That was an amazing story. Are you sure Dr. Assprobe isn’t simply impersonating a doctor? Have you checked his credentials with … oh, whoever it is one checks these things with … the AMA or somebody?
Hypnosis has not been demonstrated as an effective method for smoking cessation. There was a recent summary in the N.Y. Times science section about this.
"Good news… no cancer or growths. See this card? It would turn blue if there were.”
If Dr. Genius actually said this about your stool occult blood test, he is an idiot. This test is not very sensitive (it’ll miss a lot of cancers) and is non-specific (there are numerous other causes of rectal bleeding, including such things as hemorrhoids).
I would have abandoned this bozo after the first visit, but hey, he’s giving you lots of good SDMB material…
Good JESUS, what a quack.
FWIW, the doctor I transcribe for has been having a lot of success with presription Chantix for smoke cessation. Hell, my husband just got a script for it from a Doc-in-a-box.
My favorite was the family history. One PA I type for is so freaking stupid she’ll include STEP siblings and parents in the family history. Um, who the hell cares if her STEP mother had breast cancer? How does that make her more likely to have it? IDIOT!
I haven’t had any rectal bleeding. I think he did it strictly because I’ve never had a prostate or colon test and my grandfather died of prostate cancer complications (though he was very old and it wasn’t the cancer itself that killed him; mainly it was because he was old and starting to go down hill and then when his balls were surgically removed he just decided he didnt’ want to live anymore- I firmly believe people can will themselves to die). I am surprised to learn it doesn’t really test for cancers though. (I was completely unfamiliar with this test.)
You can’t shake the notion you’re raised with that in order to be a doctor somebody has to be very intelligent and perceptive and have great observational skills. It’s always a real oddity to me when I find this isn’t always the case. I guess some just test well but are of only “eh” intelligence.
On a completely unrelated note but underserving of its own thread, another oddity of this week: my “new friend”.
I never visit my mother’s grave, haven’t been in months, but I’ve been thinking that I really need to just… because that’s what people do. So I finally went out to the cemetery late afternoon/early evening to “pimp” her grave a bit with some seashells and pennies (a family tradition) and some roses from the bushes she planted (Rasputin bushes at that- I haven’t managed to kill them). For reasons that made sense at the time I took Mardi, her morbidly obese but very sweet Rat Terrier who’s now my ‘still fat but not anything remotely like he used to be’ still very sweet Rat Terrier with me. (He absolutely, I kid you not, went through a mourning cycle for my mother.)
I took him out of the car and he made a beeline to our mother’s grave just like he knew where he was going and had been there twenty times (he’s never been there at all). I’d like to think it was some kind of unspoken bond of love, but the fact that the second he got there he peed on her headstone kind of takes away from that notion. For that matter if there’s anybody in Montgomery who died in the last 2 years who hasn’t been peed on it’s because they’re not in that cemetery; the doctor did one helluva job curing his Urinary Tract Infection a few months ago because since then the dog’s been making up for lost time. (I tried walking him in the non-planted side of the cemetery where’s it’s just grass and wildflowers but nope, he didn’t have to do a thing- until we get back to the graves whereupon it’s rainin’ men all over again.)
Anyway, I’m standing by (or on) my mother’s grave talking to her (which I know is stupid and inconsistent and meaningless- I don’t even believe in an afterlife- but as mentioned with smoking above consistency is not a defining trait). As I’m doing this a pick-up pulls up and this redneck who weighs more than the truck gets out in a pair of suitpants and an undershirt and I can smell the beer on him because of course he comes up to where I’m standing. He doesn’t say a word at first even though Mardi’s standing between my feet and snarling at him then he finally goes “That your Mama there?”
Yessir.
“Sorry to hear it. My Daddy died Thursday night. In his house. In his bedroom. Back of the house.”
I’m wondering “Y’all got him out yet?” but all I say is “I’m sorry to hear that”.
“That’s him over yonder…” and he points to a new grave that still has flowers all over it. “Yep. He was 74. Now he’s dead.”
I think of saying “I wonder if he’s met Mama yet” but just give another “sorry to hear that”. Then he starts crying. Now I have an appauling confession to make:
I HATE IT WHEN GROWN MEN CRY.
I don’t mean this as in “I hate seeing animals suffer” or “I hate it when you hear about tragedies such as that”. I mean this as in “I hate it when homeless people lick me on the chin” or “I hate it when I kids fart at the table and their parents laugh instead of locking them in a closet”. It’s one of my herd of non-domesticated peeves. I know it sounds terrible, I try to be a compassionate person, but I just can’t stand it. It’s not that I disrespect them or think they’re being a sissy or weak or anything, it’s just awkward as all hell and I hate being in awkward situations.
So I hate when grown men cry. I hate when almost anybody, male or females, cry around me. I particularly hate it when strangers cry around me, and drunk strangers even worse, and this was a male drunk stranger crying right there next to me. These are the type of people who ruin otherwise perfectly enjoyable funerals. I never know what to do or say in such occasions because my gut reaction of slapping them really hard while saying “STOP IT!” seems rude and insensitive. Instead I reached out and sorta pat his (fat flabby drunk) arm with my hand and he responds by grabbing me in a bear hug and keeps crying.
Now it was really damned awkward. Here’s me stiff as a statue but trying to be consoling, this blubbering 50 year old enormously fat drunk guy with his arms around me, and Mardi absolutely going nuclear because he doesn’t like this one bit- he’s barking and jumping up on the guy and Mama’s still there and dead somewhere underneath. Early the next spring it seems the guy lets go and says “Thanks buddy… I needed that…God bless ya… that helped a lot” and I think ‘I’m glad… I really am… please leave’ and I say 'you bet… ’ and he gets back in his truck. (He never even visited his dad’s grave.)
