One Interesting Duty

Anthony Hopkins. That's who my patient resembled. But he was not the scary Hopkins of Silence of the Lambs. He was a sweet, old man.

While I was setting up the dialysis machine and programming it for his treatment, he started entertaining me.

"Do you like jokes?," he asked.

"Yes, why?"

"I've got some," he said.

"Go ahead," I said.

"What do you call the removal of the tonsils?"

"Tonsillectomy?" I thought I heard this joke before but I let him get on with it.

"Right. What about the removal of the appendix?"

"Appendectomy?" I began to smile knowingly.

"Yes. What do you call the procedure when a woman is turned into a man."

My smile vanished. This was not the joke that I know. I paused, thought for a while and answered, " Don'tdothattome?"

He blurted out laughing.

"I got it right?" I asked, surprised by my own answer.

"No. That's not the answer. It's Addthatdicktome," he chuckled.

"Oh."

"Dontdothattome..." he repeated and chuckled some more.

Seems like my answer was funnier than his.

Then I confessed that I had a different punchline in mind.

"I thought you'd finally ask... what is the procedure for someone who has bad breath."

"And what is the answer?"

"Donttalktome".

He laughed some more. We had an interesting start with his dialysis. I didn't expect to have an equally interesting end. As I finished with his treatment and cleaned up my machine, the nurse for the night shift came in and introduced herself. I was unplugging the hose from the water source at the back of the machine and I only heard my patient say, "Do you know that you look like Helen Hunt?"

I peeked behind the machine and saw the nurse smile and look back at him. "Actually, now that I have lost some weight, more people were saying that I look like Jodie Foster."

Oh my gosh, I thought. She was right. I was so thrilled that I just had to say, "I can't believe I'm amidst stars! You resemble Anthony Hopkins and you look like Jodie Foster."

Wait... this is not thrilling... this is a thriller. Silence of the Lambs, ICU episode. I'd better get out of here before I become the brain menu.