Doctors Share The Funniest Things They've Heard A Patient Say Under Anesthesia
It could be nonsense, or it could be gold. Anesthesia inhibits all the senses, including your so-called "filter," so you never know what may just slip out...
Some doctors and nurses have heard very funny things while working on their patients. u/makyael asked them:
Doctors and nurses of Reddit, What is the funniest thing you've heard when a patient was on anesthesia but you couldn't laugh?
Here were some of the best answers.

50. Hey! You! Get Offa My Cloud
Late to the party as usual. I've had my share of decent ones over 15 years of nursing and EMS.
I had a flight medic coworker nearly get a divorce because he confessed to a divorce while profoundly disassociated. I'm 50/50 on whether he was being honest or if he hallucinated a past affair, but they ended up staying together I understand.
I had a medical malpractice lawyer offer his heartfelt apologies for being a med-mal lawyer after he had a few rounds of conscious sedation. That one gave me a good chuckle, but I sure as shit didn't show it while he was in the room.
I've been hit on many, many, many, many, many little old ladies after they get some versed and fentanyl. My wife has been hit on by...well she doesn't need the drugs to get hit on :) (And you young medics out there, go reeeeeeal easy on the versed on the old folks...)
One patient started telling dirty jokes, and didn't stop through the whole case. I actually had to force myself to stop listening so as to maintain my composure and situational awareness. Most were blonde jokes, and she was a late middle-aged blonde woman.
My Mom was an ER RN for decades. One of her favorites was a conscious sedation on a toddler. Mom: "Honey do you know where you are?" Kid: "Yes" Mom: "Where are you?" Kid: "On the cloud...riiiiiiight there (points at ceiling)" Mom to the orthopod: "I think we're good..."
I had a very attractive doc doing the procedure while I sedated. Patient asks us if the hospital only hires attractive people. :) Then the overweight neurologist consult pops his head in as asks if he counts too! Yeah, no stealing our limelight buddy...
Had a patient going in for a urology procedure under general anesthesia. RN goes to prep the groin (i.e. make it super-clean to reduce the risk of infection) and finds a note taped to the inner thigh of the patient. He'd left a note for his urologist! Gave us all a chuckle.
Speaking of thighs, part of my job duties used to include shaving the pubic hair from the hip area because femoral arterial and/or venous access was going to be obtained. (it reduces risk of infection by reducing surface area.). Lots of bikini jokes. Did I mention I get hit on by a lot of old ladies?
There are so many more...they all blur together at this point. These are the ones that really stand out.
49. Make! Out!
I had a bad crash on my dirt bike and where I was was a long way from a hospital so it was about an hour drive in the ambulance (it wasn't serious enough for helicopter or even for them to use the lights and sirens) because it was a long bumpy road they loaded me up with drugs to make me comfortable.
When I was super high I noticed the driver of the ambulance and the paramedic that was tending to me (both males) didn't like eachother very much (or so I thought in my state). I then proceeded to do what felt like an entire doctor Phil episode telling each of them that they need to learn to love eachother and not judge eachother because I like one of them better but I won't tell them which one.
This went on for what must have been half an hour before I finally said "okay so are we all good now?" To which they said laughingly "yes we're all good". To finalize I held up my hands and say "okay good, now kiss" smooshing my hands together.
48. Don't Kill My Vibe, Don't Touch My Weave
Not a nurse.
When I went under for Tonsillectomy when I was 17 I asked for no IV to be put in before they started to put me under with a mask (fear of needles from past trauma).
I think they gave me the IV anyway instead, because as the mask got placed on my face they asked me to sing to them. I sang "O Christmas, Tree" and I remember the nurses laughing.
Next thing I remembered was waking up after and asking when they were actually going to do the procedure, and the nurse kept brushing my bangs out of my face every time she came to check on me....but as a teenage girl my bangs were everything and I kept brushing them back over one eye.
47. Reversal Of Mood
As a teenager I had my wisdom teeth out and my mouth was filled with gauze so I couldn't SAY anything but when I came to I was standing and I was really grumpy so when they told me "This way sweetie" all I could think was "That's where the f*cking door is, DUH you morons!!!"
Fast forward years later and I tell them I wake up grumpy when I'm about to have surgery on my broken arm. They tell me there's not much they can do about that so I'm ready to wake up and be in a sour mood--turns out I woke up and immediately called the nurse closest to me "So beautiful." Ironically, unless she was two inches from my face, I couldn't see her without my glasses. Whatever. She was probably gorgeous but hell if I would have known.
46. Well, That Wasn't The Shield I'd Expected
After my wisdom teeth were removed I woke up in a chair. Looked around then felt my left cheek which was still very very numb. I remember clearly thinking "oh great they put a shield in my face to protect me" and immediately began punching my face. My mom and nurse were both there.
My mom lightly touched my arm and said EJ-DJ don't do that. I flopped my head over to look at her and responded "Mom, iiiiii'm fine" and swung my face over to meet my fist as hard as I could. I did this until my fist and knuckles hurt. I looked at my hand thinking "that's such a strong shield" opened my fist saw my palm and thought "nice" and palmed my face as hard as I could until my shoulder was tired.
I then tried this on the right side of my face but the anesthesia was wearing off so I somewhat felt it and determined that instead of a shield they had just put a rock there to protect me so I stopped.
I later learned the reason my mom didn't do more to stop me was I was 16 years old and she was terrified that if she "disciplined" me I would rebel by doing drugs and shagging prostitutes. Lucky for her my anesthesia high induced self-harm rampage really put me on the straight and narrow and I have neither done drugs nor shagged prostitutes. Thanks Mom
45. This Is Far Too Much Information, Thanks!
Had to perform conscious sedation on this early 40's woman who fell and fractured her wrist while completely sh*t-faced. Her partner who appeared younger than her was by her side during triage and Xray. After reducing her fracture, as she was regaining consciousness told us repeatedly how big her partners c*ck was, and basically various ways she could use it.
44. Rainbow Road
Had to be put under when I broke my arm. When I came to I tried stretching but my left arm was in a cast so when it stopped so did my right arm. I thought I was in a bubble. Thinking this I saw the rainbow colored reflection of light and then thought I was riding down a rainbow yelling WEEEE at the top of my lungs. I got a lot of laughs that night lol.
43. Stacey's Mom's In Love With Me
Had a middle aged mother of three come back to her room. Her husband was sitting in a chair on the other side of the room and she leaned close to me and whispered, "you're a very pretty girl" and winked at me. Hard to hold it together when she continued to come onto me.
42. No Gas Shall Be Passed In MY Colonoscopy
A guy in his 50's came in for a routine colonoscopy. He had "cleaned out" the night before, got fentanyl and versed, and was out. About halfway through, air starts coming out of his bowel in loud farts, as it commonly does, but it wakes him up and he is convinced the doctor is farting during his procedure. He demands him to stop and "have some respect". The doc lightly chuckles and orders another mg Versed.
41. My Own Mythos
I got my wisdom teeth out a while back, and my mom worked from home that day to keep an eye on me. When I came out from anesthesia, I apparently repeatedly told the nurse "I have the best mom ever! She's awesome!" and then trying to tell them her long-*ss fancy job title (I can't do that sober, which gives you an idea of what they were seeing).
When the nurse brought Mom back to see me, I told her a couple of times that I felt like Rip Van Winkle, and that I needed to go back to sleep to fulfill my prophecy.
Then in the car on the way home, I became obsessed with a spot of dirt on my window, and badgered my poor mom into going through the car wash to "get rid of the spot before it steals my soul!"
Yeah...I have no clue what they gave me, but it was some seriously good sh*t.
40. Compliments That Are Out Of Line
I was a patient as well and I had a really bad appendix rupture so I had a drainage bag put in me. I was so hot and just internally f*cked up I don't remember the first 3 days. My mom told me at one point I called my nurse a milf then backtracked saying I wanted some milk (i was 15 at the time).
The nurse was apparently really cool about it and said how that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to her. Also when I got out of surgery and got on the elevator to go to my floor I guess I was in awe and said "I've read about this place"
39. Frank Zappa Will Do That To Ya
Not a doctor. I had surgery on my butt with general anesthetic. The surgery took place in a private clinic. In the salon we had a TV and the nurses always kept the remote and the TV was set to AMC all the time I was in there. When the surgery was over and I was starting to wake up a nurse brought me back to the salon and put me back on the bed.
I was on cloud 9 and can't remember anything that happened after the surgery. Next day a nurse came to my bed to see if I was ok. I told her that I don't remember anything that happened the night before. She told me I was mesmerized by a movie that was on TV and when she asked me if I needed anything I replied:
"Umm....yeah.....can you give me some morphine?". She said that she cannot do that and asked me why do I need morphine. She said my last words after surgery were "I think I'm not tripping as hard as I need to" and then immediately fell asleep. I found out later that day that the movie was Frank Zappa's 200 Motels.
38. What A Time To Be A Singer
They gave me Vicodin before my Lasik surgery a few years ago. It hit me HARD and it was like I was drunk. I had to wait a few minutes before the procedure room was ready. Apparently I blew up my boyfriends (now husband) phone with texts like "I love you more than wine," and "I can't feel my eyeballs!!" He was in the middle of taking an exam after a training class for work, and my texts were quite the distraction lol
During the procedure, I started singing...and I should add I was a classically trained opera singer in my youth. The song, of my own creation went, "Getting my eyes did, I'm gonna see good! Gonna have eyesight and not be all blind!! No glasses for meeeeeeeee!!!!" After I was asked to stop singing, I go "hey Doc! When you do these things, do you ever make sound effects in your head? Pew pew! Pew! Pew!!"
That's when the doctor told me the procedure room was a no talking zone.
37. Dory Would Be Proud
Im late to this.
But I work in theatre as a scrub nurse. We did an ACL recon on a girl around 22 years old. As she was waking up from the anaesthetic she started making weird moaning noises. We thought something was wrong because her eyes looked worried. Trying to get info out of her went as follows:
"Wooooooaaaaaahhhhh"
"Are you okay? Are you sore?"
Shaking her head "Wooooaaaaaahhhhhh. Whaaaaaaaaaa"
"Are you thirsty?"
