Things My Patients Say To Me

Since I recently prepared a list of things that my patients’ men say to me, I guess it’s only fair that I do one for the women too. Notice that I have taken particular care not to violate anyone’s privacy – their identity cannot be guessed by what I’ve written here. Therefore, here they are. The cringeworthy, the funny, the not-so funny, and the sad, all rolled into one big list.

1. This is gonna be about all the action I’m gonna get this Valentine’s Day.

2. So THAT’S where that went!

3. If you’re gonna do that, doc, you should at least buy me dinner and a movie first.

4. Why in the world would you choose to do this all day?

5. I gotta say, I’m disappointed, doc. You’ve really let yourself go.

6. I dunno. Everytime I see his truck in the driveway, I just get nauseated.

7. This is a great day for me to have my hysterectomy. It’s National Spay and Neuter Day!

8. We’re going to have a hysterectomy party. So don’t be surprised if you get in there and find balloons and confetti.

9. Just don’t tell my husband you found that. It’s not his wedding ring.

10. So sorry! I forgot to shave!

11. Yeah, I shouldn’t have gotten that tattoo.

12. I’m getting these breast implants out. I don’t wanna go to the old folks home and be the Boobs In Room 8.

13. I wish I had gotten this breast reduction years ago.

14. Can you give me a pill so I want to have sex with my husband?

15. When I get a hot flash I just go into the cooler where I work until it passes.

16. I quit smoking because my doctor gave me this mental image of a scrawny old lady pushing an oxygen cart.

17. Sorry I stink, doc. I couldn’t clean up after work.

18. When I’m 30 weeks pregnant, can I still drive the fork lift?

19. I need a note to get off work. They won’t let me sit down at the cash register.

20. Yep, I’m gettin’ my surgery! Doc here is gonna jack me up real good.

21. Isn’t there some other way we can smear my pap?

22. I can’t get an IUD. I can’t stand the idea of something stuck up in me.

23. I can’t take birth control pills. I got my last two babies that way.

24. I eat like a bird. I don’t know why I weigh over 300 pounds.

25. My husband said I had to come.

26. If I have my uterus out, where does the sperm go?

27. Do I really have to take my bottoms off?

28. Can your nurse come hold my hand?

29. Sell, dammit! Dump that stock right now!

30. I have fireballs in my eucharist.

31. My cat hoit.

32. I’ve got a rash on my monkey.

33. I broke out in whelps. (You had puppies pop out all over your skin? That MUST be painful)

34. I hate needles.

35. Can you give me some ‘Tabs for the weekend, doc? Just a few ‘Tabs?

36. My PMS is giving me road rage.

37. Do hysterectomies run in families?

38. Can you look at my foot? I think I have toenail fungus.

39. While I’m here with my daughter, can I just ask you a question about my hormones?

40. Every time I watch a McDonald’s commercial, I cry.

41. Hell no, I’m not depressed! I’m not crazy!

42. What do you mean, antidepressants treat menopause symptoms? I’m sweaty, not crazy!

43. If I find out he’s cheatin’, I’m gonna throw his dead body in a ditch with his arm stickin’ out of it.

44. He swears it’s ME that was cheating. He won’t go get tested.

45. How can I be pregnant? I only had sex once!

46. Of course we can’t give our baby to STRANGERS! She’s having an abortion!

47. My urine smells like old gym socks.

48. I believe this pregnancy occured after the aliens came got me and probed me.

49. Does having sex hurt the baby’s head?

50. I’m scared my water’s gonna break in front of my kindergarten class.

51. Why did they do my c-section? To have my baby!

