Medic Interrupted

Seems like one of the only manly outposts left in Long Island suburbia is the barber shop, where dads can go by themselves or with their sons and enjoy discussing sports, women and life in general using vocal tones amplified with testosterone. There was actually a priest sitting in the barber’s chair next to mine, sympathizing with my plight as an attorney. You see, the priest had played in his first poker game the night before. After finishing his third hand, the priest concluded that he couldn’t find the morality to bluff his fellow players, and left the game.

As an attorney, it is never acceptable to tell a lie. Painting a picture for the judge and jury using the facts of the case as colors is more akin to what lawyers like myself do. Using the facts is what makes us advocates. Creating falsities is what would get us in trouble. Yet, there seems to be an art in treading the fine line between these two concepts. Take, for instance, palliative phrases I use as a medic with injured patients and their families: “we are going to do everything we can for your daughter”; “we are going to help you the best we can”; “you’re going to feel some pressure while I start this IV”. So next time someone asks you the riddle of what a priest, an attorney and a medic have in common, you can say the answer .

On the other hand, when my seven year old son asked me whether I knew why the chicken crossed the road, I asked back to him, “why?”. I usually tuck my kids into bed before they go to sleep. But on this night, both my son and daughter bravely professed to me that they wanted to go to sleep on their own. We kissed and hugged downstairs, and up the stairs to bed they went while I finished watching the basketball game on TV. Needless to say, after the game, I heard their scurrying, saw their bedroom light go off suddenly, and found my two munchkins giggling (at absolutely nothing!) in their room in bed under the covers . “Get to sleep – NOW!” I admonished them. “We are trying daddy!” I hope they don’t learn to play poker anytime soon.

Despite all the alleged infidelities, Elin Nordegren says she will stay with Tiger Woods for the sake of her small children.  According to the Daily Mail, Friends of Elin Nordegren,  say she is devastated by the extent of his alleged infidelities but plans to stay married.

The couple, who’ve been married since October 2004, have a daughter Sam, two, and son Charlie, ten months.

“She is a child of divorce and that’s not something she’s likely going to want to do to Sam and Charlie,” an unnamed friend told American magazine People.

“She really believes in the importance of parents staying together.

The friends also say that Elin heard whispers about Woods’ active sex life before they married but he promised to reform.

“Elin had talked to other golfers and their wives about Tiger’s wild parties. When she asked Tiger about it, he said he would stop doing it. And she believed him. But he never did,” one friend said.

So, let me get this straight… Elin knew that before she married him, he had an ‘active sex life’; she’s a child of divorce- something she didn’t want to happen to her; and believes in parents staying together. So, in order to accomplish her lofty goals, Elin married a rockstar golfer with an ‘active sex life’ and had two kids with him. Great plan babe. Really. You have every right to be angry. But be angry at yourself. You put yourself in this postiion. Hell… I’m angry now. I’m angry that you knew all of this and decided to birth two innocent beautiful children into the situation.  Or was it that Tiger raped you, and you’re just waiting for the right time to press charges? But wait… now you are going to make the entire situation all better by staying together with a husband you don’t want to be with- a husband whose image you helped destroy. Wow. You really know how to set good examples for your kids to follow. I’m sure you’re not staying in the marriage for the money. What would the public think? You’re voluntarily staying in this relationship… for the kids, for Tiger, for the world, just not for yourself. Right. Gotcha. *wink wink *

