ER Stories:  The One You DON’T Want to Hear

So, a late forties dude comes to the ER.  A dude in his late forties, not some skinny guy in a zoot suit with a Tommy gun.  I look on the board and it says, “Rectal bleeding”, those are always a try-to-avoided case, but when you are going down the line, sometimes you have to bite the bullet. 

I take him back to a room and ask the usual, “So, what brings you to the hospital tonight?” (At three in the morning no less.) He begins to regale me with a tale of an out of control hemorrhoid, and how this evil hemorrhoid is causing him great discomfort and making pooping a chore.  I was about to slap him around and explain Preparation H to this guy when the story took an even weirder turn.  “It was bothering me so much...I finally put a rubber band around it.”

My mind started going into overdrive trying to put those words together in a sentence that seemed reasonable.  I began trying to picture the logistics of putting a rubber band around a hemorrhoid, and then I started picturing this guy doubled over trying to look at his own rectum, then going through that weird, rubber-band technique of twisting it around a few times to get it tighter.  I think he realized my silent contemplation extending into the uncomfortable, because he suddenly blurted, “I read about hemorrhoid ligation on Web-MD.” Ohhhhhhh!  Good ol’ Web-MD.  Nothing ever goes wrong with the random information found on the internet. 

On a side rant, we get a lot of people who have massive issues following some home remedy, or self diagnosis, found on Web-MD.  I want to start a website called Web-Bank.  People will mail/wire/paypal me money and I will keep it for them, at an impressive rate of return, and when they are ready, I will send it back.  You can rest assured it is 100% reliable, because it says Bank in the title.

Back to our patient at hand, The gentleman was stating how great it was working.  Almost instant resolve of all symptoms, no itching or burning, a return to normal, satisfying poops, it was as if the heavens had parted and shined a ray of hope on to his beleaguered rectum.  Then a few days into this unorthodox home remedy, he realized, the rubber band fell off.  He said he was suddenly besieged by a flooding of blood back into the hemorrhoid, and although non-painful, it was double in size and he was afraid it would continue to grow and eventually explode, “possibly causing him to bleed to death.” Now that would be a death worthy of the Darwin Awards.

SPOILER ALERT
as in spoiling your dinner, not the story
So, I go tell the doctor on duty, and after an exceedingly inappropriate number of, “What!?!  How?!?” He finally agreed to come and see for himself.  I was relegated to holding the flashlight during this part of the exam. 
It looked like he was growing a large purple grape next to his asshole.
He was told: 

A.  Not to do that again
B.  Ligation of hemorrhoids is for internal, not external hemorrhoids, and NOT something done at home.
C.  Go sit in a hot bath this weekend as long as you can and go see your primary doctor on Monday

Proudly, he was in and out in about fifteen minutes.  Another life saved in the ER.  And, as oddly convenient as it is to this story, someone did really come up to me shortly afterward and offer me some grapes.  Luckily they were green, if they had been purple I might have puked.

•   Comments(13)    Posted by killer on 04/06 at 05:02 PM
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Emergency Room Rant part 2:  People are idiots

As I mentioned recently, I have been working in an emergency room.  We in the industry often refer to it as the “ER”, so if I refer to it hereafter as such, it is an attempt to seem cool and industry chic.

If you have ever had the pleasure of visiting an ER, you know that there is often associated with such a visit a long and agonizing wait.  People have actually died while sitting in uncomfortable, hard plastic chairs waiting for their name to be called and their life to be saved.  Why would this happen?  Because 80% of the traffic in the ER does, by no stretch of the imagination, meet the E part of the ER name.

You can not possibly imagine how many times a person has come into the ER for “flu like symptoms”.  I absolutely LOVE the often self labeled, “flu like symptoms”, because almost always it is caused by the flu.  A completely un-curable condition that will go away on it’s own.  Take some tylenol, a cough drop, and drink a lot of fluids.  Do not come to the EMERGENCY room and demand to see a doctor.  Don’t get angry when you have to wait two hours to get in, and don’t get pissed off when it takes another hour to get your lab results back.  Even if it is some rare disease that is masking itself as “flu like symptoms” the fact that you had these symptoms for the last week, and did nothing about it, tells me you could actually wait until your regular doctor will see you. 

