Yesterday my wife and I were walking our dog on a grey, wintery day. Though only 45 degrees, it was a damp chill that felt like 39, what my wife's Cajun family calls "dat wet cold." She was grumbling about it, having grown up in…
On December 8, 1990, I got married. It was my first trip to Louisiana, and my staid protestant family met my new loud, fun catholic in-laws. Like the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, my stiff northeasterners got swallowed up in…
My feisty little dog Milou hates squirrels. They're harmless, but you wouldn't know it the way he barks and barks when they're running around the yard. When we let him out a high speed chase ensues, him nipping just behind the…
How epidemics happen: first, a vulnerable population. Then bring into that population a highly contagious infection. Recently that's measles. Unvaccinated kids are often in clusters where not vaccinating is culturally popular-…
Sometimes I wonder what I'd be like if I was born in 1800. I'd be crippled, since I have an arthritis requiring regular medication. Once the arthritis affected my eyes and without medication, I might've become blind. Then one…
Schoolteacher Jane Anderson Lemoine has lots of back-to-school stories- kids falling asleep in class and drooling all over their desks, a boy accidentally going to two social studies classes per day for a whole week and not…
Sometimes when seeing a patient in the Emergency Department, I discover the kid isn't vaccinated. The parents often say "I researched it" when explaining why they don't vaccinate. When I hear the word "research," I picture…
Every once in a bad while, I diagnose a child with a brain tumor. Usually she's had some progressing coordination trouble, and worsening fussiness. We do a CT scan, there it is, and I have to break bad news to the parents. A…
This week's guest columnist is Dr. Crystal Davis, a Family Practice resident at the University Hospital and Clinics here in Lafayette. Mom's in the yard when her 5 year-old son Logan runs over. "Something bit me," he cries, "it…