52. They did a c-section because my baby’s feets was stressed. (Fetal distress, I believe)

53. Does a c-section count as surgery?

54. Can I have a water birth?

55. We didn’t bring a camera because my husband didn’t buy one. You cheap ass bastard!

56. You have to make the baby come now because my mom already bought plane tickets.

57. Please don’t let his mom in here.

58. Get this damn thing outta me!!

59. If you tie my tubes, can you set fire to them, drop them on the floor and stomp them?

60. To enhance the natural atmosphere of the birth, my husband and I will both be naked.

61. My GOD that jelly is cold!

62. We can’t have the baby born on Halloween. She’ll be a witch!

63. Can I have my nails done while I’m pregnant?

64. All I can eat is Spaghetti-O’s cold out of the can.

65. I’m throwing up my toenails.

66. Morning sickness, hell! It’s all day and all night sickness!

67. Do you have to cut through my tattoo?

68. If I breast feed, will my nipple rings leak milk? What if the baby swallows them?

69. Can I get a tattoo while I’m pregnant?

70. I don’t want that epidural thing. My friend said one move and you’re paralyzed for life.

71. We want an all natural birth. Don’t offer any pain medicine or an epidural. WHERE’S MY F*CKIN’ EPIDURAL???

72. (Said about an epidural) Oooooh, the man who invent that thing gonna be RICH!

73. Honey, you’re never touching me again. You can go find a prostitute.

74. He’s in jail; he couldn’t make it.

75. I missed my appointment because I was in jail. I didn’t do nothin’.

76. Shut up and quit talkin’. The doctor’s here.

77. Can I take the baby outside to go smoke?

78. The meth in my urine ain’t my fault. I was at my friend’s house and I found this cookie…

79. I dunno why I put that up there.

80. I slipped in my living room and fell and that’s how that squash got up in there.

81. I think my daughter’s a lesbernopian.

82. I have Barney Rubble feet.

83. My husband won’t let me have a vibrator. I think they make him insecure.

84. If I never had sex again I wouldn’t care.

85. Why does my twat smell like fish?

86. I noticed this smell and I realized I never took my last tampon out.

87. How did I catch this?

88. How can I have gonorrhea in my throat?

89. No, my daughter will NOT get the cervical cancer vaccine. She’ll think it means she can have sex.

90. My mom’s in the lobby. She doesn’t know I’m pregnant. Can you tell her?

91. Agggh, that burns! Blow on it! Blow on it!

92. Are you gonna stick that whole thing up in me?

93. I don’t wanna tell him I have herpes! He won’t like me anymore!

94. Sorry I peed on you.

95. Did I just poop?

96. I think my daughter stuck a golf ball up in there.

97. Does oral count as sex?

98. I’ve got clogs of blood, cher, clogs of blood.

99. Well, I’m never doing THAT again!

100.If men had babies, the human race would die out.

Things That Men Say

Let me preface this for those who do not know my by saying that I am an OB/Gyn – a doctor that takes care of women, doing, you know, women stuff like baby birthing, hysterectomies, icky periods… yeah, that stuff. Because I care for women for a living, I get to spend a lot of time with their men, frequently under bizarre circumstances like childbirth, or a really icky pubic rash. Shhhh… I’ll tell you a secret. OB/Gyns have a saying: “All women are different, but all husbands look alike.” Their men are a constant source of amazement, embarassment, stereotypical behavior, sweetness, and hilarity, planned or not.

I made a previous post about things that patients say that amuse me. This one’s just for the guys! Here’s to you and thanks for all the laughs (and muffled sobs)!

