A firm and unyielding stance...sometimes...

So several of you have brought up the point in reference to the last post about Maggie and people food. I know there are many people that feel very strongly that dogs shouldn't get anything but kibble. I disagree. I mean, there are limits (no chocolate, no raisins, that kind of stuff, obviously. She also isn't allowed to have rawhide, either, but then, neither am I). We have one hard and fast rule in this house and that's pretty much that anything that hits the floor is hers, and I really do think that's fair. Well, unless it's chocolate (I'll block her over that). Or vegetables, which she won't eat unless they have salad dressing on them. Or fruit of any kind. Oh, no, wait, she likes dried apricots. But that's pretty much it in the fruit department (I think that's my best friend's influence. Katie won't eat fruit, either. Except bananas).

She's not really a beg at the table sort, more just a sit closely and look pitiable type. If she begs or whines she gets sent away, but I don't especially object if she wants to sit there quietly and look cute. I mean, that's what she does best, after all.

As for table scraps, we actually have "pack rules" about how she doesn't get anything until I've had some, and usually she doesn't get much of what I'm having until I'm done with it. Like how in the "wild" the alpha lets the lesser dogs in the pack have their scraps. I mean, that's the order of things - the subordinates in the pack usually clean up after the pack leader's meal. The fact that I'm not gnawing on an antelope or a raw squirrel doesn't change that. And usually I handle anything I give her, which gets my scent on it (I confess...that's a Cesar Milan thing).

Anyhow...

Call was weird last night. We kept admitting people only to have them leave. I had one guy leave against medical advice because he had tickets to the Duke/UNC game tonight. One woman was a very cute schizophrenic with a cat named Tina who just didn't meet criteria for admission. Which was fine, except that my OCD senior resident couldn't handle that the patient was all disorganized and wasn't super consistent with her story. Where as I, for example, was like, dude, she's schizophrenic. They do that. Disorganized thinking is actually one of the diagnostic criteria.

I'm not sure exactly what that says about my thought patterns, frankly....particularly post call....

One guy I did admit...I asked him to roll on his side and take a deep breath so I can listen to his lungs. He does, takes one deep breath in, lurches over the side rail of the gurney (fortunately the opposite side rail from the one I was standing at), and wretches and vomits and spews bloody vomit everywhere. This was, of course, at 2am. Of course.

Just prior to that we had a Rapid Response on my Munchausen's patient who's somehow creating her allergic reaction to everything. Where the medicine team came in and totally undermined my attempt to retain a little sanity and order to the case. She's now in the stepdown and going to the ICU tomorrow for "desensitization." Whatever. If she goes to ICU, she's not our problem anymore.

I spent a lot of time chasing the cross-cover stuff last night, too. So it's not like a got a whole lot of rest, despite the fact that I "didn't have anything to do" (i.e., few admits). I also got in a big put-my-foot-down kind of argument with Medicine about who was going to take the stroke patient off of Neurology's hands. I won, ultimately. Despite my senior being all, "call them back and tell them we'll take her! We don't want them to think they're only taking her because we won't!" Um....except....we didn't want the patient who was circling the drain when she should've been neurology's responsibility to begin with. She sure would've been back when I was the Neuro intern...

I'm really tired. I have like seven dozen other things to say, but, I think they're going to have to wait....