Nodding "whoooooooooooaaaaaa"
"Ill get you a drink when you're a bit more awake. You sound like a whale"
Nodding enthusiastically "whaaaaaaaaa wooooooaaaaahhhhh"
"Are you speaking whale?"
Nodding and smiling "woohh"
45 minutes later when everything wore off she asked if she was making animal noises because she remembers speaking whale.
36. Equal Opportunity, For The Right Ice Cream
Not a doctor, but I had an upper GI endoscopy done last week. I'm sure I said some funny things, but what I remember during the wake up process is this:
- To one of the other doctors in the room, I remember grabbing his face and telling him some really prophetic things about an Archangel guiding his life path, and that said angel loves him dearly. (I'm pagan, but I guess I'm an equal opportunity prophet?)
- Talking to the anesthesiologist about how Ben and Jerry's discontinued my favorite flavor years ago, Black and Tan, and I really wanted some.
35. Lost That Time (But They Sure Remember)
When I shattered my ankle and leg years ago I received a large dose of Etomidate, which is more of a dissociative drug so they could reduce (set) all the mess in my leg before I had surgery a week later. So I was totally "conscious" throughout the process but do not remember it at all. They told my dad to leave the room because it would be "hard to watch" but like myself he works in EMS so he declined and stayed with me.
One of the nurses and I were having a conversation about something random and I was mid-sentence, and then blink I finish my sentence and everyone looks at me weird. Apparently between the first half of my sentence and the second they had completed the procedure, during which I had screamed obscenities and tossed nurses and my father around the room. But for me, it all happened in an instant and my brain popped right back to where I left off. Pretty cool, but kind of scary to think of just losing time like that.
34. Thank Goodness You Don't Still Support Ron Paul
Not a doctor but when I came out of my operation for wisdom teeth I was extremely high because the root ran deeper than they previously thought and had to keep me under for longer. My mom was cracking up as I professed my love for Ron Paul the entire way home, even saying I wanted to have his children. I am a guy.
This was before I had come to my senses and shifted more to the left, but it is still funny watching me on video.
33. But The Hangover Though
I had jaw surgery at 17 to fix a massive overbite. The anesthesiologist gives me the drugs (whatever it was, gas mask deal). I was a pretty sheltered 17 year old that hadn't been drunk or high yet, and this stuff was a BLAST. I wasn't awake for long, but I remember saying "wwhooooaaaahhh!!!" And shaking my head back and forth, watching the room get swirly.
The last thing I heard:
Surgeon: "I think he likes it."
Anesthesiologist (perfect timing, deadpan delivery): "yeah, it comes in six-packs."
32. Roused By The Baby
Reverse of what you asked. I thought I was hilarious!
Awoke from anesthesia and the nurse asked me where I was. I said "Edmonton" and burst out laughing because I'm from a small town outside of Edmonton.
Nurse, very seriously, "Do you know where you are?"
Me, very seriously, "Yes, I'm in recovery, and you're no fun."
I then burst into laughter again.
Another time, going under, I mumbled, "It does taste like garlic."
I remember the anesthesiologist laughing and I was out.
Third time, again recovery, eight months after having my daughter.
I hear a baby crying and I start thrashing around, trying to wake up. It's like coming up from the bottom of the ocean...
Nurse, "What's wrong?!" while restraining me.
"My baby! I hear my baby crying!"
"Oh, that's a 12 year old boy in the next bed. He just had his tonsils removed."
Poof! I was out again. Apparently motherly instinct is only instinct about your own child when groggy.
31. A Narrative I Wish I Could Un-Know
I have 2 from my days as a Naval medic doing my training in a civilian hospital.
The first was a patient that was a professional rugby player undergoing an electric cardioversion. This a a procedure where a person has an abnormal heart rhythm and is put to sleep for just long enough for the heart to be shocked back into a normal rhythm using a defibrillator.
The patient, being a rugby player, was a big man and the and the anesthetist had a long discussion with the surgeon about the amount of anesthetic that should be administered to knock the guy out for just a few minutes. Eventually they came to a decision and administered the anesthetic. The moment that they shocked the patient with the defib he sat bolt upright, looked at the surgeon and screamed "What the f*ck was that?" before flopping back down onto the table, unconscious.
The second was an older lady in her sixties, that was admitted with abdominal pain and bleeding and had been given some fairly strong pain killers and some gas and air that had made her as high as a kite. The Dr I was assisting wanted to carry out a rigid sigmoidoscopy so we asked the husband to stand outside of the curtains while we carried out the procedure.
A rigid sigmoidoscope looks like a dildo with a handle on it (almost in the shape of a gun) the instrument is put up the patients anus and the centre is removed, leaving a hollow tube inside the anus, allowing the dr to see the last part of the sigmoid colon.
As soon as the end of the scope touches the patients *ss she screams "Oh no Derrick!" the Dr, trying hard not to laugh, pushed the scope into the patients backside. The lady then said again "No Derrick, No!" followed by "You know I don't like this Derrick, We only do this when I'm drunk, it's too messy!"
At his point the Dr's shoulders are shaking with the effort of not laughing and the lady follows up with "For god's sake Derrick, just put it in then and get it over with". We all managed to maintain our professionalism and composure but when we opened the curtains for her husband to be allowed back in Derrick had gone for a walk.
30. Repetitive Requests
When I had my very very impacted wisdom teeth removed, I asked the nurse to punch me in the face while my face was still numb.
"No!"
"I wont feel it I promise."
"I'm not punching you in the face. Please stop asking."
29. Close Calls
My step-daughter and I had a . . . complicated . . . relationship. I came into her life when she was a young teen and, for a while there, she was wary of me. She thought I was going to keep her mom away from her (I didn't) or that I was trying to replace her bio dad (I wasn't).
When it came time for her to have her wisdom teeth out, she had the whole conscious sedation thing and her mom and I brought her home. I still have a video of her being very concerned that she left her tongue at the dentist's office and me telling her that I would go get it as soon as she finished her shake.
But the thing that still gives me chills is when, later that day, she was complaining that there was something on her (apparently now returned) tongue. She was trying to reach into her mouth to get it out and her mom called me into her bedroom to hold her hands while her mom looked in her mouth. I did and her mom turned to me and said, "Oh my god, there really is something on her tongue."
I told her to take it out and she said she couldn't. So I had to. Ummmmm, ok.
I look into her mouth and it looks like there's clear fishing line on her tongue. I hesitantly reach in, grab it and gently pull it from her mouth, hoping that it wasn't attached to anything. It wasn't.
28. This Time It Wasn't The Sedated One
I was an OR nurse for several years. Anesthesia was started as soon as the patient hit the holding room to help relax them. I was taking care of this old guy (70s) when his much, much younger wife proceeded to tell him all the secrets she had been hiding. She wrecked the car, had an affair, blah blah blah.
He just nodded. She informed me that she had been waiting for the exact time to disclose all of this info because she knew her sugar daddy wasn't going to remember anything. Well played. Well played.
27. Puns On Puns On Puns
Apparently I said this, they told my wife.
Me: Woken up after back surgery
5 mins later:
Me: Hey
Nurse: Yes?
Me: Is she ok?
Nurse: Who?
Me: That actress who was stabbed
Nurse: Really, who??
Me: I don't know...Reese somebody
Nurse: Witherspoon!
Me: No, with a knife!
Me: Laugh like a hyena for 5 mins
26. The Queen Would Be Proud
I woke up unable to remember my native language, so I switched over to English, like with a proper British accent and everything. My dentist commented that maybe he should go under as well because he'd always wanted to learn French. My mother eventually got scared it wouldn't wear off and refused to talk to me until it did.
25. Rocket Launcher
I'll preface this by saying that I don't like hospitals... especially when I'm the patient.
I went in for a colonoscopy and was given Propofol and whatever for pain. I'm a complete drug wimp so fell asleep in about 2 seconds. When it was over, I was being taken to recovery and I kind of woke up. I said, "Am I done? Can I go home?" and the nurse said, "you can't go home until you pass gas so that we know all of the air is out of your intestines."
I thought, "right, then... " and as I was being wheeled into the little recovery bay (with curtains, not walls), I pushed as hard as I could.
Simultaneously my husband stood up and said, "hey, ba---" and I farted so loudly and for so long that I almost launched myself into the next room. I heard my husband bellow, "JESUS CHRIST!" and then I heard some laughter from somewhere else.
I said, "I'm ready to go home!" and passed back out while my husband stood there looking around in confusion about what had just happened. I've never heard the end of this.
24. Because I Got High
When sending my patient to sleep, we were giving the drugs via the IV he said "you'll have to give me lots of that stuff" (referring to the drugs). Worried I said "why?" Thinking he an undisclosed allergy or condition we hadn't known about, instead he said as he fell asleep "because I smoke weeeeeeeeeee". Difficult to keep a straight face!
23. Got Lost In This Game
I have epilepsy and we have a fugue state after our seizures where we're confused and loopy but it's also blacked out in our heads so I don't remember this at all.
Apparently, in the ambulance after the seizure I was singing Britney Spears "Oops I did it again" in reference to seizing again. The EMT's found it so funny that they made sure to tell me about it once I was in the hospital and awake enough to remember.
Then a few weeks later I got a package with a Britney Spears CD in it and a post it note saying "Seize the moment. But seriously, take your medicine."
22. ANY, Mom.
I have type 1 diabetes, so any time I'm anesthetized, a lot of concern is directed at low blood sugar. My wisdom teeth surgery was done as the first of the day (to avoid fasting as much as possible) and after I woke up, they made me drink a glass of juice. I chugged it and then raised both my fists in the air and said loudly "I didn't spill ANY."
I'm still pretty proud of that, numb mouth, half out of it and with fewer teeth than normal? That's skill.
I was also sure my anesthesia wasn't actually working the first time I went under. They pushed it into my arm, I hung out for a few, and then looked at the nurse and said "I don't think it worked, I don't feel any different," but she just kind of glanced at me and they wheeled me off anyway.
I objected once more and then concluded I was just going in dry and shouted "Alright fine BRING IT ON". And then suddenly I was wearing gauze underpants in a different room and a nice nurse handed me a ginger ale and asked me to rate my pain on a scale of 1-10.
