BELLY LAUGHS

 

I created quite a stir at the Unitarian Church last Sunday. Mary Ellen was embarrassed when she first heard it. The entire congregation was starting to look in my general direction. Noelle started elbowing her husband.  She thought Dan was the instigator. Dan was almost 100 percent sure it wasn’t him. Spouses were poking each other and some of the kids were giggling. My wife thought I should excuse myself from the sanctuary.

Was that my stomach growling?

No one has this identification problem with other bodily eruptions.  Everyone clearly knows who the originator is—although with one sound in particular (and its result) there is usually blame-shifting that unfairly maligns the family dog. But with things like sneezing, hiccupping, and coughing, it’s seldom an issue.

“Hey, Dick that was quite a belch!”

“Actually, that was you, Bob.  It’s an easy mistake to make.”

Even husbands and wives, after years of marital bliss, still ask one question as they drift off in each other’s arms:  Was that you or me?

I’ll admit that I do have loud internal plumbing. Each week I record a version of this newspaper column for broadcast on the local public radio station. Scott Hoke, my producer, listens through his headset during the recording session to ensure the audio is top quality. “Let’s do that last line over again, Dick. I just heard WFYI’s sewer back up.  Or was that your stomach?”

The technical name for a grumbling stomach is borborygmi. The term comes from the Greek word borborugmos. The dictionary says this is an example of onomatopoeia, a word that imitates the sound associated with something. Yes, just like the Anglo-Saxon term bowwow accurately mimics the noise your Rottweiler makes, the Greeks nailed it with boborgymi.

Now, before you start googling (which is also medical jargon for what my stomach is doing), I have already looked up this symptom and I am now aware that stomach rumbling is one indication of about 35 different illnesses, including uremia, mesenteric ischemia, aerophagia and functional dyspepsia—none of which I had ever heard of.  That meant I needed to google those particular disorders, as well, but more googling would have turned my stomach—which was the last thing I needed.  By the way, don’t look up things like insomnia, headache, fever, sweats or constipation unless you want see a long list of diseases you could have…but probably don’t.

When your insides churn noisily, your brain is sending a message to your gut to prepare for a meal. As one medical site notes, your belly is saying: “Hungry. No food here; must eat soon.” Why do stomachs sound like Tonto talking to the Lone Ranger?

Apparently, your intestines are always growling, says another expert, but when you have eaten, you are less likely to hear them. “It’s like putting a pair of sneakers in the dryer by themselves versus with a load of towels.” That thought is enough to give you the munchies.

I’ve been at my computer writing this column all afternoon and my wife just sent me an email saying she had a tough day and wants to go out for a quiet dinner. I hated to tell her, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not when I’m this hungry.

 

 

 

 

DON’T BUG ME

 DON’T BUG ME

 

It was one of those Internet headlines that you think might be a joke:

                        MOSQUITOES PREFER BEER DRINKERS

My initial reaction was to brush it off, just like I do the little pests at picnics and the State Fair. The article had already gone viral.  My guess is that good old boys in places like Pine Bluff, Arkansas, got the bad news while standing around their favorite watering hole where, unfortunately, there is a lot of standing water. The guys were probably a little red-faced that they had never figured out this beer/mosquito connection. Of course, they were also red-faced before they found out about this beer/mosquito connection.

The piece is filled with data that establishes a profile for those people most likely to be bitten. For example, one scientist notes:  “Pregnant women are hit on more than men.”  This, by the way, is always a hot topic at ladies’ night at the Pine Bluff Bar and Laundromat.

Much of this research was sponsored by the American Mosquito Control Association, whose motto includes: “We are dedicated to education…that results in the total suppression of mosquitoes.” Generally, I’m against any kind of suppression, but even a liberal like me can suck it up and admit this is all-out war. And it won’t be bloodless.  

The investigations were performed on hundreds of idealistic young volunteers. What was the incentive for their participation? Lots of free booze and an itch to do something for the betterment of mankind.

The research says that when a mosquito dines on a person who has enjoyed a few brews, the insect gets a little tipsy herself (male mosquitoes don’t bite). Scientists have an instrument called an inebriometer that can measure how much alcohol the bug has ingested. No doubt, Indiana soon will be training our state troopers (those with tiny hands) to administer this test.

