicine at the time of the American Revolution. Only about 400 had an actual medical degree. Of the much larger number of women who practiced, even a smaller number had any formal training.
Since I decided to reduce my posting to three days a week thing have gotten even more screwed up. I just spent two glorious days in the Southern Maine Medical Center for surgery on my ankle. I was walking around my home, minding my own business, when I took a step from a carpeted room to the hardwood floor of the living room. Tip #1: Never wear thick cotton socks on hardwood floors. I went down hard after sliding on the floor and absolutely crushed my ankle. The surgery lasted a couple of hours and now I’m screwed for the next 6-8 weeks.
The two days in the hospital were exactly as you’d suspect; they were the worst. Uncomfortable beds, questionable food, and not just a few condescending staff members. I was my fun-loving self except for a few profane outbursts that frightened a few of the more sensitive caregivers. One exceptional nurse stood out from the others. She was everything you could hope for, and I wish there were many more like her. A big thanks to Heather for her handling of a big hard-to-get-along-with ape like me under really crappy circumstances. She did herself proud.
Needless to say, my blogging will be sporadic at best until the wheelchair arrives.
I dedicate these limericks to all of the nurses I’ve known in my life and there’ve been a few. If there was ever a group that enjoyed naughty and lewd limericks, it’s them. Enjoy, all of you so-called nurse lovers.
I’ve spent the last three years of my life immersed in our medical systems and believe me I’m not complaining. Our healthcare systems are almost certainly overpriced but since they’ve kept me alive for the last three years, I don’t mind so much. Another plus for me is that I’ve had more time than I ever thought possible to read and digest ten tons of medical jargon and terminology. Am I any smarter? Probably not, but I picked up a boatload of trivia and useless information that I feel obligated to pass onto you. Here are some facts you probably never wanted to know but what the hell, here they are anyway
Did You Know . . .
There are more than 2 million sweat glands (estimated 2,381,248) on the skin of an average human, according to Gray’s anatomy.
The technical name for a human armpit is the axilla.
If you ever see a human being with uncontrollable winking of the eyes, they are exhibiting symptoms of blepharospasms.
The only bone in the human body that is not connected to another bone is in the throat, at the back of the tongue. It is a horseshoe shaped bone called the hyoid.
The largest organ in the human body by weight are the lungs. Together they weigh approximately 42 ounces. The right lung is 2 ounces heavier than the left, and the lungs of males are heavier than the female.
Could you find your buccal cavity? It’s not a trick question, that is the terminology used for the inside of your mouth.
Were you aware that the epidermis, the outer layer of skin, replaces itself every four weeks.
The kidney was the first organ ever transplanted. The operation was by Dr. Richard H Lawler in 1956. His patient Ruth Tucker, lived for five years with her new kidney.
Did you know there are approximately 45 miles of nerves in the adult human body?
The average lifespan of a human being’s tastebud is from 7 to 10 days.
HUMAN BODY’S ARE AMAZING – THE PEOPLE UNFORTUNEATELY ARE NOT
I’ve talked about “Fake News” in the past and it seems to be a current buzz word when talking about the politicians and media. What many people don’t realize is that fake news is nothing new. It’s been around forever. For years as I grew up, I accompanied my mother and two ex-wives on food shopping trips. While they were checking out, I had the misfortune of killing time reading some of the cheesy tabloids available at the registers. They were full of impossible news items which were funny as hell but hopefully only a fool would have thought any of them to be true. Here is a small collection of headlines from that era that will bring a smile to your face.
1993
BAT WITH A HUMAN FACE
TOWN ELECTS MIDGET POLICE CHIEF
BABY CATCHES BULLET WITH HIS GUMS
KID WITH 3 ARMS IS BASEBALL SENSATION
JUNK FOOD CAUSES TEENS TO WORSHIP THE DEVIL
MY WIFE’S GOST STILL COOKS, CLEAN & IRONS MY SHIRTS
HUMAN JELLYFISH SAYS RUB MY BELLY
WHALE EATERS UNITE
MAN KILLED BY FALLING BIBLE
SWORD SWALLOWER LAUGHED SO HARD HE SLIT HIS THROAT
GOLIATH’S SKULL FOUND IN HOLY LAND
STADIUM HAS SPECIAL AREA FOR NUDISTS
SECRET INGREDIENT IN NEW SKIN CREAM – GOBS OF HUMAN FAT
CHURCH COMMUNION CAN SPREAD AIDS
MAN GIVES GIRLFRIEND PERFUME MADE FROM HIS OWN SWEAT
I thought all of you would appreciate a few relatively harmless limericks mainly concerned with anatomical issues. The weekend is in sight and maybe these little ditties will help get you through until then.