This is what I remember:
According to all witnesses what actually happened following the drug push was as follows: I lolled my head towards the nurse, struggled to focus, said "Uh duh finkus wording", she patted my hand and told me I would be fine, I grunted a bit when they took away my stuffed lion (may or may not have been drooling at this point), and then I just let out a strange whoop-holler and went out like a light.
21. Comparisons And List
Peds ED doc here. We do tons of sedations and ketamine is our drug of choice. I usually warn parents/family about the side effects and I've never had anyone truly get mad when their kid said something under the influence. Some swearing, some very intense discussions about Pokemon, etc. It's pretty common. But my two favorites?
I had a teenager who was with his mom and his girlfriend. He kept going on and on about how sexy his girlfriend was. To her complete humiliation and his mom's utter amusement. I walked in and he said, "Doc, you are SO SEXY!! But, no offense, my girlfriend is MUCH SEXIER!" Thanks, dude!
Then there was a pre-teen boy who dreamed he went to another country (I tell kids they can pick the dreams and it usually works). I ask him if he went and he nodded in awe. Asked what he like best and he said, still awestruck, "The women!" (Complete with hands cupped in front of his chest). His dad laughed so hard he fell to the floor.
20. Be Prepared For Secrets
Nurse in the ER, we do conscious sedations for broken bones or chest tubes and stuff. We make sure to remove all family from the room prior to sedating because patients really do say some pretty bad stuff.
One was a kid who came out to all the staff and he had never told anyone before.
The other was a woman who talked about the sexual troubles with her husband and how they were having marital troubles.
19. Makin' Friends
My wisdom teeth extraction. I woke up crying and the doctor/nurses were really concerned...until I told them I was crying because I missed my wisdom teeth. They enjoyed that one.
I then proceeded to point at the light switch and ask them to turn the radio on, and ask the nurse if the doctor was a good guy because I wanted to invite him to my birthday party. I was probably 16.
18. Blunt And To The Point
When I had surgery on my ankle, I apparently got my Dr to laugh, and some of the nurses after the surgery to laugh.
So, they gave me a shot of something to numb me up or do something important before they actually put me to sleep. I remember up the point where they gave me a second shot. After the second shot, my Dr told me to count backwards from 10. Apparently I just looked at him and said "No need!" And passed the out.
After the surgery when I was waking up, but still pretty out of it, the nurses brought my dad back to help get me ready to go. When I saw him, I yelled "You're not my mom!" To which he replied "I'm your dad, dummy." Apparently that was the best thing the nurses had heard all day.
17. Too Much Detail
My husband had his wisdom teeth out and while under sedation he told the Dr and the nursing staff that he couldn't wait to get me home and into bed. Rather explicitly. It was hilarious.
Also the dentist had the same name as a famous male adult film star. I was waiting for him to make a joke about that but he was shuffled out pretty quick once he started talking about our sex life.
16. Bridge The Gap
When my father went under for the removal of several teeth, he woke up he reveled an almost encyclopaedic knowledge of bridges, which he revealed to the cab driver. I have never heard of him talking about them before or after but he was confident enough to name his top ten bridges and their engineers.
15. Strange Feelings
After getting my wisdom teeth taken out, the nurse waiting for me to wake up told my mom that when I opened my eyes I sat up immediately and asked for my teeth (I asked the doc prior if I could keep them and he said he'd leave them in a baggie so she was going to give it to me anyway lmao). Was brought out to a waiting area so she could have my mom come get me, I guess someone else was there and I very proudly showed this stranger my bagged teeth, then passed out again.
She told my mom it wasn't uncommon for people to ask if they can keep their teeth but she'd never seen someone be that desperate to have them, she also made it a point to say I kept putting the baggie up to my face and getting a very serene smile lol.
14. Cropdusted
My daughter had tubes in her ears on what was apparently "hemorrhoid day". All the other recovery rooms were full of loudly flatulating patients, one of whom would scream "Help! I'm dying!" after every fart.
13. Ball Game
Coming out of my C-section, higher than a hippie at Woodstock, I was presented with my beautiful newborn son. I declared, "Oh my God, his scrotum is HUGE!" and then laughed hysterically.
In my defense, it really was.
12. Grand Theft... Appendage?
Funny story when I got my wisdom teeth out I was CONVINCED they removed my tongue too so when I got home I was stomping around angry telling my dad to prove his loyalty and "get my tongue back"
11. L'Shana Tovah
You can always laugh or smile. The OR is not some serious stoic place, and some people are hilarious while sedated.
I gave ketamine as part of a cocktail of IV drugs to this obese, middle aged Caucasian guy who began loudly singing in Hebrew in the OR during his hemorrhoidectomy under spinal anesthesia. For like 15 minutes.
We all enjoyed the very surprising live entertainment.
10. Vroom Vroom Vroom
Work in an ER.
Anytime we have to do a closed reduction of any joint (shoulder, ankle, knee, etc) we give some Etomidate or Ketamine. We had a 16-year-old who dislocated his shoulder, so we discussed using Ketamine which both he and his parents were agreeable to. After administering it and reducing the joint, the patient started to come down.
He began making "race car" noises by yelling VROOM VROOOOOM and making it sound like he is shifting gears in his car. His mother said that he recently bought his first car, and has been excited about driving it for a long time. The car was a Kia Soul lol.
9. Monkey In The Middle
Nurse here. Not under anesthesia but I had a patient with ICU delirium who said "how did that monkey get in here" while pointing at the ground. She also asked me why I was kissing said monkey. I couldn't help but bust out laughing while politely reminding her there was in fact no monkey.
8. Testing My Patience
This was 2011 and I was 17 and a huge Tiger Woods fan. I was out for either a spinal tap or a bone marrow aspirate. When I was waking up my family had come into my hospital room and I was still feeling the heavy effects of ketamine. A physicians assistant came into the room knowing she could get me riled up for a laugh and she asked, "How do you feel about Phil Mickelson?" In front of my family that had never heard me swear before I very loudly and and angrily say, "Phil Mickelson's the worst"
7. The Price Ain't Right
I'm a nurse, working in ER.
We gave ketamine to a 7yr old to reduce a horribly fractured arm. When she started to come down, she began howling like a wolf. Loud!
Another older lady we gave fentanyl & propanol & she launched into a monologue about how handsome Bob Barker is, and her fantasies about him. We didn't ask when she fully woke up. Best to let some things slide.
6. Paranoia
Patient here - when I was 14 I had a sports related injury to my elbow and had to have surgery. When I woke up, the nurse was helping me put on my sports bra and all I kept saying was "DON'T LOOK AT MY BOOBS" over and over.
And then i apparently explained to her why i had huge holes in my ears (gauges) and all i said was "you wouldn't let me wear my earrings today"
Yep.
5. Hit Me
Paramedic, wife is RN. I pretty much knew my entire OR team for foot surgery. They do a spinal, so I'm awake, but completely numb, nipples down.
Anesthesia Doc asks if I want some sedation, I say no. He says, "Are you sure? You seem nervous."
Me: "I don't feel nervous, why would you say that?"
AD: "Look at your vital signs."
Yeah, I was nervous. Heart rate over 110 (normal resting is 60). BP 150/90ish (my normal is normal - 120/80ish). Basically, I'm ramped up. So I said, "yeah, those numbers are WAY out for me, hit me."
And he did. Let me tell you, I totally understand benzo addiction. Next thing I know, my whole body feels like a warm hug from the inside. I'm happy, and calm. I can't adequately describe how wonderful and relaxing this feels, despite hearing the Ortho Doc sawing, and hammering, and chiseling my foot.
I look at my vitals: pulse of 56, BP 110/60ish. And I feel like I'm cuddling a million puppies.
Me, in a soft, sing-songy voice (maybe even whiny): "Dr. Wonka?" (not his real name)
Anesthesia Doc: "Yes, tarhoop?"
Me: "What did you give me?!"
AD: "Versed. Why? Do you need some more?"
Me: "Nah, just checked my numbers, they look good, I was just wondering what you gave me."
AD: "Why, is something wrong? Any side effects?"
Me: "Oh no, nothing like that. I just want to make sure it's charted that, I LOVE VERSED!"
(not so much shouted as, perhaps, proclaimed in an enthusiastic fashion)
My Ortho Doc had to put down his tools and take a giggle break, along with the rest of the OR staff.
4. Rum Rum Rum Rum
For my wisdom teeth removal I was put on laughing gas, I can remember most of what happened. I would keep waking up to myself saying things in response to the dentist or just randomly.
At first they gave me something that tasted like pineapples and the laughing gas. I woke up to myself having said, "Ew tastes like it has rum in it" and both of the dentists dying laughing. Mind you I was 16.
I also kept waking up to me laughing and the dentist cracking jokes.
Also since the dentists were friends of my dad's they asked things about my dad. I dont remember exactly what things were asked.
3. Melania Can Come
Dental assistant - when I was on rotation through an oral surgeon's office a patient was coming around after anesthesia. She looked at the pulse reader on her finger and thought it was an engagement ring. The other assistants joked and told her that the anesthesiologist proposed, and the girl sighed dramatically.
She said, "Are you sure it wasn't Joe Biden? I think it would be him... we wouldn't invite Trump to the wedding though... but his wife can come." She then called every one of her contacts with FaceTime talking about how much she loved them. Totally unforgettable.
2. Not For Home Use
Anesthesiologist here. Not so much heard as seen. When protocol first came out, it had an interesting side effect when used with midazolam (versed, like Valium) in a small subset of young women. They'd wake up with some pretty intense dreams. It was a bit weird when seeing it for the first few times before it was reported in our literature.
There was one young attractive and nervous woman I'd given a strong sedative to on the way to the OR. When we got there, in front of the 4 people in the room, she sat up, took her gown off and drunkenly asked if we liked her breasts. We all politely stopped what we were doing, looked at her and said yes. She smiled and thanked us as she'd just had implants done. Besides that, most patients remarked they'd like to have some of my meds at home. I'd just laugh and say nope, see you next time.
1. An Insult From Shakespeare
Not a nurse (yet!) but when I was 15, I went in for a tonsillectomy.
Apparently, I started freaking the hell out. I bawled that the doctor was going to drop the scalpel and pierce my trachea and kill me. This is while we're all chilling out in triage. Not even started yet.
