Now you're thinking with gas!

Interesting day on the job. Speaking of lessons from the last post not quite learned: I was running late and decided to call my somewhat high-strung second to last patient of the day to warn her that it would be another half hour before came by. Her name is not Linda, but I will call her Linda. Linda was fine with our tardiness, though she was distraught about something else. She had been without heat for three days and had "called everybody, including 311 (City of Chicago hot line) and no one will help me!" Now this is one of my favorite patients. Eighty-four years old and answers the phone with: "Praise the Lord!" She says it even before she says her name. So on my way over to her place, I called 311 myself and got a promise from some city operator to pass the claim on to the Department of Aging, who might at some point in the near future send someone over to assist her. No one could attend to it today because it is Casimir Pulaski Day in Illinois--state holiday. Now, I had assumed that the reason that no one would help Linda was that she had no money to pay a proper repairman. This wasn't quite true. When I finally sat down to visit with her, I discovered that she had been calling a repairman who was not getting back to her. However, when she showed me his number, it was next to a the penciled name, "Smookey." When I called the number myself, a voicemail picked up saying that this was Winston but that he had lost his phone and was not able to return calls at the moment. Aha. So she was averse to calling standard repairmen, but apparently not cut-rate neighborhood repairmen. Now, Linda is not an irrational woman. "I'm 84 years old and I did not get here by being stupid!" Indeed not. Though she did not want to go and stay with any of her grandchildren or great-grandchildren while this was all worked out, I could understand why. A young man breezed through the apartment while I was there and, despite Linda's obvious distress, simply replied: "Fine. Okay grandma." The whole place smelled slightly of gas. After another call, I did get ahold of someone on Smookey's or Winston's number who said that he would send a truck out there today. I was on my way out when I decided, perhaps with some hubris, that ought to at least have a look at the furnace. What I know about gas furnaces would fit nicely on a postage stamp, however I do know that wires should not be hanging loose. When I touched a red wire to it's complimentary lead, there was a satisfying arc of electricity followed by the sweet "wumpf!" of burners turning on. I grabbed some duct tape from upstairs, secured the wire in place, then explained to Linda what I had done in case the heat went out again later.

So is the lesson of this little chestnut:
1) Get the facts before you act.
2) You're a doctor; stick to medicine.
3) Don't call Smookey on Pulaski Day. He's not himself.