The other patient has a cellulitis or skin infection around his right knee. The source is unknown although he has a scrape over the knee which has not looked infected. He began having pain and redness around the knee Friday and did not improve with oral antibiotic so is now in the hospital for IV antibiotic therapy. There is some concern that he might have an infected bursa over the knee so an orthopedist is seeing him and may have to drain the bursa over the next 48 hours, especially if he develops fever.

Back to the meeting. About halfway through the meeting I get a call from Delanae that the car she is driving will not start. She is parked in a parking lot and the car will not crank over. All the electrical devices work fine but it just won't crank over. I take the Jeep that I am driving and go to it and sure enough it won't crank over for me either. I then call the BMW roadside assistance program which sends a vehicle to haul it to the dealer in Portland for repair. It is a 1995 BMW which is still covered by its extended warranty, thank goodness, so all this is covered by the warranty. I suspect it is the starter that has gone bad but I have not heard back from the dealership yet. Once it is repaired, then I have to find a way to Portland to pick it up and drive it home. I will deal with that when it is fixed. Until then, we are a one car family. Wednesday, my day off, I may have to ride my bicycle if I want to go by the hospital and run some other errands.

My patient with the cellulitis around the knee finally has accumulated enough fluid on the knee to drain it. The orthopedist took him to surgery late this afternoon to accomplish that but I have not heard how much fluid there was yet. That sure dramatically improve the way his leg looks. Both the orthopedist and I were getting worried because it was not looking better but there was no apparent fluid or pus to drain.

My other patient feels better with the NG tube in draining off the fluid and gas but he is not opening up yet. Unless there is dramatic improvement by tomorrow he will go to surgery tomorrow afternoon to unblock the section of small intestine that is currently blocked. Although he doesn't want to think about surgery, he is getting tired of this problem and wants to get it taken care of.

I went to my first hospital general medical staff meeting tonight. This is the first one in more than two years and it was just like the ones we used to have in Harrison, Arkansas. Only there are more physicians on staff here and more attended the meeting. The meeting was prolonged long past the time it needed to be because some people had to speak up and delay things. Their points were not always very valid but they had to say their piece. Sometimes, what they were saying had nothing to do with what the discussion was really about. Luckily, here the general staff meetings are only held quarterly not monthly like they were in Harrison.

The keys to the cable we use to lock a bicycle to a stand seem to have disappeared since the last time it was used. They are not in their usual place and everyone vows innocence about who took them out and did not replace them. I need the key to use the cable tomorrow when I ride downtown. Hopefully, the keys will turn up in the morning after getting some sleep tonight. Good night.

Tomorrow I meet with our medical director for my annual (I think) evaluation. He has already told me he is going to ask me to take on some administrative work and chair a committee. I am planning on saying yes as I will be given time during the day for the work and I already go to this committee's meetings. We'll see what else comes up. Good night.

Here's one for the newspaper. I saw a man today who, Tuesday night, was riding his motorcycle after dark and was struck in the right eye by an owl. He was knocked unconscious for at least several minutes if not longer. He was wearing a helmet but no face shield so he has a lot of bruising around his eye but the helmet probably saved his life. He is having headaches, which is to be expected, and some memory loss due to the concussion. The owl is worse, laying in three pieces by the side of the road. The man's(not the owl's) wife called around to area hospitals when he didn't come home as expected and found him. Neither he or she know who the person or persons who found him lying in the ditch were. He does not remember anything after seeing the owl until he woke up in the hospital. Luckily, there does not seem to be any permanent damage.

Call tonight, so far, has meant answering a lot of phone calls. I have not admitted anyone yet but the night is still young. Unfortunately, one of my partners earlier admitted a 13 year old girl with new onset diabetes. She had to miss her last day of school complete with a party. She will be started on insulin and will need to be on a diabetic diet so her days of eating party food have just been reduced. Hopefully, a viable pancreatic islet cell transplant to cure juvenile onset diabetes will become a reality before she reaches adulthood. See you tomorrow.

One of my patients went home today. He was the man with the infected bursa over his kneecap(prepatellar bursitis). He is much better and was itching to go home. He should do fine as he recovers his strength in the right leg lost with the non weightbearing while his knee hurt so badly. My other patient continues to recover from his operation to relieve the small bowel obstruction which did turn out to be due to diverticulitis (an infection in the large bowel or colon). I will not be seeing him this weekend but he should be improved when I see him Monday morning.

Tonight I was taken to dinner by my family to celebrate Father's Day before the kids leave for Arkansas tomorrow. I had salmon penne pasta as a main course but had to bring the choclate cake home in a doggie box because I was too full to eat it at the restaurant. I was told that I had to have the dessert by order of my family and the restaurant. I was also given a tiller with the not so subtle hint that I can work on getting the yard in shape again after the installation of the septic system . I will also use it to get the garden ready for some tomato plants. They need to be planted this weekend while it is finally warm enough that they might grow.

The kids' plane leaves tomorrow afternoon so we will be driving down to Portland early in the afternoon tomorrow. They are still packing tonight and probably will be repacking again in the morning. Stacey invariably packs too much then we have to make her take some out to get everything to fit in the suitcase she is taking. Delanae and I are trying to find an oriental restaurant to eat at after the kids leave. I have been unable to find the address of the one we had heard about and wanted to try. No luck on any of the online search engines yet but I will keep trying. Goodbye for now.