Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for February 09, 2013

“A heart attack, ack, ack, ack, ack, ack…” – Billy Joel, Movin Out

I hope they spread your ribs, rat.

I go in for an ulcer, and they hook me up to the EKG. Every time. Any pain that’s anywhere near the chest……

He may not need to wait, but he’ll have a heck of a doctor’s bill.He should ask Cliff Clewless to help with that.

But what does Rat do when he really has a heart attack? You can’t have two heart attacks at once.

He’s having a heart attack? Get started with CPR and get the defibrillator going! I think I’d rather wait.P.S. A hangnail isn’t worth an ER bill.

Sounds like a Carlin joke.

Sounds like mandatory anal probes would shorten the lines at emergency rooms.

So, Rat, if they tumble to your little game, do you think some vigilante-surgeon might do something to insure that your heart attack was real? Hmm?

I must remember this routine….!

Hey Rat! R U sure you didn’t have a hangOVER?!?

Be careful, rat! You know what happens when you cry ‘heart attack’ one too many times!

That works, but it’s a rather painful way of ensuring fast service. Last time I was in ER, they took one look at my bleeding face and ripped-up shirt and had me in the examining room. Didn’t even take time for paperwork before getting to work. They were asking me what happened at the same time they were checking my blood pressure.

“go in bleeding or with a bone sticking out. they seem to be quick to help.”Depends on what you’re bleeding from. I went in bleeding like a stuck pig, with the tips of the 3rd and 4th fingers of my right hand squashed by weights in a machine at the gym. Ahead of me was an elderly woman (not that I wasn’t, too) in agony from back pain after a fall. She had to wait a good long while for X-rays, etc., before being given pain meds. Took at least an hour for me to be seen – and this was kind of a posh ER at a hospital next to a bay. By then, the other patients and family members were having old home week with each other.

I did it the other way around, went into the ER for something unrelated and found out I had had a heart attack a few days before. Don’t just wait for the classic symptoms, folks.

In Home Improvement Tim Allen really got preferential treatment at the ER. He even had his own personal coffee mug there.

“You hear that, Elizabeth? I’m comin’ to join ya, honey!”:Name that reference!

Show him one of your fingers, Paris.

I think we are all guilty of doing what Rat does!

Sad but true, people do that or say they’re suicidal when in Emergency just to get through to see a doc, then say, “I hurt my wrist I think.”

The magic phrase is chest pain. Anything else is brushed aside..When my son was learning to walk he fell on the patio pavement and smashed his head, HUGE goose egg, I went to urgent care and THEY said “You have to go to the ER for a scan right now!” So I went into town, waited for 2 1/2 hour (only 3 other people there at all) despite telling them that the doc who saw him said “ER now” and they ended up saying well he seems normal, if he shows any of these symptoms come back, no need for a scan. Did I mention they wouldn’t see him until AFTER we paid the insurance co-pay, but that the bill they sent later was for LESS than it?.Then a few years later when I was in a car wreck (luckly without the children) I had some pain in my ribs and feared it might be broken or cracked so I went in and they had me back in less than 15 min.

Yes. A LOT.

As an old ER nurse I can tell you that this is so sad but true.

(insert bad Groucho Marx imitation here): “Say the SECRET WOID…”

a stroke of genius