May 4th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements, True Stories
Tags: Alzheimer's Disease, Book, Book Club, Chris Matthews, Hardball, Mark Warner, Mean, National Press Club, Politics, Senator Mark Warner, The Hardball Handbook
9 Comments »
Last year I attended a benefit to support Alzheimer’s research. Many important political figures were in attendance, and I was able to interview Senator Mark Warner, and hobnob with Newt Gingrich and Nancy Pelosi. I was most moved by my interview with Patty Smith – a young victim of early onset Alzheimer’s who vowed to speak out about her disease for as long as she was able to do so.
I had hoped to also get an interview with Hardball host, Chris Matthews – since his mom passed away from Alzheimer’s and he was keynoting the gala. Unfortunately, he didn’t have time for me – instead giving me his business card for follow up, noting that the email on the card had been changed and the phone number was to MSNBC’s general line (no he didn’t offer me any alternative means to contact him).
Today I decided to attend his book signing event at the National Press Club. My husband looked sideways at me, saying “Why are you going to cover Chris Matthews again? Wasn’t he mean to you before?”
“Oh, honey. I don’t think he was mean exactly. He’s a very busy celebrity and didn’t have time for an interview, that’s all.”
“Well, I thought he blew you off pretty quickly. It wasn’t polite. Mark Warner was very kind.”
I shrugged and picked up my laptop to live blog the event on Twitter (you can see it by searching #npcmatthews).
Chris said some humorous things during his talk, which I jubilantly Tweeted. Of course, I didn’t agree with some of what he said – but Tweeted it accurately. At the end of the presentation he invited all those who had purchased his book to come forward for a signing.
I waited about 20 minutes in line and finally got to the table. I introduced myself as Dr. Val – a full time blogger and volunteer at Walter Reed.
Chris said, “Oh, so you might be one of the ‘good ones.'”
I chuckled nervously.
“Make sure you say nice things about me on your blog! Tell everyone I’m nice, not mean.” He shouted loudly in front of the crowd.
As he handed me the book back I opened it to the page where he had signed, just to see what he’d written.
Amusingly it said simply:
“To Dr. Bell. Best Regards, Chris Matthews.”
So what’s your verdict? Is Chris Matthews mean?
Anyone want a book?
🙂
May 3rd, 2009 by EvanFalchukJD in Better Health Network, True Stories
Tags: Arterio-Venous Malformation, AVM, Evan Falchuk, Misdiagnosis, Neurology, Neurosurgery, Spinal Cord, Surgery, Tumor
2 Comments »
My younger brother is an executive producer of the show “Nip/Tuck” and an executive producer of soon-to-air Fox show “Glee.“ Last year, he almost died.
It started when he woke up one day with numbness on one side of his body.
His doctor ordered an MRI. It found bad news: a tumor in his spinal cord, high up in his neck. He was referred to a neurosurgeon.
The plan was straightforward, but dangerous. First, radiation. Then, his spinal cord would be carefully cut open to remove the tumor. He was told he could end up paralyzed, or dead. Concerned, he called me, and we started a case at Best Doctors.
One of our nurses took a history, and we collected his records. Two internists spent hours reviewing them. The records noted our family history of a kind of malformed blood vessel. Our grandfather had hundreds of them in his brain when he died at 101, and our father has dozens of them in his. I have one in my brain, too. This was in my brother’s charts, but none of his doctors had mentioned it.
An expert in these malformations told us a special imaging study should be done to rule this out as a cause of the problem. Best Doctors gave that advice to my brother and his doctors. They agreed.
The test showed this was precisely what he had.
Quickly, the plan changed. He still needed surgery — if the malformation bled, it could also paralyze or kill him. But there would be no radiation, which might have caused the very bleeding we feared. Even if that didn’t happen, the surgeons were prepared to operate on a tumor. They would have been surprised to find a delicate malformation there instead.
In the end, his surgery went well. He is having a good recovery and is busy with his new show. But his case is a constant reminder of how important it is to have the right diagnosis, and how easy it is for things to go wrong.
Even in Hollywood.
April 28th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories
Tags: addiction, Addiction Medicine, Cocaine, Emergency Medicine, Humor, Nurse, Pain Management, Physical Medicine And Rehabilitation, Random Drug Screening, Substance Abuse, Urine Test
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Doctor: Mr. Smith, your urine test is positive for cocaine.
Mr. Smith: [Blank Stare]
Doctor: Have you been snorting cocaine recently?
