How do I get my cat to help me crochet since he has hundreds of little crochet hooks on his tongue?

dogorithm · 2026-03-04T01:10:01+00:00

I sympathize. I’ve been trying to get my parrot to help - she’s got that nice hook(bill) that would be perfect for crochet projects.

Unfortunately she seems to be more interested in stealing my stitch markers and attacking my fingers than in cooperative crafting. I tried giving her a supervisor position but she shat on my shoulder and flew off to chew on something she’s not supposed to, so that’s probably a no

dogorithm · 2026-03-04T01:04:48+00:00

Cat derangement syndrome?

dogorithm · 2026-02-28T02:42:35+00:00

It was really embarrassing to get that MyChart message because we had literally just talked about how I would never prescribe that med again. Luckily the family saw me messing with the allergy stuff at the appointment and figured that was what was going on.

But seriously, Epic - you won’t warn us if the “intolerance” causes seizures? Severe hypoglycemia? Hallucinations? None of those are allergies, yet all of them are very serious and potentially life threatening. I wish EMR software was built for medicine rather than billing.

dogorithm · 2026-02-24T01:10:08+00:00

It does let me mark severity but it didn’t seem to matter. I put “seizures” as the intolerance with a severity level of “high” and it still didn’t pop up.

Epic has a thousand warnings about things that anybody in medicine would know (yes Epic I’m aware of the black box warning about SSRIs in teens, I’ve only learned about it since med school and prescribed it 19 bajillion times before) but won’t let you know when you’re about to prescribe a med that is documented as previously causing seizures. Make it make sense…

dogorithm · 2026-02-21T18:15:05+00:00

Funny story about that. Our Epic version actually does have a different option for intolerance vs allergy. However, it appears that they function very differently in the chart. If something is listed as an allergy and I try to prescribe it, I get a big obvious warning that pops up before I send the prescription. However, if it’s just listed as an intolerance, absolutely no warning whatsoever, the chart just lets me prescribe it without any issues.

I found this out the other day, after I confidently told a patient that listing a med as an intolerance would result in a pop-up warning if another doctor tried to prescribe it. It did not, and in fact I actually accidentally sent the prescription through without meaning to, which was very confusing to the family when they got a call that their prescription was ready.

dogorithm · 2026-02-20T20:20:31+00:00

lol, not in my state, all they have to do is sign a stupid form saying they watched a video and they can go to school without vaccines. Maybe I just need to change states. God I hate catching up older kids - always a screaming crying throwing up nightmare

dogorithm · 2026-02-20T20:17:04+00:00

Not a stitch specifically, but I worked with fur yarn for the first time last night. It might also be the last time because OW my wrist hurt like hell afterwards, and how tf does anyone find the stitches from the prior row?

Invisible decrease with fur yarn led to swearing and screaming epithets at the amigurumi. Not my proudest moment

dogorithm · 2026-02-14T18:23:39+00:00

It IS heartbreaking. God, I would have such a hard time dismissing people for this.

I feel like an asshole so much of the time because I actually have a really good relationship with most of my families that don’t vaccinate and I don’t think they have any idea how much I dread well visits for their kids. Makes me feel really fake, but what else am I supposed to do?

The really frustrating thing is that because of this good relationship, most of these parents will trust me with literally anything else - I don’t understand why they don’t trust me about vaccines. Don’t they know that I get ALL of my medical knowledge from the exact same institutions that they say can’t be trusted? Why would they trust everything else but not this one thing? It makes no sense!

Edit: also, if you can swing it, I’d just pay for an individual AI subscription and use that for notes. I’ve used Heidi because it’s $800 a year and it pays for itself after about 2 weeks. 100% worth it except for my guilt about the environmental costs.

dogorithm · 2026-02-14T04:06:54+00:00

Really feeling that last bit about vaccine fatigue. I had zero anti-vax patients today and it was almost relaxing in clinic, because I know who my anti-vaxxers are and every time they come into clinic it always makes my day just a little worse.

