Like alot of clinicians and first responders, I have a black sense of humor to help cope with unique and often stressful situations.
When I first became a RN I worked in surgery and recovery room at a community hospital. One evening we had an elderly gentleman accompanied by his extended family come in to have a foreign body removed from his backside. He required surgery, as this foreign object, a can of air freshener, was firmly lodged up his lower intestine. The surgeon said the man told him he sat on the can "by mistake". Some mistake. After the can's removal, we tested the air freshener, (away from the sterile field of course!) It worked perfectly before we put it in a specimen bucket to send to pathology. (That must have made for an interesting pathology report.)
Twenty years ago when I worked in the Emergency Room at a large medical center in Florida, we had multiple trauma victims arrive from a high speed police chase and collision. This included an elderly woman driver in the wrong place at the wrong time and a drug dealer trying to evade arrest. I remember the ER doc and I working on the dealer and when she found a big zip.lock bag of crack coca.ine stuffed in his pants, she held it up to the waiting police and yelled out, "Party at my house tonight". The drug dealer survived. The elderly woman, a grandmother, did not.
Fifteen years ago when I was flying out to California from Florida, the airplane flight crew requested professional medical help. I dutifully pushed my call button and went up to First Class to "check out the situation" at the request of the flight attendant. (Btw, whenever anyone uses the word, "situation", it means seriously eff'ed up.) I walked into the first class bathroom to find a man pouring blood out of his cowboy boot into the sink. There was blood on the floors, the counter, alot of blood. I asked him, "What happened?" He turned to me with bloodshot eyes and reeking of alcohol and said, "I had a zit on the back of my leg and I popped it." I said, "Well, I guess you won't do that again." (Clinical note:It was not a zit. He suffered bleeding from a leg varicose vein and had clotting problems due to alcohol use.) He was stable and we did not have to make an emergency landing, saving Amer.ican Airlines thousands and thousands of dollars from fees and missed passenger connections. For my trouble, I got a lame letter from the airlines giving me a $100 off a FULL FARE Ticket with blackout dates! Talk about black humor, I guess the airlines have it too.
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oh wow did i ever mentioni get queasy at the sight of blood? i got queasy just readingthat!! and i love the "party at my house!" LOL
My wife sent me this one:
Last night i picked up an ER shift to try to earn a little extra cash. I hate working ER because a) the people that come in there are usually nuts and b) I have to see all different kinds of patients. Patients of the not lady variety. I’m technically qualified to do this since I’m a licensed NP, but it always makes me nervous since that’s not my specialty.
Anywho, so I’m there last night and get assigned this patient: 16yo boy burning urination. Now it doesn’t take a degree in medicine to hear “burns when i pee” and immediately think STD or UTI. Since it’s a male I’m leaning towards STD. I go in the room to do his history and physical. Kid tells me he isn’t sexually active. He’s pimply, spindly, pastey, and wearing a t-shirt about gaming. From the looks of him I believe him. Appearances can be decieving though, so i tell him I’m going to send off a culture just to be sure.
He hems and haws a little bit and finally, reluctantly, drops trou for me. Upon which i can see his little teenaged penis. Which is covered in duct tape. You heard me- duct tape. I do a quick mental re-evaluation of the situation and decide that this may, in fact, be the source of his problems. Trying REALLY hard to not sound like I’m making fun of him or find this in any way odd I inquire as to why he has wrapped his member in tape.
In typical teenaged fashion he responds with an air of, “Duh. What are you an idiot?” in his voice and informs me that it prevents him from prematurely ejaculating when he masturbates. At this point I’m actually biting the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood to keep from laughing at him. When i point out that, generally speaking, the point of masturbation is to climax and hence no “slowing it down” is required he rolls his eyes and sighs. Alas, with this statement all his initial suspicions have been confirmed and i have indeed proven myself to be a moron. So he explains to me, speaking v-e-r-y slowly and using simple langugage, how he needs to practice endurance now because it will come in handy later with all the ladies. Ah yes, the ladies. Cause girls just line up around the block to fuck the kind of kid who thinks it’s a good idea to wrap his junk in duct tape.