The nurse came over, put something in my IV to calm me down.
Evidently, I started spilling my guts about a recent party I'd gone to, wherein my BFF at the time had tried to get me to play 7 minutes in Heaven with a boy I liked.
It started to wear off, as we were in triage for quite a while, and my parents promptly asked for more and asked me if there was anything else I'd like to confess to.
There are several things that are appealing to hikers.
Being out in nature and taking in some fresh air is a huge motivation for people to get out of the house.
Getting exercise is also a factor to maintain a healthy heart.
But there could be one unexpected element to a hike that can happen hypothetically, and it's sure to raise your heartbeat.
Specifically, seeing something shocking along the hiking trail, like, say, a naked person could make for an exciting–or disturbing–hiking outing. It certainly doesn't get any more au natural than that.
Curious to hear from strangers, Redditor spenf asked:
"What would be your reaction if you encountered a nude hiker?"
These Redditors assessed the situation and saw no harm.
Friendly Tip
"I have passed two nude hikers in my 35 years of hiking. One male, one female, years and thousands of miles apart. Both said 'hello'. I said 'hello.' One mentioned the trail was washed out ahead but a second trail has been cut. I thanked them for the heads-up. Some people like the wind and sun on their skin. Both had on hiking boots. To each their own."
– Zmirzlina
Sign Of Good Character
"I have. Three times! I'm an avid backpacker and you can usually find me in Yosemite, SeKi, Emigrant or Carson-Iceberg in California on any random summer weekend."
"My standard line: 'Afternoon, I didn't realize it was so cold out today!'"
"One of them didn't get the joke. The other two laughed their nude a**es off."
"Here's my reasoning. If you're naked and can laugh at a joke, you're probably not a threat."
– codefyre
Two Scenarios
"Depends. A hiker with hiking boots/shoes and a backpack, but otherwise nude, or a completely nude person on a hiking trail?"
"Scenario 1: I give a friendly wave and hike on."
"Scenario 2: I give a more tentative wave and hike on, maintaining a heightened awareness of my surroundings."
– Genshed
Casual Encounter
"I met one once. A middle aged man in ok shape. Had nice hiking boots, thick wool socks, fancy framed backpack, two walking poles, hat, sunglasses, and nothing else on."
"I said hi in a neutral voice, he replied hi in an equally neutral voice. We passed, I did not look back."
– SillyFlyGuy
Some hikers are suspect.
High Alert
"While backpacking out of Rocky Mountain National Park we encountered a dude wearing nothing but shoes and some very small shorts. He was off trail about 100' at the edge of a meadow, walking and swinging a machete. I...did not approach. He was probably a mile in from the trail head. I'm guessing drugs."
– DoctFaustus
Beware Of Black Magic
"Ha! There are a lot of superstitious rumors/stories circulating around scenario 2 in India. Apparently, people who practice black magic with the sole intent of harming someone are often seen walking naked in places you don't expect people, carrying weird items."
"Either you interrupt them by disturbing them (no clue what happens next) or you run in the opposite direction."
– longlegs25
You may want to take note.
"I live in the Bay Area and naked hikers are not uncommon."
"Good naked hiker: has appropriate shoes, a backpack or fanny pack, is hiking with intention and looks tanned and fit and like he does this regularly. Good naked hikers will give you room so you don't have to interact unless you really want to."
"Bad naked hiker: shoeless, visible sores, scrapes, or burns, moving erratically (i.e. really slow or in a zig-zag). Might be a drugged out person. Out-of-shape or pale are indications this is not normal for them and they may not have intended for this to happen."
"Exhibitionist: makes a point to make eye contact, smile at you, wave, try to involve you. Good naked hikers are usually on long, deep trails where they're less likely to encounter others, and they tend to give clothed hikers a wide breath out of a sense of respect and consent. Exhibitionists get chummy; it excites them to be seen naked."
– IAlbatross
"Also depends on the area. A deep woods area with long trails is ideal for naked hiking. Shorter and more accessible trails are less okay because there's a higher likelihood of encountering families with children."
"Also depends on if they're with friends or not. A group of naked hikers is less concerning than an individual."
"All this boils down to:"
"If you see a naked hiker, mind your own business. A good naked hiker isn't trying to bother you. A bad naked hiker is potentially dangerous. An exhibitionist wants attention so any attention paid to them will fuel them. Best thing to do is nod as you pass and carry on like you haven't even noticed."
"Edit: There are actually areas in the Bay Area where it's permitted to hike naked. Regionally, some places allow nudity. Also some places allow women to be topless so a topless female hiker might just be evening out her tan. It's best not to assume and to know the local laws before passing judgement on a person getting their nature on."
– IAlbatross
Guilty as charged.
The Name Is A Dead Giveaway
"No reaction at all, since I would be nude myself."
– NudistGeek
"Stare in disbelief. That's just very strange and coincidental for two nude hikers to run into each other."
"I guess make sure they have sunscreen also."
– miketdavis
To each their own, but if hiking in the nude is your thing, you do you.
And just a heads up: If you're walking around in the buff and happen to be wielding a machete, you're going to make people very jittery. So maybe drop the prop.
Also, wear plenty of sunscreen.
30 is the new 20.
At least, that's what a lot of people tell themselves after they pass that milestone birthday.
Even so, while age is merely a number, people still find certain things grow increasingly more challenging with each passing year.
Including, or even particularly, dating.
Those still on the hunt for love after turning 30 might grow increasingly insecure, worry that their moment has passed, or be unable to ignore the ticking of their biological clock reminding them that time might be running out to start a family.
Not to mention, playing a losing game over and over can become completely and utterly exhausting after a while.
"What is the hardest part of dating after 30?"
Not Everyone Wants A Package Deal
"Realizing that the number of single parents is larger than you’d expect."- dhabo1030
"Some people have kids or want them soon."
"And emotional baggage."- Psyblade0_0
"Kids, whether you have them or not, is something to talk and consider immediately before starting anything."- Crisb89
"For me, it was finding someone who didn't have kids, and didn't want them."
"At that point in my life, I was (and still am) 100% sure I don't want kids."
"Finding a long-term partner who wants the same was pretty tough."- Toiletpaperplane
Everyone's In A Hurry
"'Dating after 30 is like catching a city bus after midnight'."
"'There aren't as many, but they're faster'."- civex
How Long Have You Got?
"Online dating sucks and all my friends are married or dead or single fathers."
"So I am on my own for the most part."- somedude-83
"It's not all fun and games anymore."
"People feel late or behind."
"First dates often: are we compatible, do you want kids, are you OK with my kids, are you ready for a serious relationship, do you make enough money, do you own a home, politics?"
"Religion."
"I don't have time to mess with you if we aren't a match because I'm in my 30s and supposed to be married and having kids."
"The days of just light fun dating are less common."- ZLVe96
Emotional And/Or Excess Baggage
"Geez."
"You sometimes pay for what their ex did to them."- JJJAAABBB123
Rising Standards And Expectations
"You have your preferences narrowed down a LOT more than you did in your 20s, thus finding a compatible partner is more difficult."
"Especially if you dislike kids."- Clintman
"Many people want 'high value' partners while having no value."- Zetterburger40
Solo routines Can Be Hard To Shake...
"I've learned I prefer my own company."- PrinceEnternalStench
Alternative Methods...
"The summoning rituals you have to go through."- AdCareful5654
Wait Till Your 40s...
"Wait until they’re over 45."
"Most are divorced and have been alone for a while."
"It‘s a reset of dating and they’re open to try something new."
"That person who was out of your league is now squarely in your court."
"Go for it!"- macgiv
Good Luck Getting A Good Night's Sleep...
"CPAP Machines."- Reddit
As long as you are single, finding love is one of the many things you think you might never achieve with each passing year.
However, when you do finally find that one true love, no matter when or how old you are, you will realize in no time at all it was definitely worth the wait.
Sometimes the simplest or most obvious things are the things you learn late.
I've been shopping at DSW for 20 years now, and I was literally today years old when I realized 'DSW' weren't just random letters, but stood for 'Designer Shoe Warehouse.'
Yeah, that one made me feel pretty stupid!
Luckily, I'm not the only one. Redditors know of many obvious things they only recently realized, and are eager to share.
It all started when Redditor itsochepel asked:
"What obvious thing did you recently realize?"
A House Is Not A Bed
"That birds don't live in nests. Nests are just where they keep their eggs. Birds just sleep in trees."
– Rey_Reddits
"Pretty much, yes. Even ground birds like chickens and quail will roost in trees when they aren't setting eggs."
– pokey1984
"what now. this has ruined me"
– ipk9
"Can I offer you an nice egg in this trying time?"
– B_Sharp_or_B_Flat
Worst Kind Of Typo
"That there is a typo on my email in my resume. Somehow it went unnoticed for 6+ months..."
– burtreynoldsthepope
"I sent out resumes once saying that “I am an excellent poof reader""
– Maelstrom_Witch
"If I read that on a resume I wouldn’t be surprised if I thought it was done intentionally as a joke because it would seem too funny to be an accident."
– CORN___BREAD
If I Had Only Realized
"I played through nearly all of Fallout 4 (I didn’t buy the game until fairly recently) without realizing there’s a jump button. If I got trapped someplace, I just restarted from a previous save and complained about what kinda idiots didn’t make it so you can jump. But I’m the idiot."
– TracksuitBear
A (Confusing?) Family Tree
"My grandson just figured out I am his mothers mother. He just can't understand why I tell him we have to ask his mom to do some things. Why can't I just tell his mom we are going to do something? I am her mom therefore her boss!"
– Individual_Serious
"That’s so cute. Reminds me of when my younger niece realized that her half sister (who does not live with her) was her sister too. Just like my older niece is her sister. She was amazed. She told me “I saw daddy and Kay yesterday. We had so much fun. Did you know that Kay is my sister?!”"
– BusyButterscotch4652
"My nephew still doesn't understand that his uncle is my brother, and his mom is my sister. He'll go back and forth on it constantly. "But uncle is MOMS brother!" Yes, and just like how you have a sister, uncle and I also share a sister - your MOM.