1. When you do her hysterectomy, can you get the mean out of her too, doc?

2. Hey doc, while you’re sewin’ that up, can you throw in a couple extra stitches, just for me?

3. You mean that thing’s an extra nipple? Babe, you’re a FREAK!!!

4. Only YOU would ask the doctor for something like that, Princess.

5. I thought she’d go back to normal after the baby came out.

6. We both dug around and looked for it, doc. Just can’t figure out where the damn thing went!

7. Are you gonna stick that duck thing in ‘er?

8. I’m leavin’ the room. I don’t wanna see this.

9. Oh, my God, what’s THAT?

10. What’s that brown stripe in the middle of her belly for?

11. Hey, if you’re gonna do that to her, you oughta at least buy her dinner first!

12. I dunno, doc. She got off your scale and just started cryin’.

13. What do you mean, she got pregnant in April? I wasn’t here in April!

14. What’s THIS for?

15. Is it OK if we keep the litter box in the kitchen?

16. Don’t worry, doc. I ain’t gonna pass out. It’s just like guttin’ a deer, right?

17. If it’s a girl can you put it back?

18. If it’s a boy, you only got one dick you gotta worry about. If it’s a girl, you’ve gotta worry about ’em ALL!

19. She caught that somewhere else.

20. I AM payin’ attention, hon. You just keep pushin’!

21. I’m just gonna sit over here.

22. I feel a little…. THUNK!

23. There ain’t another un in there, is it?

24. You swear it ain’t twins?

25. Does that hurt, babe? That looks like it hurts! What do you mean, shut up??

26. OW! You’re gonna rip my fingers off!

27. What do you mean, this is all my fault? You was there too!

28. My wife is hurtin’! Fix that Goddamn epidural thing, NOW!

29. She done broke her water all over my truck upholstery!

30. What do I do? What do I do?

31. Damn, Babe! You’re big as a frickin’ HOUSE!

32. Is she gonna be OK?

33. I am NOT drunk!

34. Can’t you just grab its ears and pull?

35. Why’s his head all pointy? Is that gonna go away?

36. What do you mean, you don’t want my mom in here?

37. Some things a man just shouldn’t have to see.

38. What do you mean, she can’t just have it now?

39. Can you just spay her?

40. Damn, I can’t even look at her but she gets knocked up with another one!

41. What do you mean, we can’t have sex til the baby comes?

42. Seriously, what do you mean, we can’t have sex until the baby comes?

43. How long do we have to wait to have sex?

44. Tie her tubes? Cut ’em the hell out, set fire to ’em and STOMP ’em!

45. Semen analysis? Hell no, doc, I know it ain’t ME! Ain’t nothin’ wrong with ME!

46. How soon can you do a paternity test?

47. Where’d the red hair come from?

48. She said it was a alien probe! That’s funny Babe! Ain’t that funny?

49. I can’t wear one ‘a them things! Like taking a shower with a raincoat on!

50. It can’t just get lost up in there, can it?

51. Damn, looks like you’re stickin’ your whole HAND up in there!

52. Oh my God! I shouldn’t’a looked down there! Oh, CRAP!

53. What’s that stuff comin’ out of her now?

54. That is just so GROSS!

55. Gawd, doc! How’m I gonna compete with THAT thing?

56. She told me she couldn’t get pregnant.

57. Can you give her somethin’ to make her wanna, well, you know… ?

58. Why’s she squallin’ like that?

59. Damn, her boobs got BIG!

60. Her nipples look like dinner plates!

61. Her boobs are bigger than my kid’s HEAD!

62. That thing makes her look like she’s on a milkin’ machine! OW, Babe!

63. I can’t pick him up. I don’t know how to hold his head.

64. COOL! He blew poop out his diaper right up his back! THAT’S my boy!

65. What do you mean, I get to have the next one?

66. I swear I didn’t think that thing’d get stuck up there.

67. Oh my God! Why’s that woman next door SCREAMIN’?

68. Did you really have to go into labor right in the middle of the Iron Bowl?

69. Do some jumping jacks, Babe. We need to have that thing this year – we need the deduction.

70. Can’t tell if she’s walkin’ or rollin’.

71. Why does she still look pregnant?

72. She can’t have the baby Thursday. I can’t get off work then.

73. She cain’t have the baby on Halloween – he might be a WITCH!

74. What the hell’s a onesie?

75. If her mom don’t leave I’m gonna go nuts.

76. No, you can’t buy all new shoes if your feet spread.

77. How come you need your toenails painted? You can’t even SEE ’em!

78. Stirrups? You mean like on a horse?

79. Why’s she so grouchy when she’s on the rag?

80. Oh my God! That needle is huge!

81. Don’t worry. I’ll make her take her pills.

82. Damn, girl! Your Tweety Bird tattoo’s done turned into Big Bird!

83. Is she gonna have to take that piercing out?

84. Looks like he’s a little alien tryin’ to crawl out your belly.

85. What’s that cut for her c-section gonna look like?

86. She doesn’t want an epidural. You don’t want an epidural, hon. We want an all natural birth.