What else have scientists learned? Professor Robert Van Pire (not his real name) at a nearby Midwest university sat in a mosquito-filled lab in his underwear to determine which parts of his body were most likely to be targeted. His feet were first, even edging out a petri dish with limburger cheese. Entomologists around the world admired the professor’s dedication to the problem of insect bites, but ol’ Dr. Bob actually teaches American Literature and this was the third time he was caught on campus in his boxers claiming it was research.

What other factors make you susceptible to a mosquito bite? Black clothing, for example, increases the chance of being a victim about 35 percent. And when the moon is full, you are 25 percent more likely to be bitten. This is another reason not to flash people from your car window, especially at dusk when mosquitoes are looking for some action and can’t tell one moon from another.

You are also more likely to be bitten if you are exercising than when you are at rest because you are sweating. So to sum it up:  avoid running during a full moon (dressed all in black) after downing four or five beers. Those are some good tips to prevent attacks by skeeters.

I have another idea. But I am warning you, it is repellent. 

LIVING PROOF

 

 

He hadn’t eaten anything in two days. (With a beagle, you should worry about loss of appetite after two hours.) He was clearly in distress. Breathing heavily. Hadn’t budged in hours. I took him to the emergency veterinary clinic where they initially diagnosed it as a treatable infection, but Toby was not getting better.

 They did an ultrasound.  The doctor came into the waiting room with the results. “Can I take him home now?” I asked the doctor.

 “If you really want to,” she said, explaining that the tumors they found on his liver were probably life threatening, and they might soon become painful. He was too old for any aggressive treatment.

“I do want to take him home,” I said without hesitation. “I want some time with him to say good-bye.”  I looked into his eyes; the sparkle was gone. I hoped that taking him back to the house was the right decision.

Barney—who passed away ten years ago this week— had accompanied me on 2,500 TV shows for WISH-TV.  Rather than become my next TV sidekick, Toby became nothing more than my next best friend. And nothing was more important than that. I’ve had a hound by my side for 23 years. The transition from beagle to beagle was seamless. The two dogs looked alike, they acted alike, they drove my wife crazy alike.

 

When we got home from the vet, Toby curled up on his bed next to the TV. He didn’t move for 12 hours. No interest in water or food.  I spent most of the next afternoon lying next to him, stroking his ears. When my wife got home, I remember saying, “I know this dog; he is dying.” Mary Ellen took issue with my prognosis. “I think he’s going to be fine,” she said, an observation that I took to be directed more at assuaging my anxiety than a legitimate medical assessment.

Over the next few days, Toby began wandering around the house, soon barking to go outside to sit in the afternoon sun. His tail started wagging and by the end of the week he had tipped over all the wastebaskets in the house and snatched a loaf of bread from the kitchen counter. I was ready to kick his butt. I wanted my wife to wipe that self-satisfied look off her face. This was three months ago.

Except for a newly torn cruciate ligament, he’s pretty much like a pup again, carrying around his dinner bowl in his mouth, coaxing me to fill it constantly with the canned moist food I switched to when he got sick. I don’t have the heart to go back to the tasteless dry fare that he never relished.

Toby is 13, but my hope is that he lives long enough for his leg to mend and that we can head out again for our daily walks around the neighborhood. The growths may never have been found had he not been treated for this incidental infection. I’m thinking he may stick around for a while.

I could have easily made a different decision that night at the clinic, never knowing if I made the right one.  This experience offers no life lessons. There is no moral here. It’s just a story, but so far, a story with a happy ending.

               

CAT NIPS

As of this past Saturday morning, I had nothing to write about. Then the cat bit my wife. I know, a cat bite is nothing to make fun of.  Neither was my lung biopsy, but I managed to crank out an entire humor column about that several weeks ago.

Mary Ellen had pretty much forgotten about the feline attack, but that night after dinner with friends, she casually mentioned the redness on her ankle while on the way home in the car. Bob and Cathy, both armed with their iPhones, were in the back seat googling away, entering phrases like: Fatal cat bites; deadly feline teeth; and, lethal kitten puncture wounds.  Hey, what’s more fun than surfing the net?

Once Bob and Cathy had convinced my wife that the swelling was either pasteurella multocida or staphylococcus aureus, we headed for the nearest walk-in med center. At that point, three of us decided to make it a fun evening by socializing in the waiting room while my wife was being examined.  I know that’s a really dumb way to spend a Saturday night with friends, but with my wife’s excellent health insurance, it was actually a cheaper evening than all four of us going to the movies.

