March 2025 – Go Retire Psychiatrist

Bigfoot Safari in Iowa!

I suppose you’ve all heard there’s going to be another Iowa Bigfoot search this year sponsored by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO). It’s scheduled for September 18-21, 2025 (Thursday-Sunday). Check the registration details for fees and whatnot—No guns or dogs allowed.

What would Einstein say about the difference between Bigfoot, Yeti, and Sasquatch? They’re all relative.

The announcement as of today doesn’t say where the trip will start yeti (har!). Presumably, the party won’t be anywhere near Dyersville, where the movie “Field of Dreams” was filmed. And if the organizers give this a big enough build-up, the hopeful will come.

And they have showed up for previous events; at least I think so. There have been several such expeditions in recent years. According to the BFRO website, there’ve been 78 sightings of Bigfoot in Iowa.

Bigfoot saw me but no one believed him.

The Wikipedia article on Bigfoot is one of the longest I’ve ever seen. There are over 300 references. Funny, I didn’t see any of my documented sightings even mentioned, not even the classic tree structure in Hickory Hill Park.

How does Bigfoot know what time it is? He checks his sasquatch.

What do you call a Sasquatch who can improvise? An unscripted cryptid.

What do you call a Sasquatch who’s always prepared? A ready Yeti.

What do you call an Italian Bigfoot? A spag-yeti.

What kind of exercise does Bigfoot like? Sasquats.

Bigfoot sightings have been reported from all over the world. You can even see one in Canada caught on camera in this famous documentary from The Red Green Show.

What is Spam All About?

Sena purchased some Spam products, some of which I didn’t know the Spam company made. They make different flavors. No kidding, there’s Hickory Smoke, Hot & Spicy, Korean BBQ, Sasquatch toe jam with satanic sauce.

She ordered only one can of the Hot & Spicy, and they sent a whole case by mistake, but charged for only one can.

There’s a huge Spam web site and the main company is in Austin, Minnesota. There’s a question-and-answer section which you’d expect would have an answer for the question about what the name “Spam” even means. It turns out nobody’s sure; it could be short portmanteau word for spiced and ham.

What do you call the body of water off the coast of Mexico after a tankerful of canned spiced ham is spilled into it? The Gulf of Spamerica.

This Spam thing reminded us of weird food enthusiast, Andrew Zimmern, and his show “Bizarre Foods” which we used to cringe at. He’ll eat almost anything but he hates Spam.

What’s in Spam anyway, that even Zimmern can’t stand to eat? It’s made of pork with ham, salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrite. The sodium nitrite part reminds me of Iowa’s KCCK radio blues music show host John Heim aka Big Mo, who often talks about MayRee’s hand battered catfish, “packed with nitrates, cooked to perfection with manic delight.”

So, it turns out that Spam is packed with nitrates too and you shouldn’t eat it every day. They do make healthier kinds of Spam, including Spam Lite (50% less fat, 25% less sodium, 33% fewer calories, made with hypomanic delight) and Spam 25% Less Sodium.

What do you call the part of a bridge extension between multiple piers which is made of canned nitrate-reinforced ham and pork shoulder? A continuous spam.

There’s no real urban legend about them—yet, but there might be little Spam zombies out there called spambies who really like Spam, possibly because the color might remind them of brain. They’ll steal it if you’re not hiding it.

Why couldn’t the spambie father any children? He had a low spam count.

Anyway, even though I can’t recall eating Spam when I was a kid, it’s entirely possible and the trauma left me with amnesia.

By the way, if King Arthur had eaten spiced ham and pork shoulder packed with nitrates every day for lunch, what would he have called his castle? Spamelot.

How to Support University of Iowa with the One Day for Iowa Fund Drive Today!

Okay, so here’s my pitch on how potential donors can support programs at The University of Iowa. Today the One Day for Iowa fund drive kicks off, and it ends at 11:59 PM today on March 26, 2025.

I got a soft spot in my heart for The University of Iowa College of Medicine and University of Iowa Health Care (UIHC), even though my undergraduate Bachelor’s degree was from Iowa State University.

You can find in the UIHC Medical Museum a description of the historical development of the medical school. Following the Flexner Report in 1909 which found fault with all U.S. medical schools including Iowa’s, there was a drive to avoid “inbreeding,” meaning hiring of one’s own graduates. Nowadays, there are legislative efforts to keep as many as we can of Iowa’s best and brightest.

Go Hawkeyes!

Attack of the Toothworms

I had my regular visit to the dentist at The University of Iowa Health Care (UIHC) today, and it was a good thing I did. For the past couple of weeks or so I’ve had cold and hot sensitivity in a couple of teeth. No surprise, the dentist found 3 teeth that needed a little work.