"Additionally, my niece used to gently grab my mom's arm any time I called her mom and would go "no aunty, that's MY Gramma." Yes, I know, but she is still MY mother. "That's mommy's mom, she's my grandma. Not yours." Hunny that is because she is my mother. Your mom and I share a mother. "She is mommy's mom. Not yours." Oh you dear thing. That's not how it works."
"They're lucky they're cute lol"
– Burnt_Your_Toast
Punny Names
"That Men's Wearhouse is a pun."
– Hustlasaurus
"Holy sh*t, I didn't even notice it was spelled Wearhouse cuz my mind filled in the rest."
– TheJerilla
"Also the Beatles, I recently realized"
– UnabashedPerson43
"I'm ashamed. All my life. All my life, sitting right there in front of me...."they must've thought beetles would make a cool name because the bugs are cool. That's so RaNDOmm. HuRr""
– DaBigadeeBoola
I'd Like Some "Pepsi"
"Growing up, my grandparents religiously had a 3:00 PM “Pepsi” time. Like Tea Time, I guess, but with Pepsi. Every time we were over there, it happened. We all enjoyed a crisp, fizzy, cold Pepsi."
"At 43 years old, I was telling that story this week, when I suddenly realized theirs were most likely spiked."
– Fire_In_The_Skies
There's A Difference?
"When getting an eye exam you are asked which looks better 1, or 2. If they are identical or too close to call, you have a 3rd option. The same. They never told me that."
– No_Lecture9474
"Every time I’ve gotten an eye exam, I’ve felt like I’m failing a test I studied for everyday lol"
– VenturiMask
Not Too Long Then
"Driving through South Dakota with my family and I was so amazed by the vast fields of livestock. I turned to my husband and asked him how long it must take for the farmer to round up all the cows each night and get them into the barns. My husband laughed so hard."
"Apparently cows don’t sleep in barns at night!"
– NashvilleJM
Ohhh, That's Why!
"Soft drinks are called soft drinks bc they don’t contain alcohol. Hard drinks do."
– heres-to-life
"I used to think soft drinks only meant carbonated drinks because they felt soft and fizzy on your tongue. Then I saw it on a canister of Kool Aid and it clicked."
– BronxBelle
"Have been bartending for 16 years and learned this right now"
– Delicious-Plantain-3
Named For Us
"Will smith and Jada smith named their kids after themselves. Jadan smith and Willow smith. Why I never put that together is beyond me"
– TalkQuick
"Will Smith's first son from his previous marriage was Willard too, although I think it's a family name."
– MisterEvilBreakfast
Reverse
"That Alucard from Castlevania just means Dracula backwards..."
"Felt so dumb for not seeing the extremely obvious"
– dershmoo
"Let me tell you a story about Ekans and Arbok."
– dandroid126
Aptly Named
"Pipe cleaners aren’t just for arts and crafts."
"They’re also for cleaning pipes."
"I'm 35 and oh so ashamed of myself."
– GozerDaGozerian
"When I was a kid I always wondered why they called them pipe cleaners because the only pipes I’d ever seen were waayyyy bigger than them (household drain pipes etc) and thought it was stupid to make them so small. I was in my 30s when I found out they were for tobacco pipes."
– sliderfish
Never Realized
"Limu the Emu is named Limu because of Liberty Mutual, not because it rhymes with Emu"
– BamboozledKoala420
Using A Screwdriver
"Lefty loosey, Righty tighty."
– Trussmagic
I actually learned a lot from this list, and boy do I feel silly!
We all like to rant and rave about our workplace annoyances—but what about workers in medical professions?
These poor souls face terrifying, heartbreaking—and mostly just plain disgusting—experiences, and they have to attend to them STAT. These Reddit stories, however, come with a warning: only the brave, and those with stomachs of steel, should read on.
1. She Was Lying In Wait
I got a fast bleep one night to a side room on the ward. A fast bleep means “drop everything you’re doing and attend to this emergency please.” When I entered the room, I found no patient in the bed. Not anywhere in the room. I was just about to leave the room and go back out to the nurses station, where there had been a bit of a hubbub when I’d dashed past the first time, when something caught my eye.
I looked up at the ceiling—and couldn’t stop myself from screaming. It was a face with wide, slightly wild “psych eyes” peering down at me. She was a lady waiting for a bed in the psych hospital who’d clearly thought the ceiling was the best place to hide from the people trying to poison her. Honestly, I can’t think of another occasion that I’ve been quite so terrified.
Worst thing was that I had to walk—well, dash—back out underneath her to get help from the nurses and security to get her down.
2. This Is Why We Have Two
While I was in training at an army hospital, the doctors would provide free medical attention to civilians that couldn’t afford it on their own. One story was about a woman in her seventies who came in complaining about a problem with her anus. And that’s not even the bizarre part. When the doctors went to roll her onto her side, one of the guys grabbed her arm, and it just flopped freely like it was just hanging on by skin.
They freaked out and asked her if she was okay and if her arm hurt. She said that it was no big deal, and that it was just her bad arm. As it turns out, when she was 16 years old, she fell down and completely dislocated her shoulder. They didn’t have access to medical attention, so she just lived with it like that for over 50 years.
She just conceded that she would never use that arm. He said that it could have been reset very easily without surgery, if they would have taken care of it when it happened. This story makes me so sad every time I think of it.
3. Right Angle? Wrong Angle
One of my students was a nurse. She was a really pretty girl, about 30 years old, and quite conservative. So when I asked her about horrible things she’d seen on the job, I thought she would share a pretty tame story—especially considering there were three other students in the class, two of them 22. I couldn’t have been more wrong. She started by telling me that a guy came into the hospital and he was “swollen” down there.
Was his scrotum inflamed, I asked? “No, no, not swollen,” she said. “My mistake. More like…” and here she made a hand gesture which I will never forget. First, the hand raised, perfectly straight, as if to initiate a karate chop. Next, the hand folded in the middle. 90-degree angle. At this moment I began making horrified expressions and the other students, all women, began laughing hysterically.
The best part? His mistress did it to him, not his wife. He ended up telling his wife that he had been riding a bicycle after work and had fallen off and done this horrible thing to himself. His wife, crying and agonized, pleaded with the doctors to save her poor man’s little man. However, he told the real story to the stone-faced doctors and nurses, who proceeded to inform the wife of the truth.
4. Location, Location, Location
I work at a hospital, and one day I got a script for a dewormer with a ridiculously high dose. Higher than I had ever seen before. I thought for sure it was a mistake, so I called the doctor just to be sure. He said that it was no mistake, and then told me what was up. I must say, this is the most disturbing thing I can remember in recent history.
It turned out the patient was someone with Cysticercosis, which is a tapeworm infection. While this isn’t that unusual, what was unusual was the location. The tapeworm infection was in her brain. The doctor and I both agreed there was very little chance of it working, but he said there were absolutely no other alternatives.
5. I’d Like To Lodge A Complaint
I’m a student psychiatric nurse. While on a ward for the elderly suffering from dementia, I had one experience I will never forget. I was helping a client eat, when I got a call from one of the rooms in the corridor. The client I was helping was pretty much done, so I went to investigate, hoping that it wasn’t a fall as the call was from a room belonging to a very unsteady lady. Oh god, how I wish it were just a fall.
The lady who called—let’s call her Betty—was in the corridor outside her room. The first thing I noticed were her hands. They were covered in what could only be excrement. I asked her if she’d had some trouble in the bathroom. Hey, it happens, sometimes when you’re older you may be a bit shaky or confused, and I’m not one to judge the unwell.
So, I move into her bedroom to help her clean up: that’s when the smell hits me. For a second I just stare and try to take in what has happened. What follows is how my brain tried to process what I saw. There were traces of excrement everywhere: on the walls, on the wardrobe, on her clean clothes, on her bed, on the door. I think: that’s okay, we can clean this. But there was something strange.
The thing is, I can’t see any major, er, “movement,” from which it would have come. Then I notice there’s something on the floor. As if someone had defecated on the floor and…picked it up? Yes, there’s slide marks from someone obviously moving…Oh my god. She has taken a dump on her dinner plate. I saw, on her bedside table, a plate piled high with excrement.
And I just stood there. I stared for what felt like an eternity—more like five seconds in reality. Eventually, I called someone to give me a hand. Perhaps it was a political statement about the state of the food in the hospital, I don’t know. Regardless, I now have the best dinner table story.
6. This Dora Over-Explored
I was seeing a three-year-old little boy in the clinic. His mom noted that for the past week she had noticed a foul smell around this kid’s face when she kissed him, brushed his teeth, or got anywhere near his mouth. I examined him a little closer and saw that his right nostril was clogged with something whitish, but obscured by mucus.
I pulled out the alligator forceps and recruited two nurses to hold this kid down—he was actually quite strong. I eventually pulled a wadded-up sticker out of his nose. It was soggy and coated in green slime, but the smell was the worst, just putrid. His mom then told us that she’d recently bought him a set of Dora the Explorer stickers at least a month ago and some were missing. Mystery solved.
7. I’m Still Standing
On a night shift in a psychiatric ward, a patient somehow got out his window and jumped from the second floor. We all ran out and were surprised to find him still standing on the lawn outside. It was an incredible miracle. Mind you, he was screaming his throat out, but he was still standing upright for some inexplicable reason.
As we got closer to him, we realized why he was standing. He’d snapped both his legs straight off in the fall. This caused his splintered shins to impale the soil. It was kind of like a couple of organic javelins. Even years later, I still shudder when thinking about the blood, the creaking of the bones, and the screaming.
8. He Was Missing A Head
EMTs got called to the scene of a bicyclist that got hit by a bus. Upon arrival they found him without vital signs at the scene. This was no surprise, as he’d been decapitated. The EMTs searched for his head, but couldn’t find it anywhere. Eventually, they gave up and took the body to the hospital. The doctors there X-rayed the guy and were shocked. The mystery of the missing head had been solved.
The head had been pushed straight into his chest cavity and was sitting where his lungs and heart were.
9. It Broke Her Heart
I’m in veterinary medicine, and kids are what get me the most. Don’t get me wrong, adults can be big babies too, but I guess I just feel terrible for the kids because I got to keep all my beloved childhood pets until I was at least well into my teens. The worst one was when I was a receptionist. We had a puppy with a parvo infection dropped off that was already in bad shape. In addition, the family was dirt poor.
