Thursday, January 17, 2013

The 'schmerz

It's that time again, folks! Today I'm linking up with DJ at Medicine: A Love Story to share more med-love antics. Click on the icon below to visit her blog and learn how to take part as a blogger, or at least see what everyone else has to say about today's topic.



Medicine: A Love Story



The prompt: What's the most interesting medical fact you've learned vicariously?
 
Since Dr. D and I are going on five years of the medically graphic over-sharing dinner conversations (four years of med school and over half of intern year), there isn't much that shocks me anymore. Oh, to be again the wide-eyed innocent who nearly spit out her cereal after moving the Sunday morning paper only to uncover a textbook page full of diseased penises (penisi? I really feel like that should be penisi... can someone with some clout in med linguistics get on that?).

If you've been with me from the beginning of this blog--just Mom? okay, cool, no worries--then you may recall me blogging about a few medical facts that I learned and deemed traumatic enough to warrant infliction upon others. Like discovering that I didn't drink enough urine as an embryo, or that death-breath is a thing, or even what it's like to inhale the smell of burned flesh.

But I think that out of all of the medical knowledge I've unwittingly amassed, my favorite factoids tend to be the ones regarding medical terminology. I'm a fan of words. Always have been. Give me a medical phrase that sounds like a Harry Potter spell, and I will be entertained for hours. Seriously, hours, if not days.

So imagine my glee when D came home one day and said, "You know what's a fun word?

"Mittelschmerz."

Um, yes. Yes it is. Particularly when attempting to say it three times quickly, a la Beetlejuice. I loved this new word! I took to that sucker like a toddler who just learned her first curse word, and he let me walk around the house jabbering about it for a solid half hour before telling me what it actually meant. Why didn't I inquire about the meaning, you ask? Because I. love. words. and I was too distracted.

Too bad it means "the abdominal pains occurring between menstrual periods." Way to take a fun word and assign it to something that is NO JOKE, Germans.


2 comments:

DJ said...

omg, I am finding a way to use that word in a sentence EVERY DAY. Or at least every month.

And I clicked over to "death breath"... I can completely picture your exchange in Starbucks because it was my life. Also that's disgusting.

Mrs. Dr. D said...

You best believe I moan about the 'schmerz monthly.

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