87. Just breathe, hon. You’re not breathing the way we practiced. What do you mean, shut the hell up?

88. What the hell do you want me to do??

89. Why are all the magazines in here for women?

90. She’s a MILF in training.

91. I forgot the camera.

92. This wasn’t in the birth plan.

93. You’re not the doctor we’ve been seeing.

94. How can you stand looking at this stuff all day? Why’d you decide to do this?

95. Don’t you feel weird looking at women’s crotches all day?

96. Will she still be a woman if she has a hysterectomy?

97. Will she still be mean when her periods go away?

98. You gotta do something, doc. She’s rippin’ the covers off and freezin’ my ass off every night.

99. I told her I was coming in with her to make sure she addresses this issue.

100.Thank God I’m a man. That’s all I’m gonna say.

Explain Something You Know A Lot About To Someone Who Knows Nothing

I read a writing challenge today and it stopped me short.  “Take a complicated subject that you know a great deal about and explain it to a friend who knows nothing about it at all.”  Here’s the thing:  that’s my job.  That’s my job description, in a nutshell.  I am an Ob/Gyn and I deal with women’s reproductive health, which the average woman knows little about at all.  Women don’t know where their female parts are, what they do, what they look like, and how they can fail.  Most women aren’t even familiar with their external parts; they don’t know that the outside of their nether regions are called a vulva and not a vagina, which is internal.  The vagina is the canal inside.  The vulva are the parts outside, which are not called lips but labia.  Show me a woman who knows this and I’ll show you a biology major.  So I spend my days explaining everything.  I explain what the body parts are called.  I explain what they do.  I explain what they look like.  I explain compicated procedures, as I did in this blog post here.  I’ll admit, that’s not even too helpful without visual aids. 

Have you ever tried to explain how a baby passes through a dilated cervix, or how the cervix dilates?  I explain it like this:  you are putting on a turtleneck.  Your head is the baby’s head and the turtleneck is your cervix.  Imagine the hole in the turtleneck enlarging and the neck thinning to allow the head pass through.  And there you have it.  I have made up one of these little analogies for everything.  You can also describe a grapefruit passing through the opening in a tube sock, and this is useful explaining how the opening of the cervix can be behind or in front of the head. 

We can describe the pregnant uterus as a big light bulb with a blown up water balloon inside of it; the baby is in the balloon.  Again, this is my life.  It is my job description.  Describing the mechanics of a physical situation, or describing the reasons behind a physical reaction are challenges that I hope I meet every day.  I think I have come up with some good analogies over the years and hope to create many more.

How do you explain that cysts on ovaries are normal?  First of all, a cyst is defined as a single layer of cells filled with fluid.  A blister on your toe could be a cyst.  It’s just the word “cyst” that frightens people.  It’s not so frightening when you know what the definition is.  Ovaries create cysts every month; it’s their job.  An egg develops and it makes itself a nice little bubble filled with nutritive sugar water to support it.  Over the month the little bubble (gasp, CYST – now hopefully demystified) works its way up to the surface of the ovary and pops, releasing the egg.  So normal women of reproductive age make and release cysts every month.  So the next time the Emergency Room sends you out with the explanation “It’s a cyst,” they’re just trying to give you a reason for your pain and get rid of you.  That leaves your Ob/Gyn to deal with a panicky female:  “Oh nooooo, I have a cyst!!”  You have to talk them down out of their tree and explain that right now, I probably have a cyst too.  That’s just how things work.  Now this is not to say that a cyst can’t be abnormal; sometimes they are oversized, occupy space, and can cause pain.  Sometimes they even twist on their skinny little stem of blood vessels, cutting off the blood supply and causing a torsion, which just means that the blood flow to the ovary or cyst is gone, which causes incredible pain and is a surgical emergency.  So there can be bad cysts.  You just need to understand the difference between the two.  Cysts can also be abnormal if they have a solid component, which is not included in the definition of a cyst (remember, single layer of cells on the outside, fluid in the inside).  Solid component means a cyst may be more likely to be precancerous or cancerous.  That’s something that makes a difference.  But come to me and tell me that you have a simple fluid cyst under six centimeters on your ovary, I will probably say, “Meh.” 