Before she was treated, Mary Ellen had to fill out a form. The first part was titled “Victim Information.”  The second section was labeled “If the Victim Was an Animal,” which is either the kind of man-bites-dog story I’m always looking for as a reporter, or if it’s a dog bites dog story, then I want to be there with a news crew when Fido picks up a pen and fills out that form.

The receptionist said there was a long line to see the doctor and requested that Mary Ellen put herself on the waiting list and come back in an hour or so. I told the nurse that the next time my wife needed medical attention like this, we’d try to call about 45 minutes before she planned to torment the cat. Mary Ellen did not think that was funny.

Cats and dogs aren’t the only attacking culprits.  In fact, one part of the form provided a list of species that could potentially bite a human. They were in alphabetical order, so the first one on the list was bats, and number two was cattle (which I think would be embarrassing to admit to.) Okay, maybe a mad cow, but how do you let an entire herd bite you? Squirrel is the very last one listed.  And there is no mention made of pigs, more proof of just how powerful the bacon lobby is. That’s also probably why the expression: “When pigs bite,” never got any traction.

When we finally saw the doctor, he confirmed the potential severity of a cat wound and suggested that an X-Ray be taken to be sure the ankle bone had not been penetrated. Cathy, who was by now the leading cat bite expert in Central Indiana, wanted to know why that procedure was necessary. “Because the cat is now missing two front teeth,” I told her.

By the way, I forgot to mention that two years ago Mary Ellen was at this very clinic after she tried to take a chicken bone away from our beagle. The gash from Toby’s bite required three stitches in her hand.  My wife has a way with animals. Which is why we are not getting a cow.

 

 

 

MY BIG FAT GEEK TV

 

First the movers separated our three-part wall unit, transferring the middle tower to our son’s former bedroom upstairs. As a result, the extra bed in his room had to be stored in the basement. The easy chair had to be moved to the other side of the living room, which meant the sections of our couch had to be reconfigured, but now the coffee table was the wrong shape and had to be replaced. And now you know why it took us eight years to finally decide to buy a big screen TV.

No furniture adjustment was required in our house when we purchased our cell phones, video cameras, or even computers. With all the research and design that companies like Samsung invest in, I ask you: Why can’t they make big screen TVs smaller? 

Before we bought the 55 flat screen television, we did the perfunctory price comparisons between stores. The problem was that we didn’t know the difference between LED and LCD.  My wife realized that any explanation offered to us by the sales associate would have to be directed to her alone because while at the store, I was having too much fun watching the US Open on 47 TV sets at the same time.

Our cable provider came and hooked everything up. When he left, we stared at the behemoth that was already beginning to seem like an intruder in our home. “I feel like a space ship has landed in our living room,” said Mary Ellen. “It’s way too big and high tech.”

“I know. It looks weird next to the shelf with a set of 1989 World Book Encyclopedias.”

We watched a new episode of The Killing on AMC. We stared at the TV silently until finally I had the nerve to say it. “Mary Ellen, I don’t like the picture. It’s almost too sharp. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes, I was just thinking that I feel like I’m watching an episode of All My Children. I don’t think real life is that crisp and clear.”

We viewed the entire show, convinced that Susan Lucci would eventually make a cameo appearance. I told Mary Ellen that we must never speak of this issue again, not if we had any hopes of ever making new friends with people under the age of 90. We wanted our old TV back, but requesting a return from Goodwill creates a lot of bad will, so we decided to just deal with it.

I went online and discovered hundreds of people posting about what they called SOE (the soap opera effect), a term I had coined in my living room the previous night but was given absolutely no credit for in the blogosphere.

I called the store and the sales associate said this was indeed a common complaint but it was easily remedied. He told me to get my remote and then go to the sub menu. The only sub menu I know how to find gets me a six-inch teriyaki chicken on whole wheat and a drink for $5.95.

Apparently, there is a way to eliminate the SOE on your LED or LCD, but it requires reading directions,  and since I’m ADD, it’s probably easier to just watch soap operas all day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RETIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW

My wife was confident that her retirement would be an easy transition to make. One day she would be hard at work at the office; then suddenly, she wouldn’t be.  Simple as that.  But for the first half of June, she kept asking me what day of the week it was and when I went back in the bedroom one morning while she was still sleeping, she opened her eyes and asked me if I had an appointment.  I told her it was no longer necessary to pack her lunch before she went to bed, nor did she have to eat her sandwich out of a Tupperware container.

