People working in the medical field tell-all about the strange things they've witnessed.
Let's have a peek at what they have to go through on a regular basis every day.
What Infection you say...
Here's a strange one, ER doctor. One night, a lady arrived at the ER, claiming she was infected with worms. She informed me that she had noticed worms in her mouth, urine, and stool. She stated it had been going on for a few months and was becoming worse.
She had brought a sample of these worms with her. She placed them in a glass and wrapped them with plastic wrap. I exposed it to the light... It appeared to be saliva with mucus clumps in it. Her parents arrived as I was attempting to persuade her that it was just normal spit. They'd driven down from out of state, fearful that their daughter would succumb to a parasite infection.
When I indicated that it was all in her brain (there is a delusional condition called Delusional Parasitosis), Mom and Dad were furious... They couldn't believe her kid had gone insane. They requested a GI consultation so that her infection could be investigated. So I popped open the glass and fished out the "worms" with a gloved hand. I showed them by rubbing it between my fingers. The father's reaction was incredible. It went from "don't be ridiculous, she's sick" to "what the heck are you doing?" to "wait for a second, it looks like spit" to "holy crap, my daughter is insane."
Another one - Self-punishing
I saw it in dad’s face, and then he turned to his wife and said “honey, I think we need to talk.” They brought her home 15 minutes after I left the room. I suggested a mental evaluation, but they insisted on seeing her mother's physician. So I popped the glass open and yanked out the "worms" with my gloved hand. I showed them by running it through my fingers. The look on the father's face was priceless. It went from "don't be ridiculous, she's sick" to "what the hell are you doing?" to "wait for a second, that looks like just spit" to "holy shit, my daughter is completely insane."
I could see it in his face as he turned to his wife and said, "honey, I think we need to talk." They brought her home 15 minutes after I walked out of the room. I suggested a psychiatric evaluation, but they declined, preferring instead to see her mother's doctor.
Uhh... A little bit Eccentric
Here's a former ED nurse. A lady came in a few years ago, anxious that she'd hit her head, and it was just after Liam Neeson's wife died in a skiing accident, so she was afraid she'd have the same problem. She insisted that we take care of her within an hour before her husband arrived home. He'd already told her that she was exaggerating and that she didn't need to be checked out. So she had to deceive him into going to the next town over to check on their college-aged daughter (apparently the lady persuaded her to assist out with the ruse), so she could go to the ER.
As she's telling me all of this, she throws in a couple more Spanish sentences. Basic high school vocabulary, such as 'por favor' and 'grande.' Also, Peggy Hill-level pronunciation. "Oh, you'll just have to forgive me," she replies, throwing her head back and laughing softly. I speak fluent Spanish and, on occasion, when I'm thrilled, I'll mistakenly start speaking it." The finest part is still to come. She's wearing a gas mask around her neck the entire while I'm gathering her tale, medical history, vital signs, and so on. It's like a full-face gas mask from WWII. It's really huge and hefty. So, what's up with the mask, I finally ask her. "It's because of the bats!" she exclaims. Then she tells me about her bat infestation in the attic. And she claims it's against the law to kill them (I'm not sure if that's true, but it could be), so she has strewn mothballs throughout the home to keep the bats away. However, the odor is so overpowering that she must wear a gas mask.
However, V-8 has a foul odor
Working as a plea at a hospital with a psych unit gave me the opportunity to meet some fascinating people. The best patient was the one who refused to have his blood drawn unless I brought him blood to replace the sample I had taken. So we gave him V-8, warmed it up, and told him it was fresh O+ blood with the help of the nursing staff. He let me draw his blood but still told me that the devil could see what I was doing and that he knew I was going to hell, and when we gave him the V-8, he pretended that it was truly resurrecting pieces of him. In such cases, encouraging someone's creativity is sometimes preferable to constraining them.
I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to respond because I'm just in my third year of medical school (clinical rotations have begun), but we did have a couple of pretty fascinating situations during our rotations.
Oh, Directioner
The first was the standard "I fell on something" - anal penetration went bad scenario, only this time it involved a Barbie doll. That was amusing, to say the least. The second item that truly stood out was an infected genital alteration that was swelled like grapefruit and leaking something horrible. I'm not sure how it got that way, but I'm sure there was some embarrassment involved. For that one, we had our attending supervise a removal and IV antibiotics. The odor. Well. That was probably something I won't be able to match for a few years.
We also had a pain seeker who claimed to be a member of One Direction and required medications to get the screaming females to go away. (There is literally nothing wrong with this woman other than the fact that she concocted a bizarre story to receive narcs.)
Not again, please
Psychiatrist, 54 years old. She ran away from her foster home without wearing any pants. I was hanging out with a group of smoking local adolescents. The smoke caused her to start hearing voices, which resulted in chest agony. She was terrified to get into the ambulance and spent the entire 20-minute ride to the hospital staring at the light and complaining about how hot she was. It took half an hour to persuade her to step out of the ambulance because she was frightened it would injure her (300 pounds easy with a face covered in dried spaghetti or something). She proceeded to insert her fingers into her anus after exiting the ambulance. She then proceeded to yank them out of their hiding places and lick them. Rinse and repeat as needed. We'll get her to triage in fifteen minutes. Please, Father, don't let this happen again.
She did what...?
Her ass was injected with black market silicone injections that she self-administered.
I work in plastic surgery a lot (we don't do nearly as many cosmetic procedures as you might assume; most of our breast reconstructions are due to breast cancer), and this lady came in for her first consultation.
"Want implants removed," her appointment notes simply stated. So I'm getting ready for my doctor's appointment and checking out her MRI.
Oh, my goodness. She had a history of injecting silicone into her gluteal muscles for cosmetic purposes, according to the report. So, of course, I'm fascinated and pull up the MRI, which reveals that it's not just one large region - it's really diffuse.
It appeared to be causing her discomfort, and she desired to get rid of it. I knew we wouldn't be able to get it out, though. I'm talking about tens of thousands of silicone pockets in her arse.
We may have recommended her for another surgery, but my doctor's expression was priceless. "What did she do?!?"
Haha... Land Whale!?
Dispatch is called in to help a man patient who is having a heart attack. We leave with an ambulance and an engine (firefighters are experts at lifting large objects) and arrive a short time later. We walk through the door of a nice-looking house in a good part of town, but what we see does not meet our expectations.
On the floor are two very fat, very hairy, and very nude males. "My brother!" exclaims one. "My brother is suffering a heart attack!" exclaims the narrator. So we go to work on the other land whale who is unconscious. We put some wires on him and checked his heart rhythm on the monitor — everything was normal. There are no symptoms of a heart attack. Around that time, we observe a large number of empty alcohol bottles. And then there are the crack pipes. And the unconscious land whale awakens, enraged, believing that we are attempting to murder him.
According to the recordings, it took roughly three minutes from our radio distress call till every cop in the county arrived at that doorstep. Trying to keep two sumo wrestler-sized men on so many medications that I was surprised they were alive from killing us felt like an eternity. However, the cops arrived, and everyone made it to the hospital safely.
Thanks to the armed police officer who sat in the rear of the truck with us.
The moral of the story is that firefighters are far more than glorified fog nozzle holders.
Yes, we can laugh about this and for others it's serious. But you'll remember that actions do have a conscience.
Have had any of you had a bad, weird or funny experience in the ER/Hospital?