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Funny story. What has been your most memorable medical experience? Not for the squeamish. Login/Join 
Step by step walk the thousand mile road
Picture of Sig2340
posted
I believe Airsoftguy might have written this story.

quote:
What has been your most memorable medical experience

banzaipanda • 4y 8

OR Nurse here. This is kind of a long one...

I was taking call one night, and woke up at two in the morning for a "general surgery" call. Pretty vague, but at the time, I lived in a town that had large populations of young military guys and avid meth users, so late-night emergencies were common.

Got to the hospital, where a few more details awaited me -- "Perirectal abscess." For the uninitiated, this means that somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the asshole, there was a pocket of pus that needed draining. Needless to say our entire crew was less than thrilled.

I went down to the Emergency Room to transport the patient, and the only thing the ER nurse said as she handed me the chart was "Have fun with this one." Amongst healthcare professionals, vague statements like that are a bad sign.

My patient was a 314lb Native American woman who barely fit on the stretcher I was transporting her on. She was rolling frantically side to side and moaning in pain, pulling at her clothes and muttering Hail Mary's. I could barely get her name out of her after a few minutes of questioning, so after I confirmed her identity and what we were working on, I figured it was best just to get her to the anesthesiologist so we could knock her out and get this circus started.

She continued her theatrics the entire ten-minute ride to the O.R., nearly falling off the surgical table as we were trying to put her under anesthetic. We see patients like this a lot, though, chronic drug abusers who don't handle pain well and who have used so many drugs that even increased levels of pain medication don't touch simply because of high tolerance levels.

It should be noted, tonight's surgical team was not exactly wet behind the ears. I'd been working in healthcare for several years already, mostly psych and medical settings. I've watched an 88-year-old man tear a 1"-diameter catheter balloon out of his penis while screaming "You'll never make me talk!". I've been attacked by an HIV-positive neo-Nazi. I've seen some shit. The other nurse had been in the OR as a trauma specialist for over ten years; the anesthesiologist had done residency at a Level 1 trauma center, or as we call them, "Knife and Gun Clubs". The surgeon was ex-Army, and averaged about eight words and two facial expressions a week. None of us expected what was about to happen next.

We got the lady off to sleep, put her into the stirrups, and I began washing off the rectal area. It was red and inflamed, a little bit of pus was seeping through, but it was all pretty standard. Her chart had noted that she'd been injecting IV drugs through her perineum, so this was obviously an infection from dirty needles or bad drugs, but overall, it didn't seem to warrant her repeated cries of "Oh Jesus, kill me now."

The surgeon steps up with a scalpel, sinks just the tip in, and at the exact same moment, the patient had a muscle twitch in her diaphragm, and just like that, all hell broke loose.

Unbeknownst to us, the infection had actually tunneled nearly a foot into her abdomen, creating a vast cavern full of pus, rotten tissue, and fecal matter that had seeped outside of her colon. This godforsaken mixture came rocketing out of that little incision like we were recreating the funeral scene from Jane Austen's "Mafia!".

We all wear waterproof gowns, face masks, gloves, hats, the works -- all of which were as helpful was rainboots against a firehose. The bed was in the middle of the room, an easy seven feet from the nearest wall, but by the time we were done, I was still finding bits of rotten flesh pasted against the back wall. As the surgeon continued to advance his blade, the torrent just continued. The patient kept seizing against the ventilator (not uncommon in surgery), and with every muscle contraction, she shot more of this brackish gray-brown fluid out onto the floor until, within minutes, it was seeping into the other nurse's shoes.

I was nearly twelve feet away, jaw dropped open within my surgical mask, watching the second nurse dry-heaving and the surgeon standing on tip-toes to keep this stuff from soaking his socks any further. The smell hit them first. "Oh god, I just threw up in my mask!" The other nurse was out, she tore off her mask and sprinted out of the room, shoulders still heaving. Then it hit me, mouth still wide open, not able to believe the volume of fluid this woman's body contained. It was like getting a great big bite of the despair and apathy that permeated this woman's life. I couldn't fucking breath, my lungs simply refused to pull anymore of that stuff in. The anesthesiologist went down next, an ex-NCAA D1 tailback, his six-foot-two frame shaking as he threw open the door to the OR suite in an attempt to get more air in, letting me glimpse the second nurse still throwing up in the sinks outside the door. Another geyser of pus splashed across the front of the surgeon. The YouTube clip of "David at the dentist" keeps playing in my head -- "Is this real life?"