That also brings up the infamous ankle sprain that happened yesterday, around noon, but finally needed an ER visit at 3am.  How about the “chest pain I have had for a month, only after I eat Mexican food.” Most people don’t realize that mentioning the magic words, “Chest and Pain” will get you into the ER immediately, but it will also be followed by a whirlwind of needle filled activity, that will eventually end with a maalox and a $2000 bill.  Many times you get the frequent fliers who cry chest pain, but once in a bed state, “My chest feels much better, but my big toe is killing me.”

Inspite of my rant, I really feel sorry for the poor saps who man the ambulance.  For every nitwit that walks into the ER for a non-emergent reason, there are two that call 911.  They are usually required to transport a person to the hospital regardless of the reason for the call.  My favorite story of such comes from my travel pal and business partner Bam, who is a Fireman.  He was leading a rescue truck that was called to a residence for an emergency, when they arrived they knocked on the door and heard a man yelling to come in.  They found an elderly gentleman sitting on his toilet.  He told them that he is not in good health and he is unable to wipe himself. 
He wanted the fire department to wipe his ass.  He didn’t want to go to the hospital.  He denied any pain or distress.  He just couldn’t reach back there and get to the needed area. 
Bam told him that they would NOT wipe his ass, but they would take him to the hospital, because if he can’t wipe his ass, he isn’t fit to be home alone.  The man became angry and insisted it is the fire departments duty to help out the citizens, and he needed an ass wiping.  Bam disagreed and told the man he was going to the hospital so he could be evaluated for a care facility. 
The man suddenly managed to find the strength to wipe his own ass, and refused to go to the hospital. 
I appreciate Bam’s approach to this.  That guy would have sat in one of the ER beds probably for 12 hours while they decided what to do with him.

•   Comments(23)    Posted by killer on 03/06 at 09:13 AM
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Emergency Room Rant part 1:  TV lies

Two...two posts in one week!  Muah, ha, ha, ha (said in Sesame Street’s “the count” speak)

I am currently working in an emergency room.  I have never done ER before, but it is not like the popular TV show.  Like the currently popular “Grey’s Anatomy”, sex and adventure are happening at break neck speeds on hospital based TV dramas.  That is not happening for me, and I for one, think this is going to lead a large portion of mislead youngsters into the medical profession who will be deeply disappointed with the cold, hard truth.

It is my goal, ney, my responsibility, to inform future ass-wipers that it is all a lie.  A clever ruse to entice a future generation of bright eyed professionals to forgo that dream of entering the fast paced world of accounts receivable, or diving into the soul satisfying career of insurance sales, and steer them towards the fecal-matter smattered health care industry. 

Despite my diligence in wearing tight, form fitting scrubs, cleverly coiffing my hair with fancy gels so that it appears like I just rolled out of bed and did NOT take the time to coif it, and giving come-hither glances to the few female doctors present, not once has it resulted in a passionate love-making session in a doctor’s lounge.  Not even a quick and dirty hand job in the broom closet.  Even when I was willing to slum it within my own ranks, my fellow nurses are not hot and horny.  Most are elderly, bitter and totally hardened by a life of manual labor.  They don’t even seem to notice when I “accidentally” let my scrub top hang open as I bend over, allowing my hairy chest and almost well formed pectoral muscles offer a fleeting glance. 

It is hard to turn on a group of women who have had to sponge bathe so many men; which is an event that the porn industry has mislead me to believe is an erotic encounter.  Believe me, people lying in bed for a few days become inexplicably more malodorous and dirty than a fat guy who just ran a marathon.  These women have also been traumatized by repeatedly coming into contact with the elusive “inny penis”.  Those of you who are comfortably ignorant might live under the assumption that only the belly button can be found in the inny or outy state, but you would be mistaken.  The more a female encounters the random “inny penis”, the more likely she is to believe they all eventually become as such, and decide not to bother with the whole endeavor. 

Heed my warning people.  The love triangles and crazy sexcapades displayed on TV hospital dramas, are not as plentiful as they portray.  I personally feel I might be in too deep to just give up now.  I will continue to flaunt my junk and walk seductively amongst the dead eyed, soulless co-workers of mine.  And when and if my time comes, and I get suddenly pulled into an empty room by two young, sexy nurses who for some unthinkable reason are wearing impossibly short nurse dresses made of latex rubber, I will know that I have been initiated into the secret under world of the health care industry. 

Three minutes after that, as I am putting my scrubs back on, I will begin the first manuscript for my new TV show.

•   Comments(5)    Posted by killer on 03/04 at 08:37 PM
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