Spewing Forth

A couple of weeks ago, during a healthcare fraud investigation, I happened upon a letter written by one of my, soon-to-be-defendant, doctors.  It was written to justify his behavior toward a particular patient who had made an official complaint to the county medical board.  She thought he was brusque and rude in dealing with her.  In three eloquent pages, he repeatedly explained he had suffered from emesis that day and sped through his patients while waiting for his replacement doctor for the afternoon.

His actions were deemed "justified."  But, what the heck was "emesis?"  This was a new word for me and, frankly, I no longer learn a new one every day.

I soon found my vocabulary had increased by one more way to say "vomit."  Curious the doctor couldn't have said that, but took a medical high-brow approach to properly contest the less educated complainant's letter, getting the doctor off scot-free for his symptoms, if not his manners.  I found the word was new, even to my FBI colleagues, all but the one whose wife is a nurse who had once extolled the virtue of "emesis pans," to him.

When I arrived home that evening I joyfully advised my family of my new word, knowing my sons would relish in its meaning.  Even my young daughters were present for this conversation, and all joked as they used it in sentences, both correctly and otherwise.  They laughed through "emesis the nemesis" and "medically correct" volcanoes with their hot lava.

Today, my fourth-grader, Natalia, came home with her new vocabulary words, one of which was "spew."  In class, she told us, each student was required to come up with a synonym for one of the words on their list.  She stood up tall beside her desk, looked her teacher straight in the eye, and said, "spew... emesis."  She said it matter-of-factly as if she'd said, "hop... jump," then sat down.

Mrs. Applegate stared at Natalia and asked her to repeat what she had said.  Again, Natalia stood up and said, "spew... emesis."

The word was obviously new to her teacher, and Natalia looked at her as if she were from Mars.  How could the teacher, she thought, not know a word that a nine-year-old knew?  After just another moment, when she saw the teacher's eyebrows were still scrunched up, Natalia added, "It means nauseous, but that's just how doctors say it.  At home, we usually just say 'vomit.'"

"Oh..." said Mrs. Applegate.  She didn't even ask.

Solana Beach, CA 

February 4, 1999