My Wife Is Trying to Kill Me!

Abstract

It had already been a historic winter. The day after Christmas, heavy snows fell in the Northeast crippling the cities and towns of northern New Jersey and New York. It was now January 25 and northern New Jersey had just suffered through two weeks of arctic-like weather. On January 24 the temperature dropped to single digits. On the morning of January 25 the National Weather Service was predicting a day that would be mostly cloudy with a high of 36 degrees Fahrenheit and that light snow would start falling the following morning. The newscasters’ prediction of the weather on every radio and television station was consistent as I relaxed at home the evening of the 25th. At some time that evening, as a precaution against another foul-up in the forecast, the New Jersey State Police issued a winter weather awareness alert for a potential winter storm the following day, January 26. The warning included the advisory that residents and commuters should prepare for the impending winter weather expected the following day and which could affect commuters. I had a New Jersey Drug Utilization Review Board (DURB) meeting scheduled for that morning. The DURB is a statewide committee established by the Department of Human Services to look into issues of medication utilization in various populations in the state covered by a state-sponsored medication program. I wondered whether I would be going to that meeting, obviously depending on what the weather would bring. I prepared to go to sleep early so that I could get up early in case the weather brought significant snowfall and I would need to make a decision on whether to attend the meeting or not. As my wife and I sat discussing what we would be doing the following day, a telephone call came from the New Jersey poison center. Diantha Clark, one of the nurse specialists in poison information, was on the line. She had received a call from an intensive care unit physician about a thirty-nine-year-old patient who had been in the hospital for eleven days. He was admitted for symptoms of gastritis, abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. He had eaten rice and beans for lunch, prepared by his wife, and developed the symptoms soon afterward. When seen in the emergency department he was complaining of severe abdominal pains and diarrhea. The physicians examining him made the tentative diagnosis of either an intestinal viral gastroenteritis or food poisoning with moderate dehydration. He was given intravenous fluids for the dehydration and admitted to the hospital.