In all operating rooms, everywhere in the world, regardless of socialized or privatized, secular or religious, big or small, there is one thing the same: Somewhere, there is a bottle of peppermint concentrate. Everyone in the department knows where it is, everyone knows what it is for, and everyone prays to their gods they never have to use it. In times like this, we rub it on the inside of our masks to keep the outside smells at bay long enough to finish the procedure and shower off.

I sprinted to the our central supply, ripping open the drawer where this vial of ambrosia was kept, and was greeted by -- an empty fucking box. The bottle had been emptied and not replaced. Somewhere out there was a godless bastard who had used the last of the peppermint oil, and not replaced a single fucking drop of it. To this day, if I figure out who it was, I'll kill them with my bare hands, but not before cramming their head up the colon of every last meth user I can find, just so we're even.

I darted back into the room with the next best thing I can find -- a vial of Mastisol, which is an adhesive rub we use sometimes for bandaging. It's not as good as peppermint, but considering that over one-third of the floor was now thoroughly coated in what could easily be mistaken for a combination of bovine after-birth and maple syrup, we were out of options.

I started rubbing as much of the Mastisol as I could get on the inside of my mask, just glad to be smelling anything except whatever slimy demon spawn we'd just cut out of this woman. The anesthesiologist grabbed the vial next, dowsing the front of his mask in it so he could stand next to his machines long enough to make sure this woman didn't die on the table. It wasn't until later that we realized that Mastisol can give you a mild high from huffing it like this, but in retrospect, that's probably what got us through.

By this time, the smell had permeated out of our OR suite, and down the forty-foot hallway to the front desk, where the other nurse still sat, eyes bloodshot and watery, clenching her stomach desperately. Our suite looked like the underground river of ooze from Ghostbusters II, except dirty. Oh so dirty.

I stepped back into the OR suite, not wanting to leave the surgeon by himself in case he genuinely needed help. It was like one of those overly-artistic representations of a zombie apocalypse you see on fan-forums. Here's this one guy, in blue surgical garb, standing nearly ankle deep in lumps of dead tissue, fecal matter, and several liters of syrupy infection. He was performing surgery in the swamps of Dagobah, except the swamps had just come out of this woman's ass and there was no Yoda. He and I didn't say a word for the next ten minutes as he scraped the inside of the abscess until all the dead tissue was out, the front of his gown a gruesome mixture of brown and red, his eyes squinted against the stinging vapors originating directly in front of him. I finished my required paperwork as quickly as I could, helped him stuff the recently-vacated opening full of gauze, taped this woman's buttocks closed to hold the dressing for as long as possible, woke her up, and immediately shipped off to the recovery ward.

Until then, I'd only heard of "alcohol showers." Turns out 70% isopropyl alcohol is about the only thing that can even touch a scent like that once its soaked into your skin. It takes four or five bottles to get really clean, but it's worth it. It's probably the only scenario I can honestly endorse drinking a little of it, too.

As we left the locker room, the surgeon and I looked at each other, and he said the only negative sentence I heard him utter in two and a half years of working together:

"That was bad."

The next morning the entire department (a fairly large floor within the hospital) still smelled. The housekeepers told me later that it took them nearly an hour to suction up all of the fluid and debris left behind. The OR suite itself was closed off and quarantined for two more days just to let the smell finally clear out.

I laugh now when I hear new recruits to healthcare talk about the worst thing they've seen. You ain't seen shit, kid.

tl;dr Don't shoot IV drugs into your taint.





Nice is overrated

"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government."
Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
 
Posts: 31376 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: May 17, 2006Report This Post
Page late and a dollar short
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And I thought that holding a department record for turning an ambulance's engine into a large pile of well overheated scrap metal while transporting three EMT's (including myself) and four patients would have rated at least an honorable mention....

Guess I was wrong.


-------------------------------------——————
————————--Ignorance is a powerful tool if applied at the right time, even, usually, surpassing knowledge(E.J.Potter, A.K.A. The Michigan Madman)
 
Posts: 8066 | Location: Livingston County Michigan USA | Registered: August 11, 2002Report This Post
Step by step walk the thousand mile road
Picture of Sig2340
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quote:
Originally posted by shovelhead:
And I thought that holding a department record for turning an ambulance's engine into a large pile of well overheated scrap metal while transporting three EMT's (including myself) and four patients would have rated at least an honorable mention....

