sex, lies, and gonorrhea

So, the other day I admitted a young black woman who presented to the emergency room with acute pelvic pain and cervical motion tenderness. She had pelvic inflammatory disease. As expected, the culture I took in the emergency room was positive for gonorrhea. Since I admitted her I decided I should be the one to break the news to her.

When I walked into her hospital room, her boyfriend was sitting at the bedside, holding her hand and looking soooo attentive. I felt like pointing at him and screeching like in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Guilty! Ark! Ark! Ark! I kicked him out of her room (okay, I politely asked him to step outside) and told her she had the clap. In fact, her infection was so bad it landed her in the hospital for IV antibiotics and forced her to miss several days of work. "I don't understand," she said, looking genuinely puzzled. "My boyfriend and I have been together for 5 years, and I haven't slept with anyone else." I watched silently as the truth dawned on her. Her expression changed from confusion to hurt to rage in about 30 seconds.

"You can come in now," I told the boyfriend, sweetly.

love in the time of chlamydia

Last weekend I went out for tapas and booze with the female residents in my class. We had a lot of fun. Three of us were single, and one was married. Our waiter was a hottie so the married resident (a.k.a FB: Future Breeder) got it in her head to fix A up with him. A is muslim and has every intention of marrying within her own ethnicity and faith, but I guess she has no objection to spending time with a hot waiter. The poor guy must have sensed something was up because he started looking flustered each time he approached our table.

As our friend K became more and more drunk, she began monopolizing the conversation with her single gyno-girl angst. She is upset because she is about to turn 30 (horrors!) with no marriage prospects. To make matters more complicated, she is Korean-American and has her heart set on marrying a Korean boy. Not Chinese, like her last two boyfriends, but Korean. She wants the comfort of being with someone who understands Korean language and culture.

Naturally FB, a Mexican girl married to a very cute and reasonably P.C. white boy, urged K to consider dating outside her race. I had to agree. While interracial dating is not my favorite personal pastime, it made sense for K to broaden her applicant pool. Either that or get her parents involved in helping her hook up with a nice Korean boy.

After we paid the check, three of us left and FB stayed behind to tell the waiter that A liked him. Five minutes later, she came running out of the restaurant, waiving a napkin and shouting "Success!! Success!!" James the hot waiter liked A as well and had written his number on a napkin for her.

A fine example of how the aggression of Ob/Gyn residents can be used for good instead of evil.

sexual healing

One of the black female interns confided last night that she is severely depressed. Before residency, she was a cheerful, joy filled person. Then she entered this work environment where everything you do is criticized and people smile in your face while they stab you in the back. She has tried to throw herself in to her spiritual practice and she has seen a counselor, to no avail.

Her confessional was interrupted by a booty call: some guy she has known forever who refuses define their relationship (been there, done that, will never go back). He works the night shift at Target. He spends way too much time in her apartment while making no contribution to the rent. She even lets him drive her new car. When I asked her why she is doing this, she responded "my life is shit. Sex is all I have".

Sexual healing. Humph.

If you ask me, SSRIs (anti-depressants) are superior to booty calls. SSRIs will never leave you anxious about the status of your relationship. In fact, they will mellow your ass out for longer than the duration of an afterglow. SSRIs will never raid your refrigerator or ask to drive your car. SSRIs will never tell you that your breasts or butt is too small or that you need to hit the gym. SSRIs will never leave the toilet seat up in your own damn house. SSRIs will never give you a sexually transmitted infection.

However, my troubled intern friend feels there is a greater stigma in taking an antidepressant than allowing some good-for-nothing-but-sex Negro to pimp her ass. Go figure.

I went to the gynecologist today for the first time in ages. Even though she was professional, sensitive and expert, I still felt somewhat violated when I got off the table. Note to self: learn to be as quick as possible with exams.

I have to schedule a baseline mammogram. Yikes!

Last night on Labor and Delivery, a short, swarthy, middle-aged man with an unidentifiable accent told me I had beautiful eyes. And, he said, he could say this because his wife wasn't around. The reason she wasn't around was because she was in recovery after having his baby! Eeeeooowww....

reunion

I apologize, dear readers, for taking so long to update this blog. Much has happened but I have not had the energy to document mi vida loca.

I went to my college reunion last weekend and discovered two things: 1) everyone who showed up was successful and 2) everybody was FAT! Aging is a bitch.

It was weird to see people who were alcoholics, drug addicts and sex freaks in college come back our reunion as corporate whores and surburban housewives. It was weirder still to see that some of them had actually become parents. It was tempting to say to someone's 10 year old kid, "did you know that your mommy used to screw anything with legs and a vagina back in college? But of course, that was before she met your daddy."

Equally disturbing were the people who hadn't changed at all. Qualities that were cute and quirky at 17 often lose their charm at 37.