Let me tell you a little diddy about volunteering. Volunteers do things because they want to, not because they need to. Not because it’s their job. So when my Fire Department pager went off at about 11pm this evening, in the midst of my watching the beautiful Padma Lakshmi on Top Chef, I voluntarily rushed to the firehouse, jumped on the ambulance and geared up on the way to treat the reportedly signal 9 ‘sick male’ .  Turns out he wasn’t really sick. He was in some sort of wheelchair contraption that broke down and needed a ride back home.  The county cop who first discovered this ‘sick male’ figured that it would be best to call an ambulance to take the man back home. So, instead of calling his county buddies, the county dispatcher figured it was a good idea to take volunteers like myself away from their families after working all day (and some of the night) and give this ‘sick male’ a ride. Here’s what I didn’t volunteer for- I didn’t volunteer for the danger created by the dispatcher’s misrepresentation that the ‘sick male’ was in an emergent state. Perhaps, though, much like Tiger’s wife, Ms. County Dispatch didn’t realize that we would respond with lights and sirens, exceeding the posted speed limits. And perhaps she also didn’t realize that volunteers, like myself, have jobs we work at during the day, and spend time with our families when we get home. Or maybe, she didn’t realize the danger of volunteers like me driving to the firehouse. Yes, she must not have known about the law that makes it illegal to have more than one little flashing blue light in my car when responding to emergency call. She must have subscribed to the logic that dictates in such situations, to wit: the smaller and less visible the flashing blue light is, the more likely it is for other cars to yield the right of way to me as I respond to an emergency.  I think that is what the lovely county dispatcher was taught on her first day of dispatch school. Then, on the next day of school, she was taught to call the volunteers for jobs like this sick male, who needed a taxi ride. That must have been the reason why she didn’t call the county ambulance, whose actual job it is to do this sort of stuff and get paid for it by people like me, a county taxpayer. The difference between the affair the county dispatcher and I had tonight was that Tiger liked to get fucked by his babes. I didn’t really like the fucking I got tonight. Strange, right?

Well, at least my son and daughter volunteered to stay up late tonight until I got home from the ‘sick male’ call so my wife wouldn’t be alone. Hope the kids aren’t too tired tomorrow morning. They might miss the bus. In which case I will just call a county ambulance to swing by and take them to school.

Surprise! Yet another drug product that doesn’t do what it is advertised to do.  Last week, the makers of Airborne settled a false advertising lawsuit for $23.3 million.  Before you blame the lawyers and start adding this to your stories in the now infamous McDonald’s burn case category, you should know that the Airborne company had projected sales of $300 million for its most recently concluded fiscal year.

Men’s health had this article published recently. The comments to the article that I have read so far are dead on.   Click the link and take a gander.

The norovirus and I know each other very well now, since it introduced itself to me last Sunday.  There I was- writhing in pain on my own bedroom floor from the stomach cramps. No, wait… I was sitting with my face buried in the trash can…. no wait… the sink… no wait…. the bath tub… no wait… the garbage bag…no wait… just vomiting everywhere, and in a 25 foot radius, like a rotating, vomiting sprinkler head.

This video is dedicated to all the wonderful employees of my law office, and those at the courthouse who had to stay home because they were ‘buried’ under the one inch coating of snow we got the other day, or they ‘had’ to leave early due to the ‘severe’ weather conditions. HTFU!!! Major props to MDOD for the find….

A firefighter, responding in his personal vehicle, is seriously injured when he swerves to avoid a truck at an intersection and skids into a city bus…

Long Island is 118 miles long and 18-20 miles wide at its widest point.

There were two fire calls on my way to the office today- the pager and siren went off just as I opened my door. Frankly, it was kind of creepy the way that i seemed to have set off two fire alarms just by opening the door to my car. “I’m not gonna lie,” as my EMT buddy Joe always tells me- I loved the sound of the pager tones.  And when they stopped, the town’s horn siren filled in the gap between the repeat pager tones.  I was excited. No, more exhilarated than excited. Whatever. It was a positive, energizing sentiment- almost like what I feel in vegas after chain drinking Red Bulls and smoking a non-filtered cig while looking at a winning hand of blackjack with a bet just big enough to make me worry.  Last time I got that feeling while wearing my attorney hat was… I can’t really remember. Let’s just say eons ago for now.

I took my sweet girl to the pediatric urologist this morning. Nothing too serious, especially since she doesn’t feel embarrassed at her tender age about frequent urination, or “accidents”.

“Magic wand, stat!”