A Social Reputation Dr David Hepburn

At age 55, Patch Adams is a social revolutionary. A dreamer without the time to dream. Sleeping only 3-4 hours a night, he is driven by a mission improbable. Not satisfied to simply establish The Gesundheit! Institute in West Virginia, a hospital free from insurance companies, unhappy patients and uptight doctors. He has also taken on the cause of freeing orphans in Russia. 

In 1985 Patch Adams went to Russia as a nasal diplomat. (no, not naval, though I suppose he’d have worn red lint in his bellybutton if it generated a laugh). Rather than speak Russian (the only word he knew was “Dr. Thiago”) he preferred to speak Clown. His passport was a photo of himself sporting a massive red rubber nose. He shared laughter, love and dozens of red noses (no, not roses, though I suppose if he’d had a rose, it would squirt water) with Russians in the street. He danced with them, giggled and sang with them. He visited hospitals and orphanages and laughed for two weeks with Russian children and soldiers alike. He has returned each year to Russia. But not all is joy and mirth. Touched by the plight of some orphans who were at the mercy of soulless men, he was determined to build his own orphanage to protect these kids. When it comes to orphans, this clown is dead serious. Each fall he returns with a large troupe of builders/doctors/clowns. 

Dr David Hepburn: “So how do you support your various projects?”

Patch: “Since the movie, it has become much easier to fun(d)raise. I do a lot of what I call “networking” as I conduct various “play shops” across the country.” 

Dr Dave: “As opposed to workshops.”

Patch: “It’s not work to me. It’s a passion.” 

Dr. Dave: “Can you explain your concept of “fun death”?”

Patch: “Death gets a lot of bad press. Doctors look at it as a therapeutic failure while patients are taught to dread it. Why not make dying a glorious swan song rather than a morose and lonely event? For most of this century, birth was a lonely event with the mother in pain and alone in a hospital room with a masked doctor. Now it is more celebratory as we have birthing classes and fathers and friends involved. Why not have dashing classes to prepare us for death. Why not a celebration of being together before we die, rather than after the fact. Dying is that process a few minutes before death when the brain is deprived of oxygen; everything else is living.”

Dave: “So rather than the Grim Reaper, you would like to see Death personified as...”

Patch: “The Happy Hooker, so to speak.” 

Dave: “Tell me about the physicians and other caregivers you use at your hospital.”

Patch: “Caregivers who are caretakers. They and their families will live on site and earn less than $3000 per year.” 

Dave: “$3000! Is that a typo?”

Patch: “Nope.”

Dave: “$3000? Maybe the newspaper copied it down wrong.”

Patch: “Not at all. Furthermore, thousands of doctors have applied to work at the hospital for that meagre amount. They appreciate that this will be a place where they can practice medicine as it was meant to be.” 

Dr. Dave: “Finally Patch, I must ask, did you really bare your backside when you graduated?”

Patch: “You don’t think I’m capable of that?”

Dr. Dave: “Oh geez....Patch... don’t....you’re not going to....hold off now....sheesh ... I would have taken your word for it.”

Patch: “But how much fun would that have been? Listen, this interview is just chatter. If you want a real interview, why don’t you join me in Russia this fall for a couple of weeks and help build the orphanage? Can you speak any Russian?”

Dr. Dave: “Dr. Zhivago.”  

Patch: “Perfect. Let’s send in the clowns.”       

Dr David Hepburn:-Celiac Disease Is Rising Sharply

Celiac disease, which affects about one in approximately 133.638 folks, is all about an adverse reaction to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley, which translated means whatever, whatever and beer. Antibodies, triggered by gluten, flatten tiny fingers in the intestines, called villi, which are needed to absorb any nutrients found in aisle 16 at Walmart. Celiac disease comes complete with any intestinal symptom you can think of, as well as some “outside the gut” symptoms including fatigue, arthritis, numbness depression and anemia. What is a mystery is why the incidence of celiac disease is rising sharply and even being diagnosed in people as old as 70 who previously have eaten gluten safely all their lives.

The pleasant part about celiac disease, from a Dr David Hepburn’s perspective, is that we can test for it by means of a blood test or, if we want to be really certain or are in an intrusive mood, we can ram a long tube the size of an anaconda, through your nose, snake it down into your small intestine and tear out a piece. Your choice. 

The other pleasant part is that we don’t have to get out our prescription pad and scribble another illegible prescription which prompts Zbiegniwtzkiskaya, the local pharmacist, to call us to interpret what we wrote, even though we can’t interpret what the hell he’s saying. (It’s a miracle when you actually get the drug meant for you.) This phone intrusion on our precious time could cost us a stroke, as it might take our focus off an important putt. Rather than medication, if you have celiac disease we can simply tell you to “go on a gluten-free diet” and then we can go play Donkey Kong in the back.