Guess I was wrong.


Write the story and post.

I thought cleaning the bleeding hemmeroids on a chronic alcoholic bum's ass was bad.





Nice is overrated

"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government."
Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
 
Posts: 31376 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: May 17, 2006Report This Post
Do No Harm,
Do Know Harm
posted Hide Post
After that...I've got nothin'. Lol




Knowing what one is talking about is widely admired but not strictly required here.

Although sometimes distracting, there is often a certain entertainment value to this easy standard.
-JALLEN

"All I need is a WAR ON DRUGS reference and I got myself a police thread BINGO." -jljones
 
Posts: 11444 | Location: NC | Registered: August 16, 2005Report This Post
Master of one hand
pistol shooting
Picture of Hamden106
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At a public park of where I was working, a pair of wine-o's bicycled in and sat at a remote picnic area. They were already well lubed. So much so that one barfed a huge pool of wine and blood onto the tables and pavement. Huge.

Of course the EMTs cared for the wine-o. And he was kind enough to tell us he has Hep-C. Great. Even the EMTs had to call State to get what to do with the pool of barf. Chlorine they said. Lots of chlorine. Luckily there was a public pool right over there with lots of chlorine. But over all, Ick!
 
Posts: 6295 | Location: Oregon | Registered: September 01, 2001Report This Post
No double standards
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During my sons sr year of med school he was doing a surgery rotation. A fellow came in Sunday morning, had been drinking/drunk since Sat afternoon, stomach full of beer and pretzels, got into a fight, kicked very hard in the gut. He was too drunk to feel much, they took him home. In the morning he woke up in a lot of pain, went to the ER.

Turns out when he was kicked in the gut his stomach perforated the diaphragm, ruptured, stomach contents all through chest cavity, also all through abdominal cavity. Had to open everything up, clean everything out, sew the stomach back together, put everything back in place, close it all up. And this after already working for 24 hours before the surgery started. That's when he decided to not go into surgery.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Scoutmaster,




"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it....While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it"
- Judge Learned Hand, May 1944
 
Posts: 30668 | Location: UT | Registered: November 11, 2003Report This Post
I have not yet begun
to procrastinate
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by chongosuerte:
After that...I've got nothin'. Lol

31 yrs of fire service, 28 of those as a paramedic.
I've seen maggots in wounds covered by bandages that looked like they were put on in the Korean war. Been puked, bled and pissed & shit on but I ain't got nothin' to match that either!


--------
After the game, the King and the pawn go into the same box.
 
Posts: 3771 | Location: Central AZ | Registered: October 26, 2006Report This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
We had a kid come into the ER via PD for a psych evaluation once from the airport. He was in the family restroom, climbed up into the ceiling, crawled over pipes and got above the female restroom. He fell through the ceiling into an OCCUPIED stall, wearing only a black bra, purple panties, and a rain pancho.

When the PD questioned him, he said something along the lines of "I was traveling through the portal system to get to sector 7."
 
Posts: 225 | Location: WA | Registered: April 13, 2016Report This Post
goodheart
Picture of sjtill
posted Hide Post
The original post is a pretty good example of why I didn't go into surgery, GI, or ER medicine. Blood is very clean by comparison.


_________________________
“ What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.”— Lord Melbourne
 
Posts: 18016 | Location: One hop from Paradise | Registered: July 27, 2004Report This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
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I was going to remember the Navy nurses at Balboa during my long ago stay there, but I can see I'm in the wrong league here.




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Report This Post
Member
posted Hide Post
Got some pretty good stories through the years, but no way could I tell it as humorously as OP. That's a classic. I'm not even going to try.
 
Posts: 214 | Registered: December 29, 2016Report This Post
No double standards
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Not at all grotesque, but bit bizarre. My daughter had a few years in the ER, tells of a lady who brought her teenage daughter in with severe abdominal cramping. Quick exam, daughter was in labor. The mom was adamant that her daughter was not pregnant, that the doctor had it wrong. The doctor finally told the lady "you are correct, your daughter is not pregnant, she just gave birth to your granddaughter."




"Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it....While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it"
- Judge Learned Hand, May 1944
 
Posts: 30668 | Location: UT | Registered: November 11, 2003Report This Post
Member
Picture of rocket72
posted Hide Post
quote:
Originally posted by Scoutmaster:
Not at all grotesque, but bit bizarre. My daughter had a few years in the ER, tells of a lady who brought her teenage daughter in with severe abdominal cramping. Quick exam, daughter was in labor. The mom was adamant that her daughter was not pregnant, that the doctor had it wrong. The doctor finally told the lady "you are correct, your daughter is not pregnant, she just gave birth to your granddaughter."


That happened to a family member (not immediate thank God) that was the pregnant one. Her dad also happened to be the Command Master Chief of said Naval Hospital at the time.... Hilarity ensued.
 
Posts: 1536 | Registered: July 22, 2008Report This Post
Shit don't
mean shit
posted Hide Post
I scrolled past this thread a few times because I have never really had any medical experiences and didn't have anything to add.

WHAT A MISTAKE THAT WAS!!!!

That rant was
>>>EPIC<<<

I think my favorite line was, "He was performing surgery in the swamps of Dagobah, except the swamps had just come out of this woman's ass and there was no Yoda."
Big Grin
 
Posts: 5733 | Location: 7400 feet in Conifer CO | Registered: November 14, 2006Report This Post
Member
Picture of Ironbutt
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As a retired prison nurse, I have innumerable stories. One time, early in my career, while working at the county jail, I had to escort one of the local truck stop lot lizards to the gynecologist's office to have genetal warts removed.

They had just come out with lasers & the dr used it to burn & carterize the warts. I had to stand guard. Thin wisps of smoke started rolling from under the sterile sheet & I swear to God, it smelled like someone had just set a tuna trawler on fire.


------------------------------------------------

"It's hard to imagine a more stupid or dangerous way of making decisions, than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong."
Thomas Sowell
 
Posts: 2048 | Location: PA | Registered: September 01, 2013Report This Post
Fighting the good fight
Picture of RogueJSK
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Posts: 32421 | Location: Northwest Arkansas | Registered: January 06, 2008Report This Post
Member
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After 42 years as a volunteer firefighter and 30 as EMT, I've seen my fair share....but I ain't got nothing.


_________

Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right.

Henry Ford
 
Posts: 724 | Location: Texas | Registered: October 16, 2012Report This Post
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Yep... Seen lots of gore as a cop. But, no contest, this takes the cake.


End of Earth: 2 Miles
Upper Peninsula: 4 Miles
 
Posts: 16004 | Location: Marquette MI | Registered: July 08, 2014Report This Post
It seemed like a good idea...
Picture of lude4life
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Ahhhh!

Only medical related story I can add:

Was about 14 years old or so and finally went to get my tonsils out.
In prep and it was my parents and the nurse lady there. I was laying on the bed in the gown thing and She pulled a syringe out (cant remember what for).

She took the cap off and then proceeded to throw the SYRINGE like a dart and stuck it into the side of my thigh! It was a perfect shot, and just hung there all dangling.

We all in the room just froze. Everyone just stared at each other like WTF just happened? The nurse just sat there with her mouth open. Big Grin I think they were all waiting for me to start screaming. I didnt make a peep. I thought it was cool. Didnt hurt. Felt like a solid minute of everyone just rotating open mouth stares at eachother.

Finally the nurse broke silence and started freaking out. She said she meant to throw the cap and not the syringe. Her excuse was that she was on the opposite side of the bed she usually is on.

No harm from the needle of course, but then right after that they go to put me under. Of course at that moment the thoughts of..."oh shit... these people are going to cut shit out of my throat right now after they threw a dart into my leg". Slight panic but then I was waking up and all went well.


-Jay



"Assault is a type of behavior, not a type of hardware." -Alan Korwin
 
Posts: 2810 | Location: Central Oregon | Registered: November 03, 2005Report This Post
Step by step walk the thousand mile road
Picture of Sig2340
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quote:
Jane Austen's "Mafia!"


Dear Lord.

I couldn't stop myself.

I simply had to see what that referenced.

Dr. Pimplepopper has got nothing on this.

For the ghouls among us, the funeral scene from Jane Austen's "Mafia!".





Nice is overrated

"It's every freedom-loving individual's duty to lie to the government."
Airsoftguy, June 29, 2018
 
Posts: 31376 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: May 17, 2006Report This Post
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