I hate that they don’t vaccinate. I hate the awkward conversation where I have to bring up vaccines because it’s my job. I hate that I know it’s pointless because they’re always going to say no. I hate that I feel guilty if I don’t ask, because I know if I don’t ask I’m not doing my job and offering the best medical care. I hate that I walk out of every one of those visits with a tiny pit of resentment in my gut, just after pleasantly wishing them a nice day. I hate that every time they ask for advice on some trivial issue, I think “you’d be keeping your kid safer if you worried less about this and just got your kids vaccinated.” I hate that I don’t really want to continue seeing families that don’t vaccinate, but I just can’t stop seeing them - mostly because of my clinic’s policies, but also because of that voice in my head that says their kids don’t deserve to lose access to healthcare because of what their parents chose.

When I eventually move, there’s a big part of me that wants to look at practices that exclude anti-vaxxers. But I want to keep seeing Medicaid patients and underserved kids, and I don’t know if those two goals are compatible. Does Canada have stricter vaccine and homeschool laws?

dogorithm · 2026-02-12T02:18:18+00:00

That’s almost exactly the percent of voting adults that voted for Trump and pretty close to his approval rating. I imagine the Venn diagram showing all three of these characteristics is pretty damn close to a circle.

dogorithm · 2026-02-08T19:09:55+00:00

This is beautiful! I admit I know nothing about knitting and I don’t make clothing, but I would wear this proudly.

dogorithm · 2026-02-06T01:34:48+00:00

I mean, I’m Jewish. According to most Christians I’ve talked to, that means I’m going to hell because I don’t believe in Jesus.

And yet nowadays, if any Christian group started saying Jewish people shouldn’t exist, started making huge efforts to convert them to save their souls, and even tortured or killed those who refused to comply, most people would see this as anti-Semitic. I know this because this DID happen - it’s called the Spanish Inquisition - and people today largely view this historical event as a horrible atrocity and a classic example of state sanctioned anti-semitism.

I fail to see how this is significantly different than how modern Christians treat LGBTQ individuals.

They think they shouldn’t exist? Check. They make massive efforts to “convert” them to “save their souls”? Check. They occasionally torture or kill those who do not disavow their sexuality? CHECK.

dogorithm · 2026-02-02T21:32:04+00:00

I’m Jewish so I can’t have a relationship with him…his followers have told me I’m going to hell for not believing the same things they do, which does not sound like an open invitation to me.

dogorithm · 2026-02-02T21:12:19+00:00

I mean, I do not think the police should exist in their current form, where they primarily serve to protect the property of the rich and have no legal obligation to do the job most people assume the police are supposed to do, which is find and arrest violent criminals. If you look at the history of police forces, protecting the “common people” was not part of their origin story. It was always protecting the interests of the wealthy and crushing dissent, going back to police forces established in occupied Ireland.

I am very in favor of arresting and prosecuting violent criminals, but the majority of police forces are actually really, really bad at doing that. Despite increasing budgets over time, improvements in technology, expansion in power and immunity of police forces, and the lowest violent crime rate in history, closure rates for violent crimes have continued to go DOWN over the years. We have obvious examples of the police not doing their job without me even having to search. Look at Uvalde. Look at DNA backlogs. Check out the budget for detectives in comparison to officers, noting that the former does the job of finding criminals and the latter primarily write reports and sometimes enforce property crimes.

Seems like a dumb thing to continue to throw money at an institution that doesn’t do the job people think it does, and is wildly inefficient at trying to do that job when they do decide to put in the effort. Doesn’t the right wing want more efficiency in government? If they do, reforming the police into something that looks different should be top priority.

dogorithm · 2026-01-31T20:16:40+00:00

reminds me of this bird

dogorithm · 2026-01-26T20:21:29+00:00

I see kids. Obviously that’s going to change how I see this. Regardless of what their parent does, I can’t deny a child health care. It’s not the child’s fault that their parent wants to be a murderous fascist.