Mr. Smith: No.
Doctor: Then why is there cocaine in your urine?
Mr. Smith: Maybe your nurse put it in there.
Doctor: If my nurse had cocaine, I don’t think she’d put it in your urine.
***
Bonus tip for pain management specialists: cocaine’s half-life in the urine is 2-4 days. “Random” urine drug testing on Mondays offers a higher yield than other days of the business week because most patients abuse illicit drugs on weekends>>weekdays.
April 26th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories
Tags: Dog Attack, Dog Bite, Ferocious, Little Girl, Mauled, Mauling, Neurology, Neuroplasticity, Ophthalmology, Pit Bull, Plastic Surgery, scars, Stroke
3 Comments »
A surgeon friend of mine recently told me a story about a little girl who wandered into the territory of some pit bulls. These dogs were tied up with leashes in the neighbor’s back yard – specifically because they couldn’t be trusted to run loose near children. Tragically, the two year old wandered within their grasp after slipping through a protective kiddie gate and out of the house.
The dogs attacked her viciously, dragging her deeper within their territory and attempted to eat her alive. They tore off both her ears and shredded her chest and limbs. By the time she was discovered she was near death. The girl was rushed to the nearest trauma center – where my friend took her to the OR immediately. He spent the entire night putting the pieces back together, as it were.
A couple of days later, my astute friend noticed her having problems turning her head towards her mothers’ spoon during meal times. That observation triggered him to test her vision – and low and behold the girl was completely blind. A brain CT confirmed the clinical team’s worst fears: at some point during her resuscitation, the girl had a massive stroke, and her entire occipital lobe (the back of the brain) was damaged.
Wondering if there was anything he could do to help the girl, and devastated by what he assumed was a grave prognosis (a lifetime of blindness), my friend called a neuro-ophthalmologist for advice. Much to his amazement, the neurologist told him that her visual deficits were likely to resolve completely, because her brain would simply adapt. Children at very young ages can recover from otherwise devastating strokes because of neuroplasticity – the ability of the brain to rewire itself, and recruit healthy neurons to take over for damaged tissue.
True to the neurologist’s predictions, the little girl regained her site within a year. Fortunately, her body healed extremely well too – and despite thousands of stitches, her scarring turned out to be quite minimal. Today it’s hard to tell that she’s had surgery at all.
This story holds special interest to me, as I too was mauled by a dog when I was a little girl. Although I was bitten in the face, and nearly lost my left eye, I can’t remember the last person who noticed my scars or asked about them. They simply faded with time.
The extraordinary healing powers of young tissue cannot be matched in adulthood. However, some degree of neuroplasticity lives on in each of us, offering hope for brain rehabilitation for everyone – from the forgetful to those with major impairments.
Whether you (or a loved one) have internal or external scars – healing is always possible.
April 7th, 2009 by Dr. Val Jones in Announcements, Expert Interviews, Health Policy, True Stories
Tags: Cartoons, Chicago, Dr. Robert Kolodner, Dr. Val Jones, HIMSS, HIMSS09, ONC, Rob Kolodner
1 Comment »
I had another exciting day at HIMSS today in Chicago. I interviewed a team of nurses about hospital communications lapses, met with the COO of Healthline, the CMIO of Elsevier, HHS’s National Coordinator, Dr. Rob Kolodner, and had dinner with Rich Carmona, the 17th Surgeon General of the United States. I have about 10 blog posts that I need to publish about all of the above – but just wanted to mention one of the funniest things that happened.
I nervously approached Dr. Rob Kolodner with my husband in tow today, wondering what interesting thing I could possibly say to the father of health IT interoperability (we had never met in person before). Just as I was searching for an interesting opening line, Dr. Kolodner says to me:
“Oh you’re Val Jones! I have your shirt!”
Of all the things Dr. Kolodner could have said to me, that was NOT what I was expecting. I smiled quizzically at him, trying desperately to figure out how he’d come to possess one of my shirts. My husband shot me a sideways glance. Fortunately for me, Rob didn’t leave me confused for more than a few (very long) seconds.
“You’re the cartoonist… I picked up one of your t-shirts at the Health 2.0 conference last year. It’s really funny.”
“Oh, I see…” I chortled. “You must have the one of the ER nurse who can’t read the doctor’s handwriting.”
“That’s the one!” said Kolodner, beaming. “I got one for my friend who’s an ER doc.”
And so I asked my husband to take the photo of us above.
My husband just shook his head… I think we met my first fan.
