I saw a teenager in clinic yesterday who was using what I refer to as the “hope method” of birth control, as in: “I hope I don’t get pregnant, but I’m not actually doing anything to prevent it.”  I asked her if she was trying to get pregnant, to which she replied definitely not,  but she and her boyfriend would be prepared to take care of any baby that came along…

I was thinking about that girl today, as well as the teenagers in Gloucester who apparently made a pact to get pregnant and raise their babies together, while I was holding my own little daughter.  Aliza was crying miserably because I had put her down for 3 minutes so I could go to the bathroom.  One sometimes hears teens talk about wanting a baby so that they have someone to love them unconditionally.  What occurred to me in that moment is that I love Aliza unconditionally, but the reverse isn’t really true.  She recognizes my face, but at this stage she’s just as happy to smile back at almost anyone who smiles at her.   Love is a two-way street, which would mean Aliza going to sleep more than 5 hours before I need to be up for work again, or not screaming to be fed just as I try to sit down to eat, or maybe just peeing less often when I have her diaper open.

The challenge of having a baby is being able to love this little person as much as possible, and giving as much as possible, while knowing that the more substantive returns are further in the future.  Try explaining that to a teenager.

A few months ago, Maureen Dowd wrote an article where she blasted Barack Obama as an elitist. Frankly I thought the article itself smacked of more elitism than Obama himself ever displayed. She essentially used the “I’m a real American because I grew up in a house with a gun, while you went to an ivy league school” argument. Frankly I’ve never understood why some people think that this makes them “real” Americans while others are “fake” Americans. Her other lines of attack basically boiled down to the fact that Obama talked on camera about arugula, and couldn’t bowl, while Hillary drank scotch in a bar. (Seriously – is this how we pick the leader of the free world – what kind of alcohol they drink?)

I could go on tearing into this article for at least another four paragraphs but I’ll restrain myself. The sweet revenge happened yesterday when Dowd penned another column attacking Karl Rove for calling Obama elitist. (I know the party usually solidifies around it’s candidate, but this is too much). Now we all know that any politician calling another an elitist is a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, but for some reason it’s actually worked. George W. Bush, a man who was born to a tremendous amount of privilege, was somehow elected to the whitehouse twice in part by appearing to be less elitist than his opponents.

I feel like I’ve wandered off topic (I do that a lot when discussing politics), so let me sum up quickly so I can go to bed:

• Dowd is a hypocrite.
• Rove is a hypocrite
• All politicians are filthy stinkin’ rich. Deal with it.
• Finally, I want a president who is elite. Don’t you? Don’t you want the leader of the country to be smart and have track record of success? I want the president to be the best of the best, and nothing less.

Seen on I-95

Originally uploaded by bachrach44

While on I-95 Rebecca and I passed this truck. The cage in the back has a sign on it which says “employees only”. I hate to think what kind of work this man does.

100_3777

Originally uploaded by bachrach44

One of the things I’ve always liked about DC is the amount of green space inside the city. I know lots of other cities (including some I’ve lived in), have more total green space (central park, forest park, fairmount park), but the thing I like about DC is that it’s dispersed throughout the city and integrated into it. When I lived here the first time I felt like every time we went on a walk we found a new park. A few weeks ago we decided, on advice from a friend, to visit the Kenilworth aquatic gardens. They are definately worth the trip. They’re not huge, but they are very pretty. The main part is a series of man made “lakes” which they have seeded with water lilies and lotuses. They have attracted their own aquatic wildlife (turtles, frogs, tadpoles, watersnakes, beavers, etc.) and are fun to walk around. For me at least it took me back to my summers as a child when we used to go camping and my brother and I would go and catch turtles and frogs. (For the record, he was better at it than I was, but mostly because he was willing to get dirtier than I was. My mom used to buy him 3 dozen pairs of socks every year for a 1 week camping trip). I highly recommend it.

I’ve been reading The Challenge of Creation by Natan Slifkin of late. While I will reserve a more complete judgment until I actually finish the book, there is one argument which Slifkin has made repeatedly which really doesn’t sit well with me. It is that argument (put forward by many proponents of intelligent design) that the universe is just too darn coincidental to be an accident. For example, Slifkin points out the improbability of the sun emitting light which we can see. (As he points out, there is a tremendously large EM spectrum, and the odds of it emitting the tiny fraction which we call visible light, and not say, X-rays which would be deadly to us is incredibly small).

This argument, to me, is an example of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. If the sun had emitted different light, we would have evolved to see different light, rather than be damaged by it. If this sun hadn’t been suitable for life, life could still have evolved on one of the practically infinite other worlds or stars. However this activity (trying to show that a coincidence is just a coincidence) could continue indefinitely as there are an infinite number of them to explore. The more convincing argument for me is this:

Let’s assume that there is a creator. If the creator wanted to be provable by man, then it wouldn’t be something as subtle as a series of coincidences which might be just coincidences. Rather it would be something so blatantly obvious that no man could argue with it. The absence of such an obvious proof can mean that either there is no creator, or that the creator does not want there to be reliable, obvious, scientific proof of its existence. In the latter case, trying to find such a proof would be obviously futile. (Unless of course you honestly think that you’re smarter than the creator).

In other words, maybe god actually wants us to have faith.

A couple days ago I received an urgent call from a friend seeking medical advice for her husband: she described his condition and asked if he should go to the ER.

This situation is not new to me, it’s happened numerous times in various iterations over the past 5 years.  What was different this time is that I’m not technically a medical student now, but actually,  really, truly an MD…  …  …

Okay, stay calm.  The obvious caveats:

1) I graduated 2 weeks ago, and haven’t learned anything new in the interim (not technically true, since I’m studying for PALS, but close enough).

2) Even if I was a “real doctor,” we are supposed to avoid making diagnoses over the phone, for both ethical and legal reasons (aka: I haven’t actually seen the patient).

I advised my friend of both these facts, and then gave them maybe the best available piece of advice: if you feel bad enough to be considering a trip to the ER, you should probably go.

This story has a happy ending (no, not that kind, and no, I’m not putting in a link), as her husband did go to the ER, where they juiced him up with a liter of normal saline (everyone feels better after a liter of NS, trust me), gave him some meds and sent him on his way with nary a law suit in site.  A good day for all.

I’ve been feeling under the weather for the last few days (nothing major, just the worst case of Ebola ever a sinus infection). It has been interesting to see how different people tell me to treat it:

• My Mom: hot tea with honey
• Dr. Wife: Sudafed
• Morning minyan: whiskey and donuts

In an effort to be inclusive, I’ve been making sure to try them all.

Sticks and stones
may break my bones
but words will never hurt me

I’ve been thinking about the MTM suicide case. In short, an adult woman made a myspace account impersonating a teenage boy, and used it to initially flirt with and then dump a teenage girl who had a less-than-stellar relationship with the woman’s daughter. The teenage girl then committed suicide, and the woman is now being charged in the case.

Ignoring for a moment the horrible tragedy which has occurred and the horrible case law being created, there is the simple issue of how young people deal with verbal abuse. I can’t remember how many times I was told as a child to simply “brush it off” because “words can’t hurt you”. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a parental axiom that was as patently false as that one. Words clearly hurt, both children and adults, and it doesn’t take a tragic suicide to prove it. Rather than trying to teach the obvious falsehood that verbal assaults do not lead to mental anguish, we should be teaching children how to deal with verbal assaults and the ensuing mental anguish. Denying simple reality does nothing to help them.