It was a cute little lemon beagle. When the owner came in to pick the dog up and heard that even with the best, most expensive supportive care, this puppy might not make it, she opted to just take him home for the short time he had left. There was a little four or five-year-old girl waiting in the waiting room, and when mom came out with the beagle she lit up, ran over, smiling.
She thought the puppy was okay and she’d have it for a long time. The look that went over the mom’s face absolutely destroyed me. Horrible.
10. His T-Shirt Predicted It
I’m a respiratory therapist in a Level One Trauma Center. One time we had a man come in with an open leg fracture. There was a literal bone, the femur, pointing up and the rest of the leg hanging off and partially resting on the bed. He had been in a motorcycle accident with his wife, who had been riding on the back. The wife didn’t survive the accident.
The worst part of the story was that he was wearing one of those biker shirts that read: “If you can read this, the wife fell off”. Pretty horrible stuff.
11. They Just Fell Off
I’m a medical student. I was in the ER one shift and a rather obese man was brought in by his family, who said he’d been very confused lately. I went to go see the patients while the lab results from a standard blood count and chemistry were being processed by the lab. Being a medical student, I didn’t have a clue what was wrong with the guy.
After rapidly exhausting my line of questioning on an incoherent patient, I started doing a physical exam. As I removed his socks to check his pedal pulses and reflexes, I noticed that the sock I just pulled off felt like they had rocks in them. Big rocks. Curious, I emptied out the sock onto the bed, only to see that they were his toes. Three of them. It was the most disturbing sight I’ve ever seen.
The lab results came back, unsurprisingly, with a screamingly high blood glucose—totally off the charts. We figured out what happened. He’d had severe diabetic neuropathy and chronic, extreme hyperglycemia. Because of this, he couldn’t feel his toes become ischemic and was too confused to regularly check them, so they had just fallen off.
12. This Coffee Tastes Funny
One time, in the Intensive Care Unit, a patient was coughing up loads of sputum and, between changing the apparatus to catch it, the nurses caught some of it in the only thing they had handy: a Styrofoam cup. After a few moments, when the craziness was over and everyone went back to their day. One nurse, mistaking the cup of sputum for a cup of coffee, took a drink.
13. Teenagers Bad, Aunt Good
I’m currently a vet tech, but heading to nursing school soon. Once I had a 75 kg (160 lb) mastiff/St. Bernard mix brought in for a supposed tapeworm problem. One of the female techs lifts his tail to take his temperature and squeals then runs away. I look and see maggots around his tail. I start to shave and see that his skin is full—and I mean full—of little holes that maggots are crawling into and out of.
I keep shaving his very thick fur and reveal more and more skin that looks this way. I shave the entire dog up to his last rib before I found healthy skin. The maggots are everywhere. I have him on a grate above a bathtub so I can spray the maggots off. I spent four hours shaving and cleaning him and removed no less than two gallons of maggots from this dog’s skin. We know there were more because his entire gut was infected with them.
Later we found out what had happened. It turns out that the owners of the dog were in Europe on vacation, and their four teenage children were responsible for the dog. The wife’s sister was watching the children but was terrified of dogs, so she didn’t handle it directly. They were leaving this rather large dog with super-dense fur in the rain during a Charleston spring, which means it’s hot and muggy.
The dog probably got a small area of moist dermatitis that got infected and was left untreated and slowly spread through half the dog’s body. All four children were present when the veterinarian told them what happened and said that there wasn’t anything we could do but euthanize. Not one of them showed the slightest bit of remorse or acted as if they cared.
Only the aunt, who is terrified of dogs, remained with the dog as we gave the injection. She cradled the dog’s head in her lap and wept because of how the dog must have felt. He was so good during the entire ordeal and wanted nothing more than for someone to pet his head.
That is the only time I ever cried because of my job.
14. It Just Spilled Out
Pharmacy guy here, but I work with anesthesia during surgeries at night and the worst surprise I had was on a simple operation. An obese woman was having a boil on her arm lanced and drained…simple enough…but the minute the tiny incision began there was this popping sound. To our shock, the skin from elbow to shoulder split wide open. Black goo and puss then seeped out from where she had developed compartment syndrome. It was all over the table.
There’s just not enough peppermint gauze in the world to cover up someone’s necrotic flesh smell.
15. Thank You For Sharing
I’m not a doctor or a nurse, but I work in a pharmacy and have heard some pretty awful things. Some people have no shame. One morning, our pharmacist got a call from a long-time customer who wasn’t quite right in the head. She had gotten an upper gastrointestinal done and was prescribed pills to stimulate her bowels to get the radiation out of her body.
She proceeded to explain to our pharmacist loudly—the pharmacist put her on speakerphone so we could all enjoy—that she had been up all night on the toilet. And then it suddenly stopped, and it wouldn’t come out. And, she added, it hurt. So, out of all the things she could use, she grabbed a metal nail file and made “it” come out.
Well, at that point she was bleeding quite a bit, so she decided to stick a tampon up there and call it good. She was not seeking any medical advice, because—according to her—she was just fine. She just wanted to share this story.
16. There Was A Direct Link
A patient came in one day with a dire sore throat. Midway through the examination the patient started violently gagging, opened his mouth and vomited what seemed like every single pint of blood out of his body. It turns out that the patient had a condition in which the esophagus rubs against the nearby artery and, if left unchecked, the membrane will fuse together opening a direct link between mouth and heart.
17. It Went Nuts
A pleasant middle-aged lady was gardening one day when her dog went nuts and went for her in the yard. The ordeal apparently went on for quite some time until finally a neighbor heard, came over, and shot the dog to get it off her. I would have sworn no dog could do what that dog did, it looked like I would imagine a tiger attack.
The worst part was her arms and hands, which she had been using to ward off the dog. She lost both hands. It was, quite simply, horrific.
18. There Was A Boy There
A couple weeks ago an old man, around 90, was brought into the hospital by ambulance, which he’d called for himself. I was reading through his background notes and noticed that he lives alone as many older ones do. It turns out this guy had stopped taking his medication for his dementia because he forgot about it. He then also began to get dehydrated and confused as he also forgot to drink water or eat meals. But here’s where the story gets freaky.
The old man said there was a boy living with him that week, and he was staying in his room with him. He said he didn’t mind because he just sat there on the bed and didn’t say anything. After about the third day of this boy staying with him, the old man began to get worried because the boy had not eaten or had anything to drink. So, the man dialed for an ambulance saying he was afraid the boy was going to collapse.
The ambulance staff turned up and the guy toured them around the house for 20 minutes trying to find the boy. They see his meds are untouched and take him away to hospital for treatment. Poor guy, but his caring for his imaginary friend may have saved his life!
19. Zombie Pirate
I’m an activities director for an elderly home. One morning, I was delivering morning newspapers, when I heard a lady call from down the hall of resident apartments. She asked me, as sweet as could be, if any nurses were here yet. Before I looked up I said I wasn’t sure but I could take a peek for her. Then I looked up.
The woman was holding onto a support beam that we have on the walls like a ballet bar but sturdier. Her left foot is attached only by ligaments and is dragging behind her. She is literally walking on her exposed bone. I tried my darndest not to react and scare her. I gingerly helped her sit on the floor, before running for emergency services and my boss.
I guess at some point in the night she had fallen out of bed and didn’t think it was serious enough to bother a caregiver or someone about. She slept on the pad on the floor that is there in case anyone falls out of bed. Then, when morning came, and she heard me in the hall, she dragged herself up and asked for help.
I feel like a terrible person, but when I calmed down I had to admit for half a second I thought she was a zombie pirate.
20. A Living Anatomy Lesson
I was working in a hospital in Nepal for a month. A lot of people ride motorcycles there for transportation, and they also have minimal road laws and enforcement. As a result, they see motorcycle accidents at a much higher prevalence. Anyways, during one of my shifts in the ER a man was brought in with bloody sheets covering his whole lower half.
I gathered from the family that he had been in a motorcycle accident. I lifted the sheets up expecting to see a partial amputation or a crush wound, only to see what the doctors would later describe to me as a “degloving”. This is a fairly common injury in Kathmandu. Essentially his leg had got caught in a rotating tire. The torque of the tire and the friction it caused with his skin ripped his skin off and sent it hurling away. The rest of the leg was intact, just without the skin.
His leg was essentially a living anatomy lesson—till they amputated it.
21. She Couldn’t Speak
I’m a medical student and the most distressing thing I’ve seen is a lady who had multiple strokes within days. These strokes left her with many neurological deficits. She had the classic hemiplegic stroke leaving her unable to move her entire right side. She had lost all sensation in her arm as well. The lady was also in constant pain.
The worst part is, she then had another stroke which made her lose her voice. She couldn’t even tell anyone for two days that she was in so much pain.
22. Oh, That’s Where I Left It
An obese lady came into the hospital and was complaining about a pain that she had in her lower stomach. We asked her where, and she gestured toward the area just above her crotch. We pulled up her shirt, and the pain was coming from below one of her folds of skin. When we started lifting the folds, we found a 20 cm (8 in) splinter stuck inside of one of the folds.
Not only was this piece of wood long, but it was wide too. The end was splintered on it, and that was the pain she was feeling. So, we carefully removed the thing and showed it to her. What she said next floored us. “Oh that’s my plank! I use my plank to hold up my stomach so my husband and I can make love. It must have broken.”
23. He Wasn’t Licking His Own Wounds
I’m a social care worker and care for people in the comfort of their own homes. I went to a job about a month ago and was told in the description that he had a few bed sores. When me and my colleague rolled the service user over, the sores were about double the size of a tennis ball. Also, you could see all the way into his hip bone each side.
The sores were really fresh and still weeping. All I could smell in the air was rotting flesh, not only all this, but I turned up a week later to do my shift again to find the dog had got on his bed and was licking his wound! Poor bloke couldn’t even move his arms. I blame the district nurses for neglecting him for so long.
24. Driving With The Top Off
A man got in a freak accident driving a convertible. The top of his skull got completely cut off, exposing his somehow unharmed brain. When he arrived unconscious at the hospital, he was being treated by a mass of nurses and/or doctors. As he was lying on his back on the operation table, he started throwing up. Now, I’m sure all of you know how gravity works, but I’ll explain what happened just in case.