Always wishing to keep this blog interesting I decided that a short review of the “toilet” needs to be told. It’s an important part of our everyday lives but very few people care to hear anything about it. I’ll do the best I can with the information I’ve been able to find.
Before the invention of toilet paper, people use shells or stones, bunches of herbs or, at best, a bit of sponge attached to a stick, which they rinsed with cold water.
A Victorian plumber, Thomas Crapper, perfected the system we all use today. The siphon flush which by drawing water uphill through a sealed cistern is both effective and hygienic.
In Victorian times, toilet seats were always made of wood. The well-to-do set on mahogany or walnut, while the poor put up with untreated white pine.
The idea of separate cubicles for toilets is a relatively modern invention. The Romans, for example, sat down together in large groups.
The first toilet air freshener was a pomegranate stuffed with cloves.
American civil servants’ paychecks are recycled to make toilet rolls.
The most impossible item to flush is a ping-pong ball.
The movie Psycho was the first Hollywood film that showed a toilet flushing – thereby generating many complaints.
Julia Roberts was once asked for an autograph while she was on the john. She said, ” I’m the tiniest bit busy.”
Actor Jack Nicholson has a dead rattlesnake embedded in the clear plastic seat of his toilet.
And one last quote from a member of British royalty. “The biggest waste of water in the country by far. You spend half a pint and flush 2 gallons.”(Prince Philip in a 1965 speech)
Today is my favorite kind of day. I spent yesterday shopping for ingredients and today making thirteen quarts of super-hot chunky black bean and roasted corn salsa. It’s a lot of work but worth every minute of labor. My better-half was born and raised in south Texas and insists salsa should be nice and smooth and hot. I prefer my salsa to be chunky and OMG hot so I jacked up the heat a little because good salsa should always make your head sweat. Enough about my salsa. Let’s talk about some scary food facts since I’m in the mood.
While the results of water contamination tests are made public, manufacturers of bottled water do not divulge their test results.
Almost 99% of imported food is never inspected by the FDA or the USDA, the two agencies responsible for protecting Americans from tainted products.
One in five office coffee mugs contains fecal bacteria and E. coli, which can cause diarrhea, food poisoning, and infections.
Vegetarians beware: many low-fat and nonfat yogurts and sweets contain gelatin, which is made from animal tendons, ligaments, and bones.
Even when grapes are harvested by hand, some insects wind up in the picker’s baskets. Workers simply don’t have time to inspect every grape individually as they work.
Long a staple of the American diet and US economy, corn is a high-carbohydrate, high-glycemic food that fattens up cattle and does the same to humans who consume it in excess.
Beef cattle evolved to survive on grass but are regularly fed corn, which has disastrous effects on their digestive systems, requiring a constant regimen of antibiotics to keep them healthy.
Peanut allergies afflict an estimated 4 million Americans and can be life-threatening. Almost half of annual emergency room visits and two thirds of deaths due to anaphylaxis are the result of peanut allergies.
Independent studies show that bell peppers, celery, kale, carrots, lettuce, and potatoes are the vegetables most likely to expose consumers to pesticides, despite being rinsed and peeled.
A diet high in processed meats like sausage, hot dogs, and luncheon meats increase the risk of pancreatic cancer. Chemical reactions that occur during the preparation of these meets yields carcinogens.
I had so much fun yesterday I thought I’d continue with more interesting but totally useless information. Enjoy.
The worlds largest pancake was cooked in England measuring 15 meters in diameter, weighed 3 tons, and contained approximately 2 million calories.
“Lucifer” is Latin for “light-bringer”.
One twenty-fifth of the energy released by an incandescent light bulb is light. The rest is heat.
A “rusticle” is a rust formation similar to an icicle. It occurs under water when wrought iron rusts, as on shipwrecks.
One ton of iron will produce a ton and a half of rust.
The fly of a pair of jeans is the fold of cloth over the zipper, not the zipper itself.
Twinkies are 68% air and 32% Twinkie stuff, which means you can pack three Twinkies in the same space taken up by only one.
Throughout it’s lifetime, an elephant goes through six sets of teeth. The elephant starves to death once the sixth set of teeth falls out.
The Spanish exclamation “Ole!” commonly heard at bullfights and flamenco dances, comes from Allah, meaning “Praise be to God”.
The average lifespan of an NHL hockey puck is 7 minutes. Those that don’t fly into the stands are removed because they warm up from friction and bounce on the ice. Game pucks are chilled to -10 degrees Fahrenheit for maximum performance. They are kept in a freezer in the penalty box.
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