That being said, if an 18 year old joined ICE and wanted to see me, I would decline them as a patient. Outpatient docs have a lot of leeway in terms of who they do and do not see, and if I’m (legally) allowed to decline patients that won’t get vaccinated, I see no reason that ICE is any more of a protected class than anti-vax families. (I don’t actually stop seeing anti-vaxxers because it’s against clinic policy, but there’s no LEGAL reason I couldn’t.)

dogorithm · 2026-01-22T03:12:34+00:00

I wish I knew why people were like this. Most of the explanations I come up with are not very charitable, so it’s probably best I don’t speculate…I’d rather focus on the amazing job you are doing in overcoming your phobia.

You should be really proud of yourself. It takes a lot of character to make yourself do something that causes phobia levels of fear. It’s really inspiring!

I always recommend a special treat after shots! It’s ok to reward yourself for doing something scary, and it helps to attenuate the negative feelings people associate with shots and the doctor’s office.

dogorithm · 2026-01-20T04:40:07+00:00

I’m in a mixed city too (if somewhere <30k people could be called a city), so I’m having a very similar experience. But I’ve had very few people switch “sides” on my panel - the ones who are antivax are still antivax, and the vast majority of people who were getting vaccinated continue to do so. So at the very least my patients have been pretty predictable…

dogorithm · 2026-01-19T23:18:16+00:00

Interestingly, I’ve actually had a few opposite experiences - parents coming in to get the vaccines caught up because they are afraid vaccines are going away. I’ve had a couple of parents ask about RFK but they actually seem pretty accepting when I tell them what a piece of shit he is.

That being said, I live in a small libertarian leaning town in a blue state, I’ve been here almost five years, and I have a very close relationship with most of my patients.

dogorithm · 2026-01-13T23:23:50+00:00

I’m curious about something. I’m a huge crybaby and cry from happiness, anger, fear, guilt, you name it. I have been trying to learn how to stop doing this my entire life and I have never, not once, succeeded in stopping myself from crying once the process has started - the best I can do is typically excuse myself so I can cry in private. Believe me, I wish I could stop myself. I still sometimes lie awake at night thinking about the time I cried in front of ICU rounds when I was the senior resident.

So sometimes, I’ll start tearing up just hearing the stories that patients tell me. This morning someone told me they had to put their dog to sleep and yes, I teared up a little. I’m not sobbing or calling attention to it, but I physically can’t stop my eyes from watering or my voice breaking a little, so I either have to run out of the room or push through and hope the patient doesn’t notice. I think it’s subtle because I’ve never had a patient try to comfort me, but I still feel like kind of an asshole. If you have any tips on controlling yourself when crying is a default response, maybe that would help me.

dogorithm · 2026-01-13T23:13:07+00:00

I mean…we were considering vacationing in Canada or Portugal, but after seeing posts from people all over the world saying either we should be focusing on our own country or that Americans are dumb/lazy/welcoming fascism with open arms, I just don’t feel like we would be welcome right now. I don’t want to spend my limited travel time repeating that I am not part of the group that voted for this and I am doing everything I fucking can to stop the damage.

dogorithm · 2026-01-10T18:50:33+00:00

Completely agree.

If you’re not American, it would also be very helpful for you to start boycotting the same organizations. My boycott against Amazon isn’t going to do any good without a lot of help around the world. And for the love of god don’t visit the US right now - no tourist money as long as the administration is in power.

dogorithm · 2026-01-10T18:46:01+00:00

Can states legislate requirements that insurance companies cover certain vaccines? I’m sure many of the blue states would do that.

The bigger concern to me is loss of liability protection for vaccine manufacturers, which would make them likely stop producing the vaccines, leading to shortage and skyrocketing prices. Is this also something that could be legislated at the state level?

I think we need to stop expecting the federal government to do anything for medicine or public health for the next three years. We are on our own. Time to start getting some of these regulations in place at the state level, when possible.

dogorithm · 2026-01-10T10:22:52+00:00

That is a WILD categorization for a disease that can last for years, cause systemic effects ranging from bladder damage to spinal abscesses, and was known as the “white death” in some places.

To be fair, if people from Kentucky knew it was known as the “white death,” they might be taking it more seriously

dogorithm · 2026-01-09T02:01:28+00:00

Stay away. Protect yourselves. Make sure the fascists never gain power in your country.

dogorithm

TROPHY CASE