Death by Chocolate

I've spent two days babying my little brother. Says he has stomach pains. Friday evening, he comes up to me, asks me to "feel this." Now normally, this would be the perfect opportunity to make some crack about us being from Kentucky, and how I've been waiting all my life for him to make my dreams come true. Those types of jokes make him turn a little green, which my mean older sister handbook said I have to do at least once a week. However, he looked like he might be seriously hurt, so I take a look. I'm not a doctor, I have no idea what I'm looking at. Appears to be a stomach...

Saturday morning, he goes to the doctor, who takes one look at him and sends him to the ER. The ER gives him a catscan, tells him there's nothing wrong, and sends him home with heave duty painkillers. Again, I'm not a doctor, but if there's nothing wrong with him, why did his doctor send him straight to the ER, and why are you sending him home with painkillers?

Whoops. They called him back this morning. "Yes, we're stupid, please come back in." So he does, they run a blood test, and again tell him, "We don't really see anything." So he's home again, except this time, they told him not to take the painkillers. "If you're still in pain in the morning, we'll probably go ahead and take out your appendix, just in case. But we're not ruling out constipation or a virus."

Just in case?? And how exactly is it that in two visits to the ER they still can't tell the difference between constipation and appendicitis? We're just supposed to sit around and see if it bursts or if he has a good dump? Craziness. My faith in modern medicine has been drastically reduced.

I applied my own kind of medicine and bought him some Ben and Jerry's Mood Magic ice cream in Chocolate Therapy. He feels much better.