Today I had a patient with paranoid schizophrenia come in because one of his psych meds was messing with his blood sugar and we needed to rule out diabetes. He was a little socially awkward, and obviously anxious, pacing the exam room the whole time I talked to him. He was nice though, even cracking a very quiet joke or two.

He had also had some trouble with low blood pressure, so we decided to take his blood pressure lying down and then standing. We had him lie on his back on the exam table, and he suddenly says, "What's that button?"

He was lying under this special bright light that I've only seen used on a 4-day-old infant, I thought to help keep her warm. It had some tiny knob on it that looked like a button, so the resident explained the light and turned it on for a moment, trying to reassure him.

He then says, "No, that button." We look up, and then on the next ceiling-tile over is a coat button... like, round, with a rim, and 4 holes... stuck to the ceiling. Someone glued a button to the ceiling.

Things like that can make you think you're crazy!



(Or it was hovering. Or it was a bug that could disguise itself as a button. Or an alien that could disguise itself as a button. I don't even have a psychiatric disorder and I came up with those possibilities... or I assume I don't have a psy dx. Yeah, thanks in advance for the comments on that).




Also, my friend from my previous post isn't doing well. The diagnosis right now is transverse myelitis, which indicates it could be at least a few weeks before there is improvement. I pray that she and her family have the strength to carry them through this.