Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Today's "Reason For Your Visit"

When a patient checks in at our ER, they are asked to fill out a half-sheet of paper with name, phone, SSN, birth date, and "reason for your visit".

Whenever I work triage, I write down the interesting ones and have been building up a list.  Some are funny, some embarrassing, and some just tickle my warped sense of humor.  I try to give the benefit of the doubt.  I know that these people are hurting and just want to be seen, but it still makes me shake my head to see some of the things that patients can come up with.

Thus, my regular (as in whenever I feel like it) series, "Reason For Your Visit."  Please keep in mind that spelling, punctuation, and capitalization are copied directly from the original paper.


So let's get to today's Reason For Your Visit: (Today I present to you a double shot)

theeth
Swooling thorat sore

Everybody makes spelling mistakes sometimes, even me, in my state of near-perfection can maike mistaykes, but every once in a while you get one that just makes you wonder if English is a person's first (or second or third) language.  In both cases above, the answer is a sad yes.  Particularly in the second example, where she must have realised that she was spelling swelling wrong and so she crossed it out only to murder her next attempt also.

And theeth just leaves me dumbfounded.  I keep trying to come up with something clever to say about it, and words fail me, so I'll just let you look at it one more time and marvel.

theeth



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My all time favorite is still "Suicidal Jester"...We were all looking for a depressed guy in a pointy hat...

Unknown said...

...and what medicine do you take??

"peanut butter ball."

What was that sir??

"peanut butter ball."

??

"Feanutbutterball!!!"

ahhhh, phenobarbital. ok gotcha.