He is feeling much better. He notices that the “fluids” that come out of his body in the bathroom smell funny – I tell him it’s the antibiotics, and this means they are working. As we discuss the origin of these smells, he says, “I had to take this same medicine when I was in the hospital with Strep last year, right?” And I say,” yes… and that’s why we want you to stay healthy. The next time you feel really sick, if the doctor needs to do a strep test on you, you cant get upset, you have to let them do the test – its one of the ways we can be sure to keep you out of the hospital again, so we can get you the medicine to get better before it comes to that.” He gets this horrified look in his eyes and reaches up and grabs me by both shoulders and says, "But I can't do it! Are you, insane!?" I laugh in my head at what he said (I now know better than to laugh out loud at these moments), but I can tell he is getting genuinely upset just thinking about it – so I back off the subject and change gears and let him finish brushing his teeth.
But now in my mind, playing it back, I hear him saying it in a high pitched frantic voice, as if he’s in some Sci-Fi horror movie, and the crazy scientist just let him in on the plan… I imagine hearing it said like a hysterical Jimmy Stewart or Bugs Bunny might say it, “it can’t be done! Are you insane man?!” Later he confirms he learned the phrase on Penguins of Madagascar…