Not too infrequently, I come across patients who are experts at giving extemporaneous detail. I've mentioned this before, but I had such a classic case recently it drove me to blog, yet again.
He could have summed it up as, "I took four baby aspirin." Or better yet, "I took aspirin." Instead, he went the verbose route. "Well, as I was walking out of the house... well, actually, I wasn't out of the house, my wife was coming into the house, but I told her that I just didn't feel right and I know that you just discharged me but this was completely different and since I had a heart surgery I was concerned it could have been a heart attack so as I was walking with the wife through the kitchen on the way to the garage I saw the bottle of aspirin on the counter. It was baby aspirin. We leave it out on the counter. We don't have any little kids around the place so its not dangerous or anything. It's just me and the misses and the wiener dog. Anyways I took four baby aspirin. They are 81 mg and if you take four of them they equal one adult aspirin... so I took four baby aspirin on my way out the door."
I tried interrupting and redirecting him. This usually works like a charm. For this ole dude, it just caused a great anger. I may have pushed the issue to get to the main points... but I sorta had fun looking over at his wife. Head buried in her hands... periodically looking up, opening her mouth with a severe look of impatience wearing on her face... then, mouth shuts and head buries into her hands again. I could sense the frustration literally boiling with in her.
Was this man always like this? I usually fine this in the elderly population. Is this my future? Am I doomed to ramble on with tidbits of information that do not add to the content of the story? Am I heading towards social skill dementia? Maybe this guy had Asperger's or something? Man, I hope so. If this were to be my future... I don't want to know it.
David
He could have summed it up as, "I took four baby aspirin." Or better yet, "I took aspirin." Instead, he went the verbose route. "Well, as I was walking out of the house... well, actually, I wasn't out of the house, my wife was coming into the house, but I told her that I just didn't feel right and I know that you just discharged me but this was completely different and since I had a heart surgery I was concerned it could have been a heart attack so as I was walking with the wife through the kitchen on the way to the garage I saw the bottle of aspirin on the counter. It was baby aspirin. We leave it out on the counter. We don't have any little kids around the place so its not dangerous or anything. It's just me and the misses and the wiener dog. Anyways I took four baby aspirin. They are 81 mg and if you take four of them they equal one adult aspirin... so I took four baby aspirin on my way out the door."
I tried interrupting and redirecting him. This usually works like a charm. For this ole dude, it just caused a great anger. I may have pushed the issue to get to the main points... but I sorta had fun looking over at his wife. Head buried in her hands... periodically looking up, opening her mouth with a severe look of impatience wearing on her face... then, mouth shuts and head buries into her hands again. I could sense the frustration literally boiling with in her.
Was this man always like this? I usually fine this in the elderly population. Is this my future? Am I doomed to ramble on with tidbits of information that do not add to the content of the story? Am I heading towards social skill dementia? Maybe this guy had Asperger's or something? Man, I hope so. If this were to be my future... I don't want to know it.
David
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