Jokes apart...

I have a penchant for good jokes, especially those seriously-made jokes which repackaged themselves as something of a serious nature.

Recently my colleague received a referral from a certain unit with an ill patient hooked up on oxygen, as the lung function was pretty much not doing her much justice in the area of gas exchange, due to a fair amount of pulmonary haemorrhage aka bleeding in the lungs, clearly shown in the chest signs and radiograph. Her stare with the bloodshot Dracula eyes with florid conjunctiva haemorrhage were hardly a sign of terror, but simply the horrible sad, gloomy subsets of the aftermath of the probable over-the-top anticoagulation disorder coupled with her underlying connective tissue disease.

From her oral cavity, she did managed to retch out some blood, staining her saliva, or was it the other way round? And subsequently an intelligent move of prompt referral was made to the esteemed surgical team. Fortunately for her, the per-rectal finger check did not yield any signs of sinister bleed within the gastrointestinal tract.

There was nothing coming out of her genital tract, but probably a modern day risk management accounted for the referral to the gynae squad, to rule out any bleeding from the genitals. Who knows, perhaps a fair amount of blood might be collected within the potential space of the vagina and decided to stay there without dropping out, right? Thus, this had subjected the obviously misled and misguided lady to more unnecessary examination which should have adequate bed rest and rest and rest till the coagulation antithesis kicks in to bring this unfortunate soul over this crimson crisis.

Looking at this trend, probably prompt referrals should be made to the neurosurgical, gastro, ENT, renal, and every other teams which had always been dedicated on standby with high regards for any bleeding, major or minor, involving their respective pet organs.

P.S. It is rather entertaining nonetheless to have my specialist reminding me to be vigilant about differentiating his jokes and serious remarks.