I once had a patient ask me, “Do hysterectomies run in families?”  I found this to be a very interesting question.  After all, a hystorectomy is not a DNA linked trait.  It is a procedure.  The question kind of made me giggle.  I had to explain that things that cause a need for hysterectomies, such as fibroids, can run in families, but the procedure itself?  No.

A lot of things I can’t even answer, because nobody knows.  Why do women get recurrent vaginal discharge?  Rule out infection and I don’t know.  If I knew, I could retire and buy an island.  And I tell my patients just that.  Why do women lose their sex drive?  This is a huge problem, and there are so many potential answers that it is almost impossible to narrow down.  And for women, there is no treatment.  Viagra works in less than ten percent.  We are just out of luck there.  Occasionally medical problems such as diabetes or high blood pressure (or medications) can be a cause, but you can’t count on that.

So I explain what I can, and I fess up when I can’t, and between the two I think I’m giving patients a pretty fair shake.  But the little analogies I’ve developed over time have come in handy over the years, time and time again.  Like I said, it’s my job.

Shoes

After reading a shoe post today I was re-inspired to write one of my own.  You see, there is a lot of misunderstanding between men and women out there about the woman’s shoe imperative.

First, I would like to say, not all shoes of the same color are the same.  At all.  This may be largely true with men’s shoes, people but even a “basic” black shoe is anything but.  I confess, I probably have about thirty pairs of black shoes, but I assure you, they are all different.  Notice that brilliant use of italics there?  I just figured out how to do that.  But seriously, about the black shoes, I have many and they each serve a different purpose.  I have a pair of black dress flip flops.  Now maybe only in the south do people understand the difference between flip flops and dress flip flops, but it exists.  These are beaded and rather fancy, and are suitable for wearing with, say, a summer sundress.  I have a pair of black Rockport Mary Janes, which are short on cute but fabulous for trips with lots of walking, as they can be worn with or without socks, and with pants or with skirts.  I have a pair of low-heeled black sandals with gold trim and a pair with silver trim.  This is imperative, as one may accessorize with either gold or silver.  I have a pair of black gladiator sandals.  These are of late a fashion must.  I have a pair of black dress pumps.  These are always a fashion must, for basic wear with dress outfits.  I have some black wedges with studs which were simply me and they screamed at me to buy them.  I have a pair of black booties, which go with pants or skirts.  I have a pair of high-heeled black boots in mid- and full-height.  I have a pair of low heeled equestrian boots.  I have some black maribou mules that I can wear around the house with sexy lingerie (I didn’t say I DID, I just said I CAN).  I have a necessary pair of black clogs, to wear in the fall and winter with jeans.  I mean seriously, how could I do without any of these things?  My husband does not understand this, though not for lack of explaining.

Second, shoes make a woman feel sexy.  They elongate you and make you look taller and tuck your butt in.  Women like to feel sexy.  Believe me, men, you want your woman to feel sexy.  Also, chosen correctly, they complete a specific outfit and all the women around you will notice that and be green with envy.  Having the women around you be green with envy is the key to any social situation.  It will just plain cheer you right the heck up.  Receiving compliments from the women around you on your clothes and shoes is a huge ego booster.

Third, and most important, shoes are our friends.  I cannot stress this enough, people.  With the exception of pregnancy, your shoes do not betray you.  You may be thirty pounds overweight, but by God, those shoes are still going to fit (except for boots which are tight in the calves, which are a pretty minimal subset, frankly).  Yep, shoes are our friends.  They do not turn on us when we get fat, unlike our clothes.  which let us know pretty quickly that we are no longer loved.  You don’t have to go out and buy a whole bunch of new shoes if you gain weight, and you don’t need to buy new ones if you lose it.  The only exception to this is the spreading of feet during pregnancy, which is not always reversible.  But this just gives you an excuse to go out and buy all new ones!

I hope that I have managed to explain the woman’s shoe imperative.  A man who understands this always has an edge over a man who does not.  It makes you appear very savvy indeed.  And some women, although aware they love shoes, may not always be aware of exactly why.  So, you’re welcome.  Case made.