Dr. Sour Puss

Ok, my new favorite hobby: bouncing Ravi to sleep watching VH-1 Classic late at night with the Wikipedia open, reading about where these bands are now. For instance, did you know that the bassist for the Red Rockers is Paul Westerberg's manager? Or that one of the guys from Musical Youth died at age 24 of a congenital heart condition? Or that The Stranglers are still touring, and that their drummer is now seventy years old ?

"Your infected cyst is ready in room 1. It looks bad, are you gonna drain it?" It was bad, probably six inches across. These things can get pretty nasty. Imagine the ugliest pimple you've ever seen and then think of the pint of foul smelling cottage cheese mixed with pus inside. Why do these always get scheduled right before lunch? "Yeah, we need to drain it. This is a good procedure for the nurse practitioner to learn how to do, can you call her in?" So with the cyst all prepped and numbed, I was explaining to K, my nurse practitioner, how you have to push down hard right after you make your incision, when the pressure is the greatest, in order to extrude the thing all at once and...BLAMMO! Cheesy, rotting pus all over the walls, the table, and the ceiling. Miraculously, K and I were unscathed. When it was all done, we came out of the room to talk to the medical assistant. "Um, we're not going to want to use that room for the rest of the day."

I mentioned in a previous post that breast feeding is extremely difficult. Well, after watching my baby-mama torture herself over the past two weeks, I can no longer stand idly by: That's right, male breastfeeding. Not only is it possible, but it's healthy, and it's my paternal right. Discover magazine did a fairly serious take on this in 1995: There are numerous conditions under which injected or topically applied hormones have produced inappropriate breast development and milk secretion in humans, both in men and in nonpregnant or non-nursing women. In one study, male and female cancer patients who were being treated with estrogen proceeded to secrete milk when injected with prolactin . Lactation has likewise been observed in people taking tranquilizers that influence the hypothalamus (which controls the pituitary gland, the source of prolactin ), in people recovering from surgery that somehow stimulated the nerves related to the suckling reflex, and in women on prolong...