“Well Doc, I don’t mind going on a diet. I could do to lose a few pounds.”

Sorry, but a gluten free diet will leave you with a sorry butt. It is a “diet” where you may well gain a few pounds. As a gluten-free glutton, you’ll free your glutes from ever trying to  squeeze into those lulu lemons again. 

But what if you are plagued with celiac-like symptoms yet your celiac blood test comes back negative? (Note: in medicine, negative is a positive thing the same way that a positive test is a negative thing. But to be positively certain that your negative test isn’t positive, test your negative test for a possible positive by means of a bowel biopsy, which would negate your negative blood test, leaving you feeling positively negative.) 

What if, despite a negative test, when you go off gluten, you feel so much better? Sort of goes against the grain. Well, you might actually have celiac’s more popular cousin, gluten sensitivity. Affecting about one in 20, folks are lining up to get it like it were the latest iphart. Yes doctor I would like a test for celiac disease, floating stools and can I get 3000 minutes on my calling plan. Why? Is it a fad, or possibly a medical excuse for that elevator eruption disruption. “My apologies, but it really is my doctor’s fault. He told me I have gluten sensitivity.” 

Gluten (Latin for "glue") is a protein that makes bread and cakes chewy (Rhymes with gluey). It gives elasticity to dough, (like having your cheque bounce?)  

It thickens soups and malts up the Schlitz. In fact, beer is one of the things that is loaded in gluten which means that many men are now tossing the newspaper aside uttering epithets like “quack” not realizing that this is a compliment...to a Wisequack. 

Dr David Hepburn: Advices on Coccyx, Tonsils/adenoids

Leo, my Havens dog (by the way, we havens owners are an uppity bunch and always use the word “havens” when referring to our “dog” so that you don’t think we are owners of a Shih-Tzu or Deputy Dawg) wears his emotions on his butt. Happy, and his tail becomes a weapon of mass destruction. Sad and it wilts like a Viagra failure. Excited and it becomes a merry-go-round game to pursue, Frightened and it somehow makes him look bigger like a fuzzy toy rabbit, albeit a fierce-someone, of course. 

 Dr Dave Hepburn how important is a tail to us bipeds? In fact, what is your most useless organ? (My wife’s response was “What or who?”) Turns out we have several organs and tissue that are vestigial, just junk in our trunk. Useless, useless, useless, Trump, useless...or are they? 

Coccyx

The tailbone, more fun to call coccyx if you’re a ten year old tempting your naughty vocabulary, is a collection of five fused (or sometimes separate) vertebrae. These fused vertebrae are the only vestiges that are left of the tail that other mammals still use for balance (cheetah), communication, (lions) and, for some primates in Africa and DC, as a prehensile limb. However, the coccyx, unlike Washington, isn’t completely useless. It allows ligaments, tendons, and muscles to attach to it that have a few important functions, including the role it plays in enabling us to sit properly. The coccyx used to be removed when people injured them but nowadays it is rarely taken out. 

There are cases of infants born with extra vertebrae, giving those tails. There are no real adverse health effects of such a tail, unless perhaps the child was born in the Dark Ages. In that case, the child and the mother, now considered witches, would’ve been killed instantly, which we usually file under adverse health effects. 

Tonsils/adenoids

The tonsils are another useless part of the body that can cause a bit of grief. Open your mouth wide and you’ll see a tonsil on each side of your throat, unless you’ve had them removed, in which case you’re much less likely to see them. Tonsils lurk about the back of your throat while adenoids hang out in the back of your nose. Tonsils and adenoids (T&A) are lymphoid tissues that are prone, in kids, to becoming infected and inflamed and as such were indiscriminate targets of scalpels. Tonsillectomies would cause kids to miss school and eat way too much ice cream, making them sick yet again. Any child with a decent criminal bent could stretch this surgery-induced holiday to two weeks, particularly if you suggested that your coccyx was also sore. I am proud to say that I missed 136 days in Grade 3, just shy of the record set by Capone. But are they troublesome, evolutionary vestiges or ardent defenders of the body? Both tissues function in antibody production and cell-mediated immunity and might well be important as a lymphoid defense mechanism organ in the upper respiratory tract. 

Doctors are now a little more reluctant to remove the tonsils or the adenoids no matter how badly Junior snores, snorts or schnozzles. When studies indicated that there was no decrease in the number of colds, sore throats, and other respiratory infections between children who had them removed, and those who did not, Benny & Jerry stocks completely tanked.