Nebs at home? Well, then use them, you dummy?

So as I'm setting up the breathing treatment, I go through my usual rigmarole of questions.  You know, the questions we aren't supposed to ask, such as:

1.  Are you short of breath?  The patient says yes.

2.  Do you have these (nebulizers) at home? The patient says yes.

3.  Have you been taking treatments at home?  The patient says no.

So the treatment is finished, and I ask:

4.  Does your breathing feel better?  The patient says yes.

5.  Why didn't you take a treatment at home?  The patient says, "because I didn't want to self treat.

"Okay," think, "So you could have given yourself a treatment at home saved yourself a $1000 visit to the emergency room.  We're going to give you the breathing treatment that will make you better, plus to prevent the one percent chance of lawsuit we're going to do an x-ray on you, draw labs, and probably do an EKG. 

"And it's not self medicating if you already have the prescription at home.  The reason you have the medicine is so you don't have to go to the emergency room every time you get short of breath." 

There's an old saying you can't cure stupidity.  In fact, Ventolin itself is purported to treat everything except stupidity. 

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