Catching the Flight Home

A tour leader informed me that a 70 year-old in his group had severe abdominal pain.

I explained that this was probably not something a housecall would solve. He would almost certainly need an emergency room visit.

“They understand,” said the tour leader. “But they want a doctor to come to make sure.”

He was not being honest, as I discovered. Anxious to avoid accompanying the man and his wife to the hospital, he had insisted on a housecall hoping that I would make the problem go away.

He had also not passed on my suspicions, so the couple was shocked when, after an examination, I repeated it. The husband refused to go, pointing out that their return flight left the following day. He added that he was merely constipated. Telephoned, his doctor at home had agreed and recommended an enema.

I responded that being on the spot gave me priority. The guest assured me he would think it over and go to an ER if the pain persisted.

I passed a worried night. In the morning, the wife declared that her husband felt a littler better. Feeling “a little better” in response to a doctor’s query means “no better.” I warned them not to board the plane if the husband had any abdominal pain. Two hours later the wife phoned to announce that he was entirely better, and they were leaving for the airport.

The Miracle Game

A guest’s ankle injury didn’t seem serious, so I told her we’d wait a day before deciding on an x-ray. At her request, I wrapped the ankle in an elastic bandage while explaining that orthopedists believe that elastic bandages accomplish little. 

As I wrapped, I mused on the superiority of western medicine. I have little respect for alternative, complementary, holistic, herbal, or natural healing systems, but I admit that all popular and media doctors disagree, and they enjoy a far larger audience than this obscure blog.

My reasons have something to do with the fact that we genuinely help patients, but I prefer to stress how often we don’t. Alternative healers never say: “This treatment could be better…” or “We thought we understood this disease, but we were wrong…” or “We screwed up…” Scientific training hasn’t prevented me from making mistakes, but I hope I learn from them. 

When I’m feeling particularly hostile, I challenge alternative medicine fans to play the miracle game. I’ll name one of our miracles; then it's your turn. No fair using a secret cure. It has to be something we all agree on.   

My first western medicine miracle: the appendectomy. Appendicitis victims once died after weeks of agony. Then we discovered that snipping off the appendix (something any bright high school student can do) cured it. We take this for granted, but it’s a miracle that's saved millions of lives. Now let’s hear yours….

Getting Their Money's Worth

Dentists don’t make housecalls, and many disappear after office hours, so I hear about problems for which I am not trained.

During a weekend, a woman explained that her daughter had undergone dental work before they left town two days earlier. She was still in pain, and her jaw was swollen. She needed a visit.

So I felt stress driving to the hotel. I don’t like making a housecall where I might not solve a problem.

The daughter’s jaw didn’t appear swollen, but any painful part of the body looks abnormal to the sufferer. The tension rose as I washed my hands after putting a thermometer in her mouth. What would I say if I didn’t know what was happening?

Those situations have occurred but not this time. When I peered at the affected tooth, it looked normal, but on the nearby gum I saw an angry half-centimeter ulceration. She had a canker sore. They’re excruciating, but they heal in a week. I used to suffer them after accidentally striking my gum while brushing my teeth, so her dental work might have provoked it.

I reassured the parents and handed over a bottle of liquid Lidocaine to alleviate the pain.

“I’m sorry I called you out over something so trivial,” said the father as he paid me.

Men often feel they’re not getting their money’s worth if the problem turns out to be minor.

Bizarre Encounters

“A guest has cut off his ear and would like to see a doctor.” This was from the Westin at the airport.

“I can’t sew an ear back in a hotel room,” I explained. “You should send him to the Centinella E.R.” This seemed to satisfy the caller, and he hung up.

This call arrived at 1:05 a.m. After some nervous minutes hoping he wouldn’t call again, I went back to sleep.

In fiction, the doctor would make the housecall and have a bizarre encounter. Bizarre encounters are more fun to read about than experience, so I work hard to avoid them. Before agreeing to a visit, I talk to the guest, so I can detect drunks, drug abusers, and the mentally ill. Medical science has no antidote for alcohol and, despite what you see in the movies, no injection will pacify a crazy person. I regularly assure hotel employees that it’s OK to call the police when a guest is out of control. Violent behavior isn’t necessary. 

Now and then I answer a sad call after a tragedy such as the death of a spouse or child. Relatives regularly beg for something to “put her to sleep,” but (again, despite the movies) no such drug exists. A general anesthetic works, but it’s risky to use one in a housecall as Michael Jackson’s doctor learned. I respond to these calls and usually hand over a tranquilizer, but mostly I spend a long time sitting at the bedside and delivering sympathy.  

Laying Over

In the old days, airlines called me directly to care for crew laying over in Los Angeles. I enjoyed those visits because patients are mostly young and rarely seriously ill.

Since then they have given responsibility to an independent agency which contracts with a national housecall service. The housecall service calls me. I collect the same fee, but it costs the airlines triple what they once paid. I am too old to question their logic.

Hotels compete to put up crew, offering discounts. Always searching for a better deal, airlines often change places. Long ago they stuck to lodgings near Los Angeles Airport eight miles away. In another mysterious deterioration from former times, crew now mostly stay in wildly distant hotels. 

During a recent visit, I traveled to the Long Beach Hilton, thirty-five miles away, to care for a Virgin-Australia flight attendant with an earache. As usual, delivering care was the easiest part. Afterward I filled out a form required by the housecall service plus another form from the airline containing many identical questions followed by another airline form to determine when the flight attendant could work or return home as a passenger. 

A Visit to a Youth Hostel

I answered a call from a woman at a youth hostel suffering stomach virus.

Wearing a bathrobe and looking off-color, she met me in the lobby. I followed her through a large, open-air restaurant which, although it was midnight, echoed with chatter from a youthful clientele.

She opened a door into one of the dormitories, half a dozen connected rooms crammed with bunk beds. There were no chairs, tables, or dressers, and the communal bathroom was off a distant room. Clothes and luggage littered the floor. The only difference from a male dormitory was absence of the smell of unwashed bodies.

Most beds were occupied; the inhabitants stirred when we turned on the light but did not complain. Since the patient slept in an upper bunk, I had to perform my examination while she lay on the floor, but one occupant moved aside so she could lean over for an injection.

Cheating

“Could you put my name on the bill?” asked a guest. “I have insurance for this trip, but my girl friend doesn’t.”

“I’m afraid that’s illegal,” I answered. I’m not sure that was true, but it seemed a painless way to decline. The guest didn’t seem offended. From his point of view, there was no harm in trying.

Guests occasionally ask me to cheat on their insurance. A carrier once called to question a charge of several thousand dollars. It turned out the guest had penciled in a zero when he submitted the bill.

People are more likely to cheat if there’s no chance of getting caught. I still remember my anger when, thirty years ago, I witnessed someone put a quarter into a newspaper dispenser, open the cover, pull out a newspaper and then pull out several more to give to friends. These dispensers are stocked by an independent vendor who buys the papers himself. I informed the man who hurried off, less concerned about his thievery than this stranger abusing him.