He was lying on his back: face up. His brain was exposed. He started throwing up. The vomit traveled in trajectory landing on his brain. In short, he was vomiting on his own brain.
25. I Heard Everything
A few years ago I was visiting a friend in the ER. He’d had some minor heart trouble and was resting in one of the rooms, which he shared with an elderly woman. Shortly after I got there, a nurse came in with a bedpan and pulled the curtain dividing the room in half. I wish the flimsy curtain had blocked out the sound of the old woman’s mostly liquid bowel movement, or at least the nurse’s comment.
“I know that feels like a bowel movement, but it’s mostly blood.”
26. Car Crash Changes Life
I’m neither a doctor or a nurse, but at one time I was aspiring to go to med school. I loved biology and anatomy and had received the Boy Scout first aid merit badge and CPR certification. I was convinced that my calling was to heal people, and I was leaning toward becoming a surgeon. This changed after I came across a car-car-truck-motorcycle collision on a highway.
The accident was a long ways away from the closest city, so no emergency services had gotten there yet. Bodies were littered everywhere. Mostly the bodies were still. Some, as I later found out from a newspaper article, were already deceased. One woman will haunt me more than the others. She was being held down by three other motorists.
She was screaming and struggling to get away from them and stand up, which wouldn’t have been too successful if they let her, as she was missing most of one of her legs. As much as I thought I was waiting for this kind of situation to prove my medical knowledge, I just couldn’t handle getting involved. Some people helped, some people did a U-turn to avoid the accident.
I did the latter while weeping in shame and frustration. As a result, I ended up majoring in computer science.
27. It Was The Size Of A Grapefruit
I’m not a doctor, but I worked at a hospital in the histology lab. I saw some slightly disgusting things (amputated leg of a morbidly obese person with clogged arteries, that the manager used as an anatomy lesson), but nothing rivaled the teratoma. Oh god, the teratoma. For those who don’t know what it is, it’s a type of malignant tumor that accumulates genetic material from many different parts of the body, leading to some pretty nasty surprises.
So, I was working, filing slides and whatnot, and in came an entire ovary with the teratoma. For reference, the teratoma was the size of a grapefruit. The ovaries gave the impression of a pale small stocking. So yes, it looked like someone had attached a small pale stocking to a pale grapefruit. That should have been a warning as to what would follow next.
My lab manager went up to operate on it, and as soon as he made a scalpel incision into the teratoma, it literally exploded. There was literally fluid everywhere. He had to change everything: the scalpel blade, the tabletop mat, even his gown. He later drained everything into the sink, which took a total of about five minutes.
After opening it up, we saw that it had to have been containing some sort of secretory gland, as there was this grayish stuff lining the inside of the teratoma—complete with strands of hair. He went further, and found a round bony core at the center of the teratoma. We had to bring out a bonesaw to cut through it, while my lab manager told me about the times he’s cut open teratomas and found fully developed eyeballs at the center.
Eventually, we cut through the dense core, and found a fully developed incisor tooth at the center. I was thoroughly disgusted by all that we had seen.
28. Maybe Someone Needs To Define “Lucky”
I worked at a hospital for a few years. One night there was a five-year-old kid who came into the emergency room who had apparently been playing with one of those yard marker flags. Well he was running and tripped, and the metal pin went into his mouth and punctured all the way through the back of his throat and out the back side of his neck.
When the kid came in, we had to literally tie his hand together, so he wouldn’t move the wire and possibly cause nerve damage. We ran all the tests and realized that this little kid was so lucky. You see, he had narrowly missed his spinal column. Basically, this meant that we were able to sedate him and just pull the wire out.
29. It Feels A Little Dry Down There
A girl comes to the hospital, and she’s complaining that she’s unusually smelly “down there”. The doctor takes a look, and sure enough there is something not right there. Upon further inspection, the doctor notices that there is an object deep inside her. The doctor asks her if she knows why there is something stuck inside her. And also if she knows what it might be.
The patient says that she knows what’s up there. It’s the cap to her deodorant. The doctor doesn’t even ask why the cap is up there, but just tells the woman that he’s going to take it out. It was her answer that shocked both the doctor and me. She said: “No please don’t touch that. I’m keeping it there as a contraceptive”.
30. I Had To Pick Them Up
I’m a nuclear medicine technician and last week I was performing a Lung V/Q scan on a man who had congestive heart failure. Due to the buildup of fluid caused by congestive heart failure, each testicle was literally the size of a grapefruit. The reason I know this is because I had to pick them up and set them on a pillow—because them sitting on the table was too painful.
31. He Was Big But Also Small
I wasn’t a doctor or a nurse, but I worked as a patient transporter for almost five years. One of the responsibilities of the job was taking deceased patients down to the morgue. One evening, I was called to the ER to take an expired patient to the morgue. Another transporter and I entered the room to find something very strange.
The patient was extremely obese, yet also extremely short. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I would guess he was about 120 cm (4 ft) tall and 155 kilograms (350 lbs) which left him almost as wide as he was tall. There were pockets of air under his skin. I am guessing his tiny lungs collapsed under all the weight.
We couldn’t fit him onto our morgue cart, so we ended up having to cover the body under blankets and take his bed all the way to the morgue, escorted by security. The problem was that the weight distribution/balance on the bed was so different that we had a hard time steering in the hallways.
32. He Couldn’t Control Himself
I once did a wet-to-dry dressing, then placed a wound vac on a man that got flesh-eating disease on his thigh. In an emergency surgery he had received a fasciotomy from just above his knee to his hip and groin. It was rough at first but kinda like the body world exhibit so fairly manageable. I was able to dehumanize this portion of his leg.
That was when he lifted his leg up, so I could get to the underside. To my horror I saw that the thigh meat hung like an old person’s tricep. At about the same time, the man was overcome with uncontrollable gas. So what had previously been more like an exhibit in Vegas, had just become a man who has been skinned from balls to knee and is now farting all over me.
If you’re having trouble imagining this, look down at your thigh and just imagine no skin. No fat. Just muscle, tendon, and a light layer of blood. No, it’s not disgusting like some of the stuff I have read about, but there was just no way to compartmentalize that thigh. I was sweating profusely as I made my way through the long process. I kept my voice together and chatted with the guy, who was way cool, and got the job done.
Based on my limited experiences that was the worst thing I have seen yet on the job.
33. He Kept A Chunk
So, my dad’s a dentist, and one night we get a call at home from the local ER asking if my father is willing to come in and deal with a patient because…well…they have no idea what to do with this woman. My dad is a rather stand-up guy, so he goes and opens his practice to treat this woman. I go along with him and help set up the room.
An ambulance pulls up and wheels this elderly woman into the clinic. From the get-go, the first thing that hits us is the smell. Her face is bandaged up pretty well, and we can see blood seeping through the gauze and all down her shirt. We both put on the double gloves, and double masks and my dad dives in. He discovers that she has something penetrating her lip. It’s mustard yellow, and has the consistency of rock candy.
My dad plays with it a little bit, and a large chunk breaks off. What’s attached is four of this woman’s teeth or rather, the decayed remains of her teeth. Apparently, this 78-year-old woman had never brushed her teeth a day in her life. What had penetrated her lip was an obelisk of plaque. My dad continued to clean away what he could, but the plaque buildup was so massive that she had literally rotten away all of her teeth and most of her gums. One spot was abscessed clear down to her jawbone.
To this day dad keeps the chunk in a jar in his office, and scares little children into brushing their teeth everyday.
34. He Can’t Forget
I’m an MD here. While in residency I was rotating through two months in general/vascular surgery, where amputations were very common. I was assisting with a bilateral below-knee amputation on a poorly controlled type 1 diabetic. Basically we were severing both legs a little below the knee. The patient had terrible circulation and hardly bled during the procedure.
The staff surgeon commented that we’d likely have to perform another amputation higher up in the future as the poor circulation would not allow healing. After the surgery, the patient promptly had a massive heart attack and was sent for stenting and a trip to the ICU. Several days later we were following up as the wounds were not healing well as predicted.
In an attempt to examine the amputation sites, myself and the surgeon began to unwrap each bandage. As we lifted the upper leg to make this easier, the 10 cm (4 in) of lower limb below the knee on each leg clearly began to separate from the leg above it as each side was mostly gangrenous, lifeless tissue. I’ll never forget the sound and smell.
35. Scouring Pads Are For The Kitchen Only
I work in a community pharmacy, so I don’t see the most disgusting stuff, but I do see the general public’s stupidity now and then. A regular came in one day. He had been complaining of anal itch, a bit of blood in his stool, and painful defecation—all of which had lasted for a long time. I told him it was likely hemorrhoids that were bad enough he shouldn’t self-treat it, but should have it looked at ASAP.
I guess he didn’t listen to my advice. He came back a week later and was asking for 90 or 99% isopropyl alcohol. I decided to ask why he needed it. It turned out, to deal with his anal itch/hemorrhoids, he was using a wire scouring pad to his entire anus. He was worried it might be infected so he wanted to kill off the germs with 90% isopropyl. I just pray I kept the horror off my face.
He then went on to say that the Crown Royal he was using was too painful and not working, so he needed stronger stuff. I told him NOPE!! NOPE!! As he walked away, I noticed the back of his sweat pants were stained with what looked like blood/pus/excrement. I called him back and told him to wait while I called an ambulance.
I later found out he had the beginnings of cellulitis, which is an early form of a bad skin infection that can progress to flesh-eating disease, on his anus/bum skin and a bacterial infection of the blood was beginning.
36. There Were Two Snakes On That Picnic
There was a couple who were having a romantic picnic out in a field and things got a little…hot and heavy. So, while they were occupied, they failed to notice a large red-belly black snake (rarely fatal, but intimidating-looking thing) coming closer. Well, this snake isn’t without a sense of humor and decides to go for a strike. But wait! Where do you think it bit him?
Yep, right on the poor guy’s shaft. So the guy and his girlfriend run all the way into the emergency ward. He’s got his junk in his hand, and both of them are naturally freaking out. The nurses treated him quickly and, thankfully, all was fine. I’ll tell you one thing: there wasn’t a straight face in the whole hospital for a week after.
