the underwear drawer

Medical Specialty Stereotype #7: Emergency Medicine



Joe, Cal and I went to a barbecue last night Dave's house. Dave and Joe used to share an apartment in med school, before I supplanted him as Joe's roommate. And LIFE MATE. But anyway, time has flown, and Dave has since completed his ER residency and he and his lovely girlfriend are ER attendings in Brooklyn. "Oh, you're still a resident?" she asked me, in the incredulous tone of voice of someone finding out that I was actually a double amputee--shocked, yet inspired that I was somehow able to carry on while keeping up such a brave front. I guess it's true what they say, once you're an attending, it's impossible to look back.

Anyway, we brought Cal along, because there was nowhere else for him to go. This is the first time that we've brought Cal to such a flagrantly non-childproofed environment, so that was a little interesting. First of all, it was a grown-up party for grown-ups. Not to say that there were people snorting cocaine off strippers or anything, but there were candles everywhere, live wires, a smoky barbecue grill sitting in the middle of the backyard, gigantic citronella torches alight, sticking out of the ground. It was quite an effort to keep Cal from bursting into flame any number of ways. Luckily, with two ER docs, an anesthesiologist, and, uh, an ophthalmologist on premesis, we had almost everything covered. Including traumatic globe rupture.

The biggest emergency actually had nothing to do with the environment, rather with the fact that Joe neglected to restock the diaper bag before we left the house, and I neglected to check. Which led to this scene: diaperless Cal sitting in Joe's lap in Dave's bedroom, watching "The Wiggles" on You Tube, me sprinting down 7th Avenue to the nearest CVS, hoping to outrun Cal's bladder. Luckily, the good guys won. And the burgers were really good too.