Удушье (Choke)

Border

irregularity.

Color

variation.

Diameter

larger than about six millimeters.

She's shaved. Tanned and oiled so smooth and perfect, she looks less like a woman than just another place to swipe your credit card. Pumping herself in our faces, the murky blend of red and black light makes her look better than she really is. The red lights erase scars and bruises, zits, some kinds of tattoos, plus stretch and track marks. The black lights make her eyes and teeth glow bright white.

It's funny how the beauty of art has so much more to do with the frame than with the artwork itself.

The light trick makes even Denny look healthy, his chickeny wing arms coming out of a white T-shirt. His legal pad glows yel­low. He curls his bottom lip inside, biting it as he looks from the patient to his work, and back to the patient.

Pumping herself in our faces, yelling against the music, she says, 'What?'

She looks like a natural blonde, a high risk factor, so I ask, has she had any recent unexplained weight loss?

Not looking at me, Denny says, 'Dude, do you know how much a real model would cost me?'

Back at him, I say, 'Dude, don't forget to sketch her ingrown hairs.'

To the patient, I ask, has she noticed any changes in her cycle or in her bowel movements?

Kneeling in front of us, spreading her black-polished finger­nails open on either side of herself and leaning back, looking down the arched length of her torso at us, she says, 'What?'

Skin cancer, I yell, is the most common cancer in women be­tween the ages of twenty-nine and thirty-four.

I yell, 'I'll need to feel your lymph nodes.'

And Denny says, 'Dude, you want to know what your mom told me or not?'

I yell, 'Just let me palpate your spleen.'

And sketching fast with the burned cork, he says, 'Do I sense a shame cycle?'

The blonde hooks her elbows behind her knees and rolls back onto her spine, twisting a nipple between the thumb and forefin­ger of each hand. Stretching her mouth wide open, she curls her tongue at us, then says, 'Daiquiri.' She says. 'My name's Cherry Daiquiri. You can't touch me,' she says, 'but where's this mole you're talking about?'

The way to remember every step to a physical examination is CHAMP FASTS. It's what they call a mnemonic in medical school. The letters stand for:

Chief Complaint.

History of Illness.

Allergies.

Medications.

Past Medical History.

Family History.