The dental hygienist also suggested I try using a tongue cleaner and gave me a free one. I’d never heard of a tongue cleaner before. The package advertisement (in English, French, and Spanish) says it’s for combatting bad breath, although the dental hygienist assured me in 6 different languages that she didn’t detect that problem in me.

I was there for my annual teeth cleaning but now I had 3 teeth needing work. Luckily, the dentist had an appointment in the early afternoon. It was a 3 hour wait, but I thought it was better to get it done sooner rather than later. Anticipating a visit with a dentist is sometimes almost as bad as getting in the chair and exercising my ability to refrain from flinching as the high-speed instruments whine in my ear while the dentist and the assistant do their level best to see that I gag several times in at least 9 different languages, including Klingon.

It’s hard to explain why I was having tooth sensitivity because, according to the dentist, the damage was not that severe. It wasn’t until I wandered around the hospital while waiting for the 2^nd appointment that I realized I had never visited the Medical Museum on the 8^th floor. And that’s where I found a possible explanation that made more sense than the modern one. It’s probably toothworms.

No kidding, back in the 18^th century, a lot of people thought worms caused tooth decay by eating them from the inside out. There was also a College of Dentistry display in the Medical Museum featuring a typical dentist chair and samples of rusty tools, which made wonder if I should put off the filling work until, say, after my next ten reincarnations.

There’s a human skeleton in the museum which is affectionately called Gertie. The historical note on Gertie is very interesting in that it was thought to be a male when Ottumwa Regional Health Center donated it to UIHC in 2013. It turns out he is actually a she and the “…two symmetrical holes in the upper jaw are the result of large dental abscesses.” Just what I wanted to learn on a day when I’m anticipating dental work.

Anyway, my teeth got repaired. I would say that the UIHC dental clinic has come a long way from 1904. You don’t turn and spit in a bowl anymore. They just siphon the toothworms out with a suction wand nowadays.

The Best Cribbage Song You Never Heard Of

I was looking for fun cribbage facts the past few days and while I couldn’t find any good cribbage jokes, I did find an interesting song about cribbage called “One for His Nob (The Cribbage Song.” It was done by a British artist, Richard Thompson. It’s included with another song by him entitled “Meet on the Ledge.” See the credit below and in the YouTube video description.

ADDENDUM 7/16/2025: The video below for the song “One for his nob” has vanished, unfortunately. I found another one called “The Crib Song” by Brett Kessler. You can find out more on my post from 7/16/2025 “Whoops, The One for his nob Cribbage Song Vanished.”

Anyway, the song “One for his Nob” is full of references to cribbage lingo, a lot of which is hard to catch because the tune is so fast. One of the terms is “19 in the box,” which refers to a score of zero in what American cribbage players call the “crib.” A no score in cribbage is often called 19 because that score is impossible. The term “one for his nob” is also standard cribbage lingo for holding the Jack of the same suit as the cut card.

Sena and I thought it would be fun to record a video of us playing cribbage so we could play it back along with Thompson’s song. The thing is I had to speed up the video because it took us a little over 10 minutes to play a cribbage game just to 60 instead of 120. It felt frenetic, but it fits the song a little better because the song is 2 min and 44 seconds long.

If you play the YouTube vide of “One for His Nob” just right and watch our speeded-up video of us playing cribbage, it’s funny. In fact, it just so happened that Sena scored a point twice in the game because she got the nob Jack in two separate hands.

I’ve included the regular speed video of our cribbage game for comparison.

“One for His Nob” is a song about cribbage recorded by British singer-song writer Richard Thompson. It was published by Avon Records and released on July 1, 2015.

Juggling Concentration Meditation

I haven’t done a juggling YouTube video in a while, and lucky you I made one. When the daily news gripes me or gets me down, juggling forces me to concentrate on just that—juggling. If I break my concentration for any reason, I literally drop the ball.

I’m limited a little in our new house because of the lower ceiling height, risking a throw into the ceiling lights. And I’m still prone to flinging and dropping balls, depending on the trick I’m practicing. So, I go downstairs to practice more difficult juggling tricks.

So, if you need a special kind of focused attention meditation, try the 100-throw cascade.

What is Foreign Language Syndrome?

I found a very interesting news outlet report about a condition called Foreign Language Syndrome (FLS) which you have to distinguish from Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS). I wrote a post about that a few years ago. The latter is common by comparison with FLS. FAS is a tendency to speak with a foreign inflection, not speak or be unable to speak a different language, which is what FLS would be.

There are a handful of cases, all within the last 20 years, most of them associated with receiving anesthetic agents prior to surgeries. All could speak more than one language; in other words, they didn’t wake up from anesthesia with the ability to speak another language they never learned before.

I could find only one web link to a case report (see below) about FLS, published about 3 years ago, which is what the news story was about. In fact, the authors of this report describe the case of a 17-year-old male who suffered FLS (forgot his native Dutch language, but who also spoke English) after knee surgery, noting that the other known cases were subjects of news stories.

