stories told and songs sung

Life is full of stories and songs. By sharing them, maybe we see a little more clearly how we are all connected.

Name:
Location: Deep South

I grew up in Texas and then went off to college in Tennessee. There I met my future wife in a great story you'll have to hear someday. Med school was back in Texas. We got married during my 2nd year. After med school, it was on to Neurology residency in the Deep South. Now that I'm a full fledged neurologist, I'm just trying to balance it all with a new baby on the way...

Monday, June 12, 2006

Oranges

Two funny stories about oranges:

1) I had a patient who had end-stage renal disease who we started on dialysis. He was getting dialyzed every day, but his potassium continued to be high. I found this strange until I walked into his room one morning and found him chowing down on a bunch of oranges his family had brought him. There were peels from probably ten oranges on his bed. (For those who don't know, oranges are loaded with potassium). We were trying to restrict potassium in his diet, but his family was bringing him a bag of oranges on a daily basis. Never underestimate the power of the orange.

2) A friend of mine has a patient with diabetes who was started on insulin. When the patient came back to clinic, she still had outrageously high blood sugars. When asked how the patient was taking her insulin, she said, "I do it just like they showed me in the diabetic class." It needs mentioning here that in the diabetic education class, they show patients how to use insulin by allowing them to practice with needles injecting into oranges so they can get a feel for the syringes and needles. Well, it turns out that this patient was injecting her insulin into an orange and then eating the orange. Too bad it doesn't work that way.

2 Comments:

Blogger LSI said...

But what a wonderful treatment it would be to inject stuff into fruit and just eat the fruit. It could be like how moms crush vitamins and put them into mashed potatoes for kids ....

Think about how much more difficult it would be to spot a heroin user by the sight of their arms.

10:11 PM  
Blogger Nathan said...

That's priceless. Wow.

3:28 PM  

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