Dummy Spit

Dummy Spit

I had a bunch of people email me to ask what it means to chuck a tanty, or have a dummy spit.

It’s simple: It’s the same as ‘spitting a chewie’.

Or, as my mom would say, having a meltdown. Throwing a fit. What, you guys don’t speak Australian? Try this on for size:

After brekkie at the milk bar, I went walkabout and ended up in town at the shops, where a spruiker gave me the idea to play the pokies. In the arvo, I got a counter meal at the local and then hit the piss early - I ended up carrying on like porkchop. I didn’t want to be a bludger, or act like a yarbo, so I went back to my flat before I planted a tiger.

And these people think they speak English?

We were on ward rounds the other day, and I noticed that the surgeons kept asking their post-op patients the same question over-and-over: Have you had any wind? After I realized they were asking about bodily functions and not the weather report, I started to wonder why. I mean, I know hospitals have that funky smell, but I don’t think they were trying to pin anything on anyone. (And somehow, I don’t think a round of the Vent-Doorknob game is going to go over well. But I digress.) So I asked one of the surgeons, and the answer was to see if the patients are getting better. Turns out that a, uh, fluffy, is a sign of improving health.

Guess that makes my landlord’s pooch Cane the healthiest dog I know…

It’s the end of the seventh week of surgery, and I can say they finally did it. They finally made me squeamish. I have watched them cut people open, slice things out, held my hand in places I won’t mention (Mom reads these, ya know), seen people who were hit at 60mph by a 4wd, watched a doctor expand a, uh, opening with his fist, even that guy a few years ago with piercings, uh, *there*. None of it made my sick. What did it?

Eye surgery.

It’s been my week to do optho….ophtho….opto….Eye surgery. I attended emergency clinics, regular clinics, and a theatre session, learning all the finer points of looking deeply into someone’s eyes and seeing what was there.

Sounds romantic, doesn’t it?

Sadly, it was usually a blocked tear duct, or a weak eye muscle, or even a piece of rust. It was very interesting, but seeing them play with someone’s eye with scalpels and fix things with sutures, well that was enough for me to rethink a career as an optho….ophtho….opto….Eye surgeon. And this is coming from someone who jabbed contact lenses into his eyes for 15 years!

And with that, it’s the weekend. I plan on getting a bit of studying done (now *there* is a surprise…) as well as running some errands. I just hope it doesn’t rain while I’m running around – I don’t have a brolie to keep me dry…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan

Princess Mary

Princess Mary

Not sure how much of it made the news back in the real world, but the social event of the season was last weekend. The Crown Prince of Denmark married an Aussie lass he met at a bar in Sydney during the 2000 Olympics. (Note to all my single friends – Athens seems like it’ll be prime hunting ground for royalty, being in Europe and all. With the Olympics less than 100 days away, better get your plane tickets now and stake out a good bar to find your future king or queen. But I digress.) Fairytale-come-true kinda thing; and since she is from Tasmania in Oz, it was huge here. Pictures in the paper, the ceremony shown live, they even went so far as to interview the guy she grew up next to – you know, hard-hitting journalism.

But I see a flaw with this marriage. Not that either of them is an ogre or anything, but let’s look at this a little, shall we? He’s royalty, right? If the Danes are anything like the Brits, might not be much branching in the family tree, if you catch my drift. And she is from Tassie, the Aussie equivalent of West Virginia – you know, where you have Aunt Mom and Uncle Dad, and when the porch collapses, it kills more than a few dogs?

You would think they would want to *expand* the gene pool...

Anyway, I was having a conversation with a doctor this week. He had been having some issues with staff members not doing the patient-care duties he had asked them to. This had been going on for a few weeks, with no resolution. One day, it was fixed. I asked what he did to finally swing them his way.

He said he ‘Chucked a tanty.’

Pardon?

He then clarified by saying he had a ‘Dummy Spit.’

It was at this point I was glad the Powers That Be have decided that I don’t need to take an English Proficiency exam to work in the US after spending 4 years here. It was always odd to me – I mean, I grew up speaking English, and I appear to have a command on the language – although I prove every Friday with these emails that it’s a rather tenuous proposition. So now, I guess the problem is not passing the test, or even what kind of accent I’ll come home with, but if anyone will *understand* me…

I’m still doing my surgery term, but I’m back at FMC now. While some things are the same – the doctors like to ask questions to trip-up the students – some things are different: more patients, faster paced, and I actually answer some of the questions *correctly*. I guess it means one of two things: either I’m learning, or they’re asking easier questions. I’ll let you know.

And with that, it’s the weekend. I’ll spend a bunch of time studying this weekend, along with heading to the pool for a swim and watching some rugby with a few classmates. That is if none of them decide to ‘Chuck a Tanty’…

As always, Love to All and keep working on your 101 List!
Bryan