Humbaba qabDaj luchenmoH Humanpu”e’ ‘ej ghaytan tera’ tach ‘elpu’ jupwI’ ‘e’ vIHon. chaq wa’ Qib rurbogh taS QIpmey, Huj jaghmey luchoHlu’ta’ ‘ach, qaStaHvIS mInDu’ vISuq.

Oops, sorry, accidentally started babbling in Klingon. I meant to say:

Based on the case report, FLS might be an emergence delirium, caused by the choice of a particular anesthetic agent. Emergence delirium is delirium caused by waking up from anesthesia after surgery, which I’ve experienced a couple of times, although I have difficulty remembering the episodes.

Kiu(j) ne eksklud alia kaŭz por FLS, kvankam verŝajne, plimulto retrov plimalpli tute post du tagojn antaŭ la operacio.

Rats, happened again, with Esperanto. What I meant:

That doesn’t rule out other causes for FLS, although it looks like most people recover more or less completely after a couple of days out from the surgeries.

More studies are needed.

Reference: Salamah, H.K.Z., Mortier, E., Wassenberg, R. et al. Lost in another language: a case report. J Med Case Reports 16, 25 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13256-021-03236-z

Stead Family Children’s Hospital NICU Gets a Wave from the AAP with New Designation

The University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit was recently recognized by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) as one of only two such units in the U.S. having the highest levels of neonatal care.

It reminds me of the Iowa Hawkeye football games where, at the end of the first quarter, all the players and football fans wave from the field to the pediatric patients and their families watching the game from UI Stead Family Children’s Hospital. It’s called the Wave, one of the best traditions in college sports.

Well, the AAP waves to Stead Family Children’s Hospital NICU.

The 2024 Distinguished Education Lecture by Russell Ledet, MD, PhD

Last year, I wanted to present this Distinguished Education Lecture by Dr. Russell Ledet, MD, PhD, given during Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration of Human Rights week. It took a while for my message to the University of Iowa to get through channels, but I want to thank Audra M. King, the Administrative Services Coordinator for the Office of Student Affairs and Curriculum in the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine for her help in getting it into a YouTube format that allows the general public to see and hear Dr. Ledet’s presentation.

I wrote a post in February last year about how impressed I am with Dr. Ledet as a leader. Now you can hear him tell his own inspirational story.

The Red Green Show “Twinning” Episode A Model of Cooperation

I just read Dr. H. Steven Moffic’s post on Psychiatric Times, “The Space Station as a Model for Intercultural Cooperation.” I also read the blog of another psychiatric I consider a colleague and friend, Dr. George Dawson, MD, and it’s sort of in the oppositive vein, being about the recent snafu of some Republican Minnesota legislators deciding to submit a bill to the legislature mansplaining Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) to the Democrats why TDS needs to become a law. It’s going over like a lead space station.

Incidentally, one legislature activity tracking website (Bill Track 50) has an Artificial Intelligence (AI) summary of the bill which says in part, “…the bill appears to be satirical or politically motivated…”

And the Minnesota Senate Minority Leader, Mark T. Johnson, said the bill was “a little bit tongue in cheek,” and possibly unintentionally joked that “Senate Republicans have always supported mental health funding…” while also calling attention to problems that the two political parties have cooperating with each other (story source WCCO News Minnesota, “Minnesota bill to define “Trump derangement syndrome” as mental illness provokes backlash” by Eric Henderson, Caroline Cummings; accessed March 18, 2025). Obviously these two pieces present opposites when it comes to collaboration.

The other issue pertinent to my post today has been the recent tariff and trade war going on between Canada and America, which is all about competition rather than cooperation.

Therefore, I did a web search for any Red Green Show episodes that demonstrated cooperation as a theme. In fact, the usual AI guidance (which I never ask for) pointed out that The Red Green Show didn’t present episodes about cooperation per se, but satirized the topic. For once, I had to agree with AI for the most part.

On the other hand, I did find a Red Green Show episode called “Twinning” that actually seemed to involve collaboration between Canada and Iowa, if you can imagine that nowadays. Back in the year 2000, The Red Green Show sponsored a survey of all 50 states in America, offering an opportunity for persons from an American city to twin with persons from Canada, I think it was Ontario. This meant that Americans would visit Canada and Canadians would visit America. I may not have the exact details right, but the idea of cross-cultural collaboration and getting to know each other was the main idea.

The whole state of Iowa endorsed the twinning offer with The Red Green Show, which of course, represented Canada. At the time, the Iowa Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) network was supporting the Red Green Show.

I never knew about that when it happened in 2000, probably because I was pretty busy working as a consultation-liaison psychiatrist here in Iowa City, Iowa. Anyway, the “Twinning” episode was one of the funniest I’ve seen. You know, identical twins are not exactly identical in every way.