Foot in Mouth Disease
As a longtime sufferer, I've learned to hide my affliction for the most part. But around 4 am the brain fog sometimes rolls in, my defenses are weakened, and my cover is blown.
I learned years ago to never ask a woman if she is pregnant, or even worse, when is her due date. You only make that mistake once. Or if you're like me, twice.
But yet I've had a few awkward moments with age-mismatched couples. There is nowhere to hide when you assume that an older woman is a man's mother instead of his wife. Or that the little hottie with her slightly older male companion is his girlfriend instead of his daughter. And then I learn that she's only 15. Yikes, now I'm Akon. I guess I should have read the chart before I came in. I blame the milk hormones!
If a guy comes to the ER accompanied by another guy, it's usually safe to assume that they are partners...unless they are brothers. Guys just don't come to the ER with other guys. Unless they are both drunk, that is. With two women together, all bets are off. It's funny when they volunteer the fact that they are sisters before I have even sat down. I always appreciate the clarification, but it makes me wonder if it's because they can spot my disease so easily. I'm self-conscious like that.
A couple of weeks ago, my condition flared up again. I had asked the secretary to page Dr. O'Donnell, a lady doctor whom I had never spoken with before. When I took the call, the person I was speaking with sounded like James Earl Jones. Of course it was 4 am, so neither her voice nor my brain were functioning properly.
"Dr. O'Donnell?"
"Yes, this is Dr. O'Donnell."
"Oh, I'm sorry. I was trying to reach the female Dr. O'Donnell."
"This is she."
Ouch.
Then I did it again. A woman accompanying her son suggested a specific antibiotic combination that was perfectly appropriate and coincidentally exactly the combination that I had in mind.
"Are you a nurse?" I asked.
Fortunately she was, but that ill-advised assumption could have been embarrassing. I'm really not an idiot, I just have a disability that makes me look like one sometimes.
Labels: misogynistic homophobic jerk, nightshifts, patients
posted by scalpel at 11:16 PM
4 Comments:
Very funny, I like the James Earl Jones imagery (audiology?). I worked my way through college in a call center, so men that sounded like women and vise versa were pretty commonplace...and sometimes no matter how hard you try it's just impossible to reconcile what you're hearing with what you know to be true.
LOL Scalpel! I feel your pain. :)
I understand all those mistakes but one. Why if 2 women are together do people think they might be lesbians?
I thought one of the identifying factors of being female is that we girls commonly travel in pairs if not in packs to even just go to the ladies room.
I will be having my girlfriend with me accompanying me to the doctor's office and then to the hospital when I go for my scan Wednesday.
By girlfriend I do mean girl who is a friend. :)
Actually, last Christmas when I went to pick my granddaughter up from her after school program (she's 5 and I am a young grandma)one of the teachers commented about my father and assumed I was her mother. I nicely informed her that that was my husband and we are the grandparents. She made my day and no - I didn't tell my husband. He is 4 years older though but nurses often check their charts when I tell them my age. Does make a girl feel good. :)
Oh - I have made the mistake of mixing up father - daughter relationships too. It is easy to do these things.
One of my current docs looks at a decade younger than he is and obviously has really good genetics.
Poor Scalpel. I've learned that there's one good thing about getting older. When you make a goof like that, people just think,
"Oh well, what do you expect from a crazy old person?"
Sometimes that's my only saving grace:-)
It's bad on the receiving side, sometimes--like when I (with 4 kids in tow) am in line at the grocery and overheard the check-out lady talking about "just out of high school, already has 4, tsk tsk." I look much younger than I am, heh.
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