Comments on: An Unusual Presentation

By: Electric Venom

Electric Venom — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 11:17:08 +0000

In Honor Of Minnesota

…the Venomous Family arriving there, that is…
Here’s some different takes on the dirty martini.
(I rather suspect VK is on the outside of a couple of those, by now…)
Myself? Martinis are a nice change of pace. But in summer, in…

By: De Doc

De Doc — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 10:53:06 +0000

I had a case very much like that a few years ago… only it was the nurses, who knew the family, who called my attention to the personality change. The spouse was too startled by how nice things had been around the house to complain at good fortune.

(That patient had a small CVA, not a tumor; but in the same area you describe.)

Invites melancholy, doesn’t it?

By: Judy

Judy — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 05:49:10 +0000

Good catch there!

I once took a kid to the pedi because he wanted to play at 2am. Kid had slept through the night from BIRTH. Really. They thought I was nuts until they looked in his ears.

By: jerry

jerry — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 14:27:14 +0000

This sounds like a happier ending than most. Often it is a chronically debilitated septic nursing home patient sent in with a chief complaint of ALOC (“no longer moaning and groaning”). A couple of days of IV fluid and antibiotics and they get sent back to the nursing home moaning and groaning.

On another bend I think a similar thing happened to Lance Armstrong. His brain tumors destroyed the part of the brain that feels pain, fatigue, and lactic acid!

By: cathy

cathy — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 06:24:44 +0000

She must have really been a humdinger of a nasty person. Its pretty bad when your so mean that your kids suspect you have a brain tumor when you act nicely. Not only suspect but believe it to be an emergent situation. And they were right! heh..

By: Christopher Henry

Christopher Henry — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 03:16:08 +0000

Recalls the Phineas Gage tamping rod accident, the 1848 story used in neuroanatomy to illustrate the early understanding of frontal lobe function and the consequences of frontal lobe injury.

By: Bonticou

Bonticou — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 00:06:14 +0000

Yes, congratulations to you for taking the family seriously and ordering that CT scan. Took me nearly four months to get help for my husband, who woke up nasty as hell and verbally abusive one Sunday morning. No one took me seriously, bc. he also had a low Na count – they’d keep him a day or to until it got up to “low” and send him home. His primary physician take on this was that “This is a MENTAL problem. I’m a physician, and I treat PHYSICAL problems,” and shooed us out the door. (That guy is on my bad list and no longer my husband’s MD.)

Finally I got him on tape stating that he’d like to take a 45 and shoot me (he doesn’t have any gun, let alone a 45) and the police took it seriously enough to make the hospital do some tests. Small areas of damage in the frontal and temporal lobes. 18 months later, he’s mostly back to normal and Mr. Nasty has made no repeat appearances – but those four months sure were hell. Sure wish we’d found an MD like you in the first ER episode.

By: Goatwhacker

Goatwhacker — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 23:50:28 +0000

Well I’ll piss in everybody’s cornflakes a little here and ask what the hell was she doing in an ER?

By: Jordan

Jordan — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:15:04 +0000

It’s so hard to realize whether it’s the patient or the family who has the problem. in this case it was clearly the patient

By: Jon Mikel, M.D.

Jon Mikel, M.D. — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:06:01 +0000

hehehe what an extrange presentation! so being a nice guy is bad!