I still can’t decide whether the best part of the whole thing is the fact that he taped his penis in the first place or that he didn’t view the tape as a problem, just the burning part. And he had it wrapped so tightly it was infringing upon the flow of urine and, presumeably, semen as well. He was an efficent little bugger though and had wrapped it so well that he couldn’t get the tape to come off (hence the necessity of a trip to the ER). The poor nurse who was assigned to him spent a 1/2 hour with tweezers and adhesive remover prying that shit off. God only knows how long he’d had it under wraps. I didn’t ask.
free range blogger... LOL.... i love it!!
Whoa to all the stories...blood makes me want toooooo.....I'm back. I just got a little woozy :)
And the story from Liam. Holy CRAP!
WOW. That one's gonna stay with me for a bit.
OMG, I am just still grossing out after the zit/vein story. I've had 2 vein surgeries and that can be very dangerous can't it? Ewwwww! I am so amazed that the stories that caretakers such as yourself have to share. From the bizarre to the tragic to the humorous.
Liam . . . . duct tape . . . . . lmao!!!!!!!!!! What a moron. Just what a little teenage girl wants, a guy that has a hard on for hours. Puh-leaze. Ha! Boys.
The amount of idiocy out there never ceases to amaze me...
Oh yes, and... eeeew!
We civilians can only imagine what goes on in the trauma centers at night. Actually we try not to think about it at all. We play soothing music and play Yatzi. And make popcorn.
I just watched that "Real ER" show on tv the other day. That is some crazy stuff going on. I guess you've got to hold on to the funny/crazy ones to not let all the sad ones get ya down.
We also enjoy the dark humor in the forensic sciences. For instance, it's not a party until I have a beer bottle, a condom wrapper, AND a gun as my evidence. Because it's just another boring night without all three.
Great stories, but that plane one is disgusting!!! It reminded me of my Mom...I would come to her saying, "It hurts when I do this (bend my hand, press here, etc)" and her wise reply was always, "Well, don't do that anymore".
I could have used you at my house after my husband's jaw surgery! His major (I am not even going to try to spell it) facial artery ruptured. The doctor figured it would stretch so he didn't worry about it (I guess he never though to ask my idiot husband if he was going to over do it when he got out of the hospital). HE lost ALOT of blood! YUCK. They didn't know how he was standing up. I would love to hear what the ambulance people thought after that one. I am sure they were thinking I took a baseball bat to his face... It loooked BAAAD!
Love the "party at my house".
You gals get all the funny stuff apparently, "Duck taped Member"
When I used to work in the office the we used to think taping the button down on the phone was funny! Yours is definitely better! :)
Working with the fire department the need for black humor is essential. We had someone complain once because we were laughing at a sceene. As I explained - our loved ones were walking into a burning building to save lives and conents - we could scream, cry or laugh - we choose to laugh.
HAHA...i think. =) that is some effed up stuff you have seen. My Aunt is an RN in Hawaii. She has told me some pretty crazy happenstance in the field of Medicine.
Unreal! Crazy stuff! And, of course you have had to develop a black sense of humor.
The air freshener? The bag of drugs? The blood in the boots?
Such good stories.
Liam's story is hilarious!
When I was in nursing school, we had to take a trip down to the morgue. There were all kinds of foreign objects they stored down there- I don't know why. There was a large bucket but it was covered up. It took some badgering form the morgue assistant to show us what was in it, because "you don't want to know." It was a 14 inch long dildo that had been removed form some guy's ass. It was still covered in poo. All I could think was, "Dude- why?" My butt hurts just thinking about it. A can of air freshener takes the cake though.
I've had to do the Heimlich in public before, but nothing else exciting.
Holy cow.... first time visitor to your blog and boy-oh-boy (!!!).
I guess you have to have a VERY strong stomach to work in medicine. Not sure which story was more fascinating/garish... yours or Liam's (!!!).
Most interesting reading, that's for sure!
EEK - blood out of a boot. that is so disturbing. Glad you could assist your fellow American. I hope you're on my next flight!
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