Our first vacation to celebrate her retirement was to South Carolina for a look at historic Charleston. We always have great guides, but my problem is that I can never remember anything they tell me, especially if they start ranting about whose sister married whose cousin who moved to Virginia who then settled in Charleston before rebuilding this house and adding an extension that still has the original wallpaper. But when I hear something interesting like: “The slaves were instructed to whistle while transporting the master’s dinner from the kitchen to the dining room, to ensure they didn’t sample the food,” well, I’ll never forget that little tidbit.  But I probably should, because apparently it is not true—at least according to a website called American History Myths. I’m gonna cut the guide some slack here. I’d rather remember something that was incorrect than remember nothing at all. I started to feel more strongly about this when I turned 65.

At one self-guided tour site, we placed headphones on and hung a recording device around our necks.  We were then directed to the first room of this celebrated home of someone whose name I don’t remember who did something I never heard of.  But the real problem was that my wife and I did not push our start buttons at exactly the same time. The result was that when her headset was telling her to look up at a 200-year-old chandelier, mine was instructing me to behold the magnificent original carpeting. Seeing me look down, Mary Ellen thought I was uninterested and kept poking me to pay attention.  Of course, I thought she was just in a daze looking up at the ceiling, so we were both wondering why we paid 40 bucks apiece to be totally bored.

The other problem with the tape was that they tried to time the narration with what was a normal person’s speed of walking, so it was only after I fell down three steps and crashed into a mahogany credenza that I was cautioned to “Watch my step.” At one point I turned the wrong way in a corridor and bumped into Mary Ellen. The audio was telling me that what I was looking at was a true original but was in need of some restoration. I never told my wife why I was laughing.

We are back home now and Mary Ellen is enjoying her leisure time.  She’s even started cooking again. The other night she prepared a delicious meal and asked me if I would mind carrying the dish out to our back porch.  I was happy to oblige, but I wish she hadn’t made me whistle.

MY LUNG BIOPSY ( SERIOUSLY)

BREATHING EASY

This is a humor column about a serious medical concern. Everything turned out fine, but this is my one chance to write funny stuff about a lung biopsy. I hope.

When I arrived at the hospital, I met Jill, the RN, and immediately asked her if the doctor assigned to me was good at what he did. Jill confirmed he was “the best we have here.”  I admire nurses for what they do, but I don’t think they are as forthcoming as waitresses. “How’s the tilapia tonight, Tina?”

“Not so good—it’s a little fishy. The meatloaf special is awesome, though.”

You don’t get this kind of honesty from your average nurse. “Is this Dr. Jones a good radiologist?”

“He’s no Dr. Smith, but I’m sure everything will be okay.”

Jill explained to me that after the procedure I would return to the recovery area and would not be allowed out of bed for any reason for two hours. “So, I am going to encourage you to go to the bathroom now,” she said.

“How are you going to do that?” I asked.

The nurse seemed confused by my attempt at being funny, but my wife became absolutely hysterical at this remark and there was even some talk of sedating her. Nerves, I guess.

I wanted to know if I was the physician’s first patient that morning, because the needle probe requires really good aim and I was hoping he had a chance to warm up on someone else first.  When I saw the doctor, he informed me that we’d be talking to each other during the biopsy, but I would have no memory of what I said.  He promised me that in the very unlikely event I said something amusing (he apparently reads my column every week), he’d note it on my chart.

During the four hours I was there, the staff constantly asked my name and date of birth, confirming that I was the right person getting the correct procedure, and also to see if the meds they had administered were affecting my ability to recall information. Sometimes the same people asked me this question over and over again, so I started to worry about their memories.

In the afternoon, the staff brought me lunch, but before I took a bite I had to confirm my name and date of birth still again, this time because the hospital will not buy you a meal if you’re just having a $69.00 heart scan. The food was good but I’m a messy eater and when I was digging in, the wrist port for my IV got clogged up with mashed potatoes. The nurse said she had never seen that happen before, but she was required note it on my medical records because technically it was a blockage.

Mary Ellen came back into the recovery room and sat by the bed after lunch.  Jill came in and asked my name and date of birth for the 15^th time.  I responded appropriately, but then just to throw her off, I asked her who the strange woman was sitting next to me.

When I left, I told the nurse how incredibly nice everyone had been and that I really appreciated it. She informed me that the staff treats everyone the same way—no matter who they are. But just to be sure, I told her anyway:  Richard Wolfsie, March 5, 1947.