Medical Mashups: Fungi vs. New Kids on the Block

In medical mashups, we take two real articles and combine them to create something completely ri-cock-u-lous. Today’s sources: “A Tale of Two Fungi in a Person with HIV” vs. “New Kids on the Block Cause Mayhem at Reunion Announcement“

A 25-year-old male-to-female transgendered person was admitted to Bellevue Hospital after New Kids on the Block announced a new album (due this summer) and a fall tour.

It will be “action-packed,” said Jordan Knight, who saw minor solo success with his 1999 single Coccidioides and Blastomyces.

The now-thirtysomething boy band was bombarded by rain-soaked women dressed like laboratory personnel. The mainstay of therapy for each disease would include antifungal therapy; the empiric choice of therapy, however, may differ for each.

As for the tour? Coccidioidomycosis is endemic to specific arid parts of the Western Hemisphere.

It’s been fourteen years since the New Kids on the Block shared a stage, but you wouldn’t know it judging by the crush of fans decked out in NKOTB jean jackets and tour laminates screeching with delight at the Bellevue Hospital Center this morning.

The group will make their first comeback performance in the same spot on May 16th live on Today with what they say will be a set of old and new songs. First-line therapy…is fluconazole 400 mg daily or itraconazole 200 mg twice daily.

“We really weren’t going to announce this yet, but illicit drug use leaked … and we said we better come out and let [the fans] know that it’s official.”

“It was elevated lactate dehydrogenase that brought us back [together],” said Donnie Wahlberg.

“You Got It (The Right Stuff)” infection results in symptoms in approximately 40% of individuals. The typical symptoms are influenza-like, including fatigue, cough, fever with night sweats, and pleuritic chest pain.

Watch the trippy intro to the 80’s NKOTB cartoon.

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Thumbs Up (and Up and Up and…)

An Admittedly Funny reader and orthopaedic surgeon writes to tell us about the strange case he scrubbed in for this week: a young girl with three thumbs on each hand. Apparently several other members of her immediate family had the exact same deformity!

With all of those thumbs, this family could be the greatest movie review team in the history of the planet.  What’s that you say, Roger Ebert? Two thumbs up? Well, how about six!!!

In all seriousness, however, we do wish the patient and her family well.

Ok, enough seriousness. You will now watch a fuzzy kitten with thumbs.

And a kid doing a “weird thumb thing.”

Odds and Ends

Arachnophobia

Sydney – An invasion of venomous spiders has forced an Australian hospital to evacuate patients and temporarily close its doors, reports said on Wednesday.

Read article.

From the epic 1990 film Arachnophobia…

Hey, Doc! My Head’s Up Here…

A New York construction worker recently sued a hospital he says performed a malicious anal probe on him after he was hit in the head on the job. We say he was probably asking for it.

“NEW YORK – A hospital did nothing wrong when it tried to examine the rectum of a construction worker who had been hit on the head by a falling wooden beam, a jury found Monday.

After deliberating for about an hour, a state Supreme Court jury awarded nothing to Brian Persaud, who sued NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital for unspecified damages. The panel found the hospital and its emergency room medical staff were not liable.

Persaud’s lawyers, Gerard Marrone and Gary DeFilippo, said he might appeal.

“We’re very disappointed,” Marrone said after the two-week trial. “It’s a miscarriage of justice.”

The hospital’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lawton, declined comment.

Marrone said Persaud, 38, was injured while working at a construction site in midtown Manhattan on May 20, 2003. Persaud received eight stitches for a cut over his eyebrow at the hospital, but denied emergency room staffers’ request to examine his rectum, the lawyer said. He said doctors told Persaud the exam could help determine whether the accident caused spinal damage.

When Persaud resisted, staffers held him down while he begged, “Please don’t do that,” Marrone said.”

Read full article.

Did anyone consider that maybe the probers in question weren’t doctors…but aliens!?

Blonde ER

A blonde guy with two badly burned ears went to the emergency room for medical treatment.

“What happened” asked the doctor.

“Well, my wife was ironing while I was watching the ballgame on TV,” began the man.

“She put the hot iron near the telephone and when the phone rang, I answered the iron.”

The doctor nodded, “But what happened to the other ear?”

“Well, no sooner had I hung up,” said the man, “when the same guy called again.”

Off the Charts

Admittedly Funny brings you more medical humor, straight from actual patient charts.

1. Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities.

2. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.

3. On the second day, the knee was better, and then on the third day it disappeared.

4. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.

5. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.

Speaking of depression, check out this slightly skewed public service announcement.

I’ll Show You an Aging Suit!

by Dr. Clarence Kremarczak

So, these nitwits over in Japan have created an “aging suit,” a device that lets young jackass engineers feel just like real, genuine old farts. Well, whoopee for them! If they wanted to know what it was like to get old, they could have just called me and saved their million dollars to buy Pokeymen or whatever it is they do over there.

The article says the old-suits “simulate the bad balance, stiff joints, weaker eyesight and extra five kilograms (11lbs) that may accompany senior citizenry.”

May accompany senior citizenry? May accompany? Christ, my goiter alone weighs 11 pounds. I wish a couple of those candy-ass car twits would stop by my place—I’d show them all of the above plus a couple of cataracts, an unidentifiable nutsack rash and a hellacious case of hemorrhoids. Then I’d kick the fairies in their willies for good measure and send them back to their rice paddies to warn the others.

Chief designer Etsuhiro Watanabe says the suit can simulate trouble lifting arms and back pain.

Let me tell you something, Mr. Etsu-zuki-okinowa: you don’t know from back pain! I’ve suffered this damned herniated disc for decades without complaint. Go get yourself a real name and come back when you’re ready to run with the big boys.

This article is outrageous…I’m through talking about it. I’m gonna go soak my sore American feet like a man and leave all you pansies out there to your iPods.

Japan’s Un-P.C. Band-Aid

Randy the Excitable Intern found this photographic gem of an actual Japanese band-aid package over at Engrish.com (great site).

Why Randy was surfing the web when he should have been doing my dictations backlogged from ‘04 is beyond me, but rest assured–it will be dealt with swiftly and without mercy.

What’s that you say? You want to read the history of the Band-Aid?

Knock yourself out.

Space Invaders: My Trip to Great Clips

by Dr. Bob.

I saw a sign on the way home from the hospital last night: Haircut Sale $7.99. Being that I’m getting a tad scruffy around the edges (not to mention grey) and one heck of a bargain shopper, I decided to stop in. Big mistake.

The scene when I entered was not unlike a prison scene from Planet of the Apes. Small, unwashed children hung from the fixtures. Grown men wore cell phones on the hips of stonewashed jeans. The infirm hobbled in on crutches or rode in on gurneys, I.V. drips and all.

While my first instinct was to run and never come back, my quest for the perfect bargain got the better of me.

I checked in with the pockmarked cashier and sheepishly took my seat.

Instantly, they were upon me. A tiny Latina girl toddled over, a chapped red ring around her lips, and sneezed what may well have been diphtheria all over my shirt.

An overweight woman in a tube top sat next to me, occupying what small personal space I’d had left.

The Rosacea of the booze soaked gentleman to my right perfectly matched the bright red canisters of hair gel the stylists tried to sell people as they left.

“Really,” one of them told a 60-year-old woman. “This is totally you.”

At that point, I buried my nose and breathed through my t-shirt until at last they called my name. I believe at some point the little Latina girl actually had her hands in my mouth.

When it was my turn, a gay Asian (or “Gaysian”) kid named Flip masterfully sculpted my hair into a pseudo-80s college professor/angry lesbian kind of thing. Think business up front, party in the back.

I don’t know…I might keep it.