Monday, April 14, 2008

Allegre D - Wiping the smiles away, once bank account at a time!


How are you today?


If you are like many Americans, you may answer this with a positive answer - "doing well", "loving life", etc....this is a grave warning sign that you might be suffering needlessly!


And in answering this question, you might even crack a smile and exhibit what we at Good Living Upliftment Covert Kommodity (GLUCK) Pharmaceuticals call "signs and symptoms of behavioral adaptations toward a positive metaphysical response." (e.g. happiness)
Yes, we know this is very complex stuff, so let us break it down, Smurf style:
Of the Smurfs, you may have noticed the one that stuck out as completely dysfunctional, unable to perform his Smurf duties, or even to have the wherewithal to help Pappa Smurf with emotional support as a single-father - Yup! Happy Smurf! We can all agree that Lazy Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Handsome Smurf and their siblings all clearly outperformed Happy when it came to Darwinian fitness, largely because they did not suffer from happiness as he did.
(For a quick re-fresher on the entire Smurfdom, see
Which surepticiously brings us, the GLUCK family, to our point.
Happiness is something that has been pushed upon us through the evil plots of the makers of children's cartoons, makers of greeting cards, Santa Claus, and a host of NGOs too numerous to list here. It has become the epidemic of the 21st century, with an estimated 262,386,432 Americans affected (source: unpublished industry data)

And like Happy Smurf, these millions upon millions are finding it hard to function in life, which unlike the comforting world that incubated the Smurfs, is a cold, crass, and cruel environment in which to live.

GLUCK has a (culturally and linguistically-competent) solution called Allegre D, a revolutionary drug that will turn that smile into a frown, one that will make your lightheartedness fade quicker than a Smurf who sees Gargamel. This drug is re-inventing what it means to be human, and liberating humanity from its captivity to happiness.

Allegre D is a revolutionary drug, the first in a class called SSREs - Selective Serotonin Reuptake Enhancers - making sure that the serotonin (or as we call it at GLUCK, ""the awful, awful, horrible, nasty, toxic neurotransmitter") is ridded from the synapses of your nervous system.

This drug, when taken as part of a healthy diet of glum-ness, sorrow, and incidental horrific life experiences, has been shown (in left-handed lab mice lacking a frontal lobe of the brain) to decrease symptoms of happiness in over 98% (of those willing to take it at a neurotoxic IV dose)

Allegre D can do the same for you!

Please send check and money order to GLUCK today, for an easy payment of $349.99 (to be repeated weekly), and we will promise you that your sunny, smiley, beautiful days of suffering
are over.

So the next time you feel a smile coming on, think about
Allegre D - it stands for Allegre (Happy) Detox, and it will do just that, detoxing you system, one nueron at a time, and restoring you to those days when all you will want to do is cry, scoff, frown, fret, fart, etc.

*As with all medications, please ask your doctor is medical advice from a pharmaceutical ad is right for you *

* Do not consume Allegre D with SSRI's - this has been shown to cause catatonia due to the clashing of these two molecules at the nueronal synapse. Also, do not consume with sushi, lettuce, salt, graham crackers, ice cream, cooked meat, uncooked meat, mandarin oranges, or other foods known to elicit feelings of happiness.

* If you have any positive things happening in your life, we encourage immediate discontinuing of such activities before beginning Allegre D for optimal results

* And if you can't afford Allegre D, we have a great "Helping Patients Frown" assitance program, which will allow you to get one pill free, and will then automatically take payments for ensuing pills out of your children's college funds or your house mortgage, whichever is deemed to be the route of monetary extraction that will inflict the most pain (e.g. be most opposite to happiness)

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

The Purple Jellybean - powerful medicine!

I had the opportunity to spend Easter on call, and it was very interesting how, here in the ICU, no one acknowledged that this was a holiday for the rest of the world. I did my best to wish families and patients a Happy Easter, but felt somewhat uncomfortable doing so, as no one else on the medical team wanted this to enter into "the serious business of healing." One patient, after the team had left, felt comfortable telling me that what she really wanted on this Easter was a purple jellybean to eat. Luckily, she was one of the few patients in the ICU who was allowed to eat, and I then trecked to see if I could find the purplish treat...I also started coming up with my story, so that when I was asked, I could convince my superiors that this was really a powerful medicine I was delivering.

"What is that you are bringing to room 16?"
(a beautiful exhibition of the inability to refer to patients as humans...they are either known by their disease, their room number, and if they have an impressive enough case, maybe just by an organ..."the liver over there")
"Uh, yeah, this is the noon dose of the antibiotics she is on."
"You mean, the Jelly Belly brand of antibiotics, since that is what is plastered on the side of the pills?"
"I guess the Jellybean industry is as cutthroat as the Pharmaceutical industry, and have decided to place ads on prescription meds" (mumbled as I walk away)

Well, I found a purple jellybean, delivered it without incidence, and was met with such a great smile that I quickly thought back to common sense medicine (which is not taught in medical school), which suggests that if a small dose is effective in bringing healing, then a larger dose is indicated...so, a little while later, after going through the stash of jellybeans I had found, picking out the purple ones, I had a nice little cup of "medicine" to deliver...and indeed, common sense medicine held true - her smile was just a bit bigger this time, and I even got a positive "laugh sign" on my physical exam!

A good reminder to myself that, as a healer, I can
cure occassionally,
heal often,
and comfort always

Also a reminder that when suffocated with seriousness, a random act of kindness is good medicine for all.