As soon as he leaves I walk over to his dad’s grave, say hi, keep Mardi from peeing on it, take a few of the roses from the many many arrangements there because I figure he won’t mind and they’ll look nice on my mother’s grave (I need to get a nice silk arrangement) and I proceed talking to Mama again. I’m in mid sentence when another car pulls up and two women, both heavy but one of them even fatter than the guy who just left, both get out. They’re both already crying and they’re heading straight towards me (which isn’t me so much as I’m between them and their daddy’s grave), so I had to stop in mid-sentence and say “Catch ya later Mama… you hang in there, we’ll do lunch. C’mon Mardi… yeah, pee again, good boy… no no no you’ve already peed on Mrs. Hufnagel… well, a little more won’t hurt her… good boy”, then I pick his little fat butt up so I’ll have something in my arms because I’m not being part of a group hug with these two women. I spoke to them and one of 'em said “Hey there…how you?” and bursts out bawling even more so I smiled what I hope looked like consolation, shoved Mardi in the car and hauled ass.
Point: I like to think of myself as compassionate and caring and affectionate. But then I also like to think of myself as the culmination of all history and a doppelganger for Orlando Bloom. And what I really like even more than either of those is well seasoned slow roasted pork butt.
Definitely call around to your local pharmacies and get price quotes on the starter pack and the monthly supply. Prescriptions are competively priced, so if your insurance doesn’t cover Chantix (mine doesn’t) you can realize some significant savings by price comparing. Even the same chain in different locations in your city can have different pricing structures.
I’ve done this on more than one occassion. Walgreens (both here and in Chicago when I lived there) was by far the most expensive. Then Target. In Chicago, the cheapest prescriptions I found were at a small, independent one-off pharmacy. Here in Omaha, Hy-Vee has the cheapest drugs. I saved over 30% calling around. BTW, I got Chantix for $99.21.
I was so in the mood for some Southern fried Sampiro stories. Thanks!
(And I hope you can stop smoking soon!)
I’ve never even ever been a first-hand smoker and still I have times I find myself thinking “damn, wish I were a smoker and could smoke me one…”
Are Sampiro stories bad for your health?
When I read the theoproctological part of the story, I started laughing- then had to fake a coughing fit, go to the water cooler to cover for the coughing and drink some really disgusting water to give myself time to stop laughing. Thanks a lot, Sampiro.
Anyway, Doctor Jimmy must be one of those people who is assumed to be a genius by people who can’t comprehend how such an idiot got to such a station in life.
Thanks for the advice, we already did this. I am very anal about comparing prices – my husband is always amazed at how I can walk around a store and be like “oh, wal-mart has this for 20 cents less” or “oh, this is cheaper than at Kroger” or whatever. We will actually get the Chantix a little cheaper, since (for now, anyway) my husband works at Wal-Mart and they have the lowest price. That means he will get a 10% discount. We will probably pick it up after he gets back from AT – I figure he can smoke down there.
I love whackjob doctors.
One time, while on vacation, I took my wife to the ER in Knoxville TN for edema so bad that the skin on her lower legs was splitting. The attending physician treated that very quickly, but then went off on a tangent about her underlying lupus, and how all diseases were a result of poor nutrition. Poor nutrition was the cause of the edema for sure, because she was eating three bags of pretzels a day on that trip, but I called bullshit on poor nutrition causing the lupus.
I asked him to his face, “If you’re such a nutritional genius, why the fuck are you working in an ER?”
He left us in an 8 cylinder huff. :dubious:
A co-worker stopped smoking after the laser procedure, as did her mother. Cold turkey, no craving.
This just cries out for elaboration (regarding the goat). May I adapt this for a sig?
I’ve been meaning to look this up because I’ve heard it referenced: laser procedure and smoking. It just sounds painful (and I prefer Bics).
My ex and I tried hypnosis back in the late 70s. It didn’t work for either of us.
My current husband had a major heart attack two years ago (100% blockage of the right coronary artery). He hasn’t had a cigarette since that day. As soon as he was out of the heart cath surgery and ensconced in recovery, I raced for the nearest smoking area. I did, however, quit a couple of days later using the patch. I haven’t had a cigarette since. I had wanted to quit and the patch dealt with the physical addiction. That’s the easy part. Overcoming the mental addiction is much tougher. But it’s wonderful to go to a movie, eat out, or even take a plane somewhere and not be wondering how soon I can have a cig. Good riddance!
Great story, Sampiro, as always. I’ve also heard good things about Chantix. Check it out.
A phrase I will remember. Thanks again for good stories.
Ah, the Goldfinger Method. Very effective. Patients tend to experience a sharp upswing in smoking immediatly during, and for a short while after, the first treatment, but after that, they never pick up another cigarette again.
I think I’ve learned more about the psychology of smoking (and quitting) from this story than from all the schooling I’ve ever had, or all the anti-smoking commercials I’ve ever seen, or all the patch and gum commercials I’ve ever seen …
… combined. Thank you, Sampiro.
Righto. THAT would suck badly.
I’d say that no more anal apologetics by itself should increase your life expectancy. Or at least the quality thereof.
In any case, a smashing thread, sir 
Be my guest.
Sadly, the actual story is pretty mundane. I was a member of 4H in my youth, and I brought the goat to one of our get-togethers one Saturday; it started pouring down rain and we had to struggle across a field full of boot-eating mud to get to the parking area. I was no lightweight and neither was the goat (goats are awkward to carry at the best of times) and I guess the two of us together were the straws that broke my mother’s back, so to speak.
The goat’s name was Billy the Kid and I’d raised him on a bottle 'cause his mother rejected him. Besides walking on a leash, he would ride in the rowboat (standing in the bow like George Washington), drink beer, and chew tobacco. I still miss that goat.