Pets

During my 45 years in pediatrics, I saw a lot of that. Parents often used to say, "I need some more of that white cream in the little tube." Oh, yeah, that one, like there's only one - They're almost all white and come in little tubes. I know of only one yellow one.

When I was a peds nurse practitioner the Air Force, families would have to get their charts from a central records room and bring them to the clinic. Many times, the record room would be unable to find a chart, and the parent would present you with an essentially worthless blank chart page that had the child's identifying information and reason for the visit, but nothing else. It made follow-up visits challenging, as the parents, especially the dads, were often not very good historians. They would know what the problem had been, but often not much else - What medication - the pink one/ Any fever - our thermometer is broken/ How long ago was the last visit - I don't know.

One time, a child was brought in by her dad, with her blank page of paper, for a recheck of an ear infection. As I prepared to look in her ears, the dad said, "I'm not so much worried about the ear infection, but what it might have done to the hole in her heart."

HOLE IN HER HEART! WHAT DAMN HOLE IN HER HEART?!