Occasionally Preposterous, Repeatedly Scrutinizing, and Sporadically Egotistical: My Two Cents

I will say that never gets old. Yet again, I prove I am really just 12 years old. But let's be honest, deep down, everyone chuckles at jokes about this kind of stuff. So where am I going with this? A 80 something patient presents with acute confusion and a fall, assessment and labs show hyponatremia to 120, AKI, and pancytopenia, WBC 1, RBC 2.1, Hgb 7.2, Plt 40. Cultures grew mold and bacteria (suspected pneumonia) so she is placed on voriconazole and cefepime. The baseline for the patient is alert and oriented to person, place, time, and situation, the family reports normally the patient is lively and active with a large family including 8 grandkids and 2 great grandkids (not relevant but I think it is sweet). Medical history includes CHF, osteoporosis, BMI <16, stress incontinence, UTIs, unspecified malignancy. A PICC is placed in the left arm and the patient improves after getting rid of....... furosemide? Huh. Bone biopsy was negative for malignancy, no other reason was foun...

As far as I can remember, I was never a medically minded person up until Christmas 2019. I knew what food poisoning was, blastomycosis, blood clots,  and cracked ribs were, but that was it. I'm sure I knew of others, but I never gave them a second thought as I was spared much in the way of illness. It's funny how such things shaped my life, and I never gave them any hold in my mind until much later. Not that these diagnoses were as profound as say, a cancer diagnosis, but they impacted me in many ways. All this to say, that was my breadth of awareness of the medical field, the corpsmen (God love them, seriously) were no help to teach me. I do remember vividly for some reason I can't explain, the time I found out about H. pylori, the "H" in the title. I had a buddy at the time with some gnarly, debilitating stomach pain. Boy did I not known what the hell to do about that. Ibuprofen? Acetaminophen? Nah, I know better now. And that. bug, and subsequent complications,...

What is a ticuli? Where are they going? Why are they being diverted? What the hell is John talking about? All fantastic questions but alas, you shall not have answers to any of those. Instead, you will read about diverticulitis. Ahhhh, now the title makes sense. You can tell me I am a genius later, for now, let's learn a bit.  Diverticulitis is an inflammation (-itis) of the diverticulum in the colon. The diverticulum are little pouches that come off the colon and typically extend into the muscle but remain intact. Think of it as putting an exam glove on and putting your finger in water, your finger is the in the water but the barrier is still there to prevent the water from getting in. The colon out-pouches but the contents do not spill into the muscle or abdomen (hopefully). These diverticulum can be chronic and when multiple are present but not inflamed, it is called diverticulosis. -itis versus -osis, inflamed versus not. Like any sort of rough surface, things can get stuck in ...