Almost 5 years ago when I was doing my sub-I at Brack, I had this borderline, noncompliant diabetic patient who was a total jerk through and through. Although I'd forgotten his name, I remembered him well b/c my resident made me see him everyday. Back then he had kept coming back to the hospital with lower extremity cellulitis because he didn't take his antibiotics. I remembered how he kept refusing the MRI that we ordered for him to rule out osteomyelitis, how he threw things at the wall and cursed at nurses, how angry he was because we put him on a diabetic diet, and how his room reeked whenever we went into his room b/c he wouldn't bathe and sometimes wet the bed intentionally so that he could accuse the nurses of neglect. He was only 29 years old at the time, and I thought it was a shame that he wouldn't take care of himself.
During my rounds today, I spotted him in the hall talking to one of the nurses. He saw me, too, and at that point I was 90% sure it was him. How many young overweight guys with a BKA in a wheelchair are there in Austin? Then I heard his voice, and I was absolutely certain it was him. There was not a single day at Brack where he didn't find something to gripe about, and as he complained to the nurse about his doctor, I recognized his voice for sure. I later looked him up; it seems that in the years since I last saw him, he'd gotten an ostomy from an abdominal wall infection, and currently he wanted to fire his doctor for not giving him Dilaudid. Apparently the plan is to discharge him from the hospital tomorrow; hopefully he goes back to Brack because there's no way in hell I want to take care of him ever again. Hopefully he doesn't remember me; I'm sure he's seen lots of doctors and med students come and go since he probably goes hospital shopping. Sad that some people never change.
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