ER here. This was in January, so cold time. I was discharging a fast easy patient for my pod mate. She was a low acuity, 17 year old, here for runny nose and cough for one day or something silly.

I print out the DC instructions, I go in, give my whole "you have been diagnosed with a resporatory virus, etc etc etc" my whole speech.

After I ask her and mom, any questions? Mom asks "well, what did the doctor say we should do about her hands?"

Perplexed, thinking we were only here for a cold (but didnt read every word of the chart) did not see anything like that.

So I ask, "Well, what's wrong with her hands?"

The daughter holds them up to me, in a way I envision an orphan boy in the book Oliver would hold their hands up for food, just this useless sad face and open hands. Then mom says "They are dry."

They were dry in the sense like my hands get dry if I wash them a bunch. No cracking, bleeding, nada.

I just stared at them, and I probably could not control my blank "are you fucking serious?" look. I just said, "Well, you put lotion on them!"

That was over a year ago. I think about her from time to time. I hope she is doing okay.