37. He Was The Creepiest Creep
I won’t say it’s the worst thing I have ever seen on the job, but when I was a medical assistant, I assisted my boss, a doctor, in an autopsy. He was looking for the cause of a patient’s passing because another doctor made a diagnosis my boss wasn’t comfortable with. The entire procedure was quite a shocker at first seeing the woman I had known as a patient lying there completely opened up.
To start with, there wasn’t any blood, because she had already been drained. Also, she was morbidly obese and the amount of fat under her skin was amazing to see. When my boss began exploring her intestines, he tied off the ends. You can imagine what it would have smelled like if he hadn’t. He took samples and placed them in plastic containers.
I think the worst part for me was having to look at the mortician who was there working on other people. I swear, he was the creepiest dude I’d ever seen in person. He was very nice, but he reminded me of leather face from that horror movie. He had very bad acne scars, dark, dark eyes, dark hair, and was wearing a thick, white rubber apron with blood all over it. Gawd!!!!
Another thing that freaked me out was when I asked him who the person was covered up close by and he told me. It was my dentist! I didn’t even know he was deceased!
38. It Was Moving
This story is creepy: about a dude I saw on neurology when I was an intern. He was from Southeast Asia with altered mental status and abdominal pain, and altered liver function tests. The pictures of his belly on plain films, CT scan, and MRI showed a mass, but the mass kept looking blurry and like it was changing shape and size.
We sent him for an ultrasound and the tech nearly had a heart attack, because the “tumor” was moving. Turns out the guy had picked up some nasty parasite on his last trip back to visit the family. We finally saw the 8 cm (3 in) worm moving and swimming around inside its little ball of goo on the recording of the exam. The whole team almost blew chunks that morning.
39. Tires Would Have Saved Him
I’m not a doctor, but I’m a firefighter so I see my fair share of trauma. About a year ago, we responded to a call that went out as an “individual who had a car fall on his face”. He was hotboxing in his garage while working underneath his car that was supported by scissor jacks. Something to note, the car didn’t have any tires on the front end where he was working.
One of the scissor jacks had slipped out from underneath the car, and the whole weight of the car landed directly onto the side of his head with no tires to stop the fall. We got our rubber airbags out, lifted the car, pulled him out, and got him onto a stretcher. After taking over a thousand kg (2,500 lbs) of weight to the head, he somehow got out of it with only a fractured orbital and a laceration on his cheek.
40. He Couldn’t Stop It
The first year of my core surgical training, I was on call in a very small rural hospital. This hospital only had two doctors on at night, me and a medical trainee, and no emergency doctors.
It was about 11 pm and this guy, about 26 years old, came in after being in a fight. Blood was pumping from his nose, which was clearly fractured.
I suspected he probably had other facial fractures underneath, but he was awake and talking to me. Otherwise he seemed fine. I spent about 45 minutes trying to stop the blood, using all sorts of nose packs, pressure, and even tried a catheter balloon to try and tamponade it. Nothing was working, and he was starting to go into shock. I was getting really scared at this point.
Based on his vitals I’d estimated he’d lost almost 1.5 liters (50 oz) of blood so far. The nearest proper surgical hospital was 45 minutes away, and my consultant was at home, which was 25 minutes from the hospital. Eventually, I got four bags of O neg from the lab (the lab tech happened to be in, which was very lucky), put this guy in the back of an ambulance, still bleeding, and sent him blue lighting to the surgical center in the city.
I got a phone call about three hours later from a surgeon at the other hospital, saying he had brought the patient to the theater and was able to control the situation. He was probably 15 minutes from dying. If you come into that kind of small hospital with that much bleeding, all stats say you’re in trouble. The guy was very lucky his friends got him in so quickly.
41. He Carried Him In
I was a junior doc on the trauma team. One day the doors to the emergency ward fly open to reveal a man carrying a second blood-soaked man in his arms. We get him onto a stretcher and it is clear he has been shot in his chest and has gone into cardiac arrest. Chest compressions start, and within minutes the senior doctor is cutting into the guy’s chest in order to start cardiac massage.
Cardiothoracics join us quickly and get to work on the heart, where a hole in the right ventricle is identified and plugged with a Foley catheter. All the while, bag after bag of O Neg is being pushed into the patient in an attempt to replace everything that had pumped out of his heart and into his chest cavity.
After 15-20 minutes of this the impossible happens: the heart starts beating on its own. The patient is taken directly to the theater, where the hole is definitively repaired and bilateral chest drains are inserted to drain the blood filling his lungs. Somehow his heart continued beating and after a couple weeks on ITU, the patient is returned to the trauma ward awake and alert.
Several weeks, some mild hypoxic brain injury, and a gnarly chest scar later, and he walks off the ward with his dad, the man who carried him in.
42. They Used Her As A Case Study
I’m a researcher rather than a doctor, but during my undergrad my anatomy tutor told us of an interesting case study. A woman in the same department had been in a car accident going at a considerable speed. The seat belt failed to lock, and her face flew into the steering wheel. Her mouth, nose, cheekbones and forehead were shattered, yet she suffered no brain damage.
Apparently, the front of her face acted as a crumple zone, and the fact that her skull shattered meant the cranial swelling didn’t cause any damage because the brain had more space to swell into. Of course, she needed significant reconstructive surgery, but a year later she and my tutor teamed up in a research project.
They used her case as the basis for looking into new ways to treat severe head injuries and developed new treatment protocols depending on where the skull had taken damage. They basically found out that, if you’re going to have a head injury, try and get hit in the face and not the temples because you’re much more likely to survive.
43. He Just Had To Squeeze By
I worked in the kitchen, so I was the lowly peon delivering food trays. I delivered to one guy who had a horrendously infected foot. Most of the toes were necrotic and black, and the rest of the foot wasn’t doing much better. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was waiting for an amputation. His dietary requirements were diabetic, so it was likely. The room smelled awful.
Anyway, these rooms are small, with typically two beds in them. Because of the smell from his infection, the other bed is empty. I still have to squeeze by the foot of his bed, and as I’m paying attention to the tray, so I don’t knock it into equipment, I accidentally brush my leg against his infected foot that he has sticking out of the covers and hanging off the bed.
To my horror, his big toenail—with bonus flesh—comes off onto my leg. It’s just stuck to my leg. We look at each other in horror. I clear my throat, ask my usual questions, clear and adjust his table, give him his tray and wish him a good day. I leave calmly, and then run to the nurse’s station and ask for help getting this dude’s entire necrotic toenail off my leg.
The nurse who got it off soaked that portion of my pant leg in some disinfectant liquid that smelled like it could take the paint off a car.
44. Don’t Be A Baby
A woman came into the emergency room with complaints of abdominal pain. She wouldn’t stop screaming: “My baby’s gone! My baby’s gone!” There was one really weird thing though: her record showed absolutely nothing about even being pregnant. After having her change into a gown, the most ungodly stench filled the room.
My doctor began a pelvic exam, with me as a standby. I will never forget his face as he removed a pinkish-brown clotted mass: it was a huge chicken leg. It turns out that what she was calling her ‘baby’ was actually an uncooked chicken she had chopped up and inserted into her hoo-ha. She may not have lost a baby, but she did gain a chicken.
45. Our Jaded Jaws Dropped
I was working at an emergency room in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. This is a resort area, with pristine white beaches, sport fishing—you know the drill. I was taking a body down to the morgue with another medic, and the shift supervisor, who had the drawer assignment and paperwork responsibility. We pulled open the huge metal drawer, expecting there to be nothing—or maybe a body—and saw something that made our very jaded jaws drop.
Inside the drawer, there was a monstrously large sailfish. This thing was so huge that it could hardly fit without its body curved and sail pushed down. We stood there in surprise wondering what our procedure should be. We had no idea. The NCO said, “It would be a very good idea not to remember this. I’ll deal with it in the morning.” He then moved on to the next drawer.
Later it was rumored it belonged to one of the senior surgeons.
46. It Was The Size Of A Bagel
About thirteen years ago, when I was in medical school, I saw a lady who had flown in from South America to have US doctors help with her breast cancer. She was pretty well off but apparently her family had been picky and choosy about her treatment. By the time they got her to the states, the situation had turned horrific.
So what we discovered was that she had a metastatic tumor on her arm that was the size of a bagel. Also it smelled of necrotic tissue. Even worse was the fact that her chest wall was replaced by a tumor. In fact, you could actually see her rib cage. Her family got mad that we couldn’t just cut the tumor off her arm. The whole ER smelled like rotten flesh.
47. Get Back In There
There was a primary care physician, PCP, who went to some part of Africa—I don’t remember where specifically—for the Peace Corps. When he came back, he found he was always more tired than he was when he left for Africa. The cause was straight out of a nightmare. One day he felt a pulsation in his eye and went to the ER. Once there, the doctor found a small worm wriggling around in his eye.
Apparently, this kind of worm normally lives near the brain, but had somehow made its way out from there and into his eye. The emergency room doctor hadn’t seen anything like it, and so he called in another doctor to come and look at it. By the time the other doctor got there, the worm had made its way back out of the eye.
Cut to about a month later and the PCP feels the pulsation again, but instead of returning to the hospital, he decides to take care of it himself. He takes a needle and heats it up using the stove. He then puts it into his own eye in order to remove the parasite. Over the course of the next year or two, he removes—if I remember correctly—around five of the worms this way before feeling better.
48. Not Your Ordinary Blackhead
I was working at an old folks center near our house, and I was with this one older gentleman. On his hip, was a blackhead the size of a dime, on top of a decent-sized lump, about 5 cm (2 in) long. So, I threw on some gloves, made sure I had the permission of the man of course, and squeezed the black head. To my shock, out popped this roll of gauze that was left over from his hip surgery 10 years prior that he never bothered to get removed.
The smell was horrid and I will never forget it.
49. A Repeat Offender
So there is a homeless guy that comes to my emergency room regularly. Apparently this guy had a major surgery in the last 10 years where they removed something from his stomach, or that general area. After the surgery, he woke up and just left the hospital without letting himself heal. He proceeded with his drug habit, and his body was never able to heal properly.
The guy comes to the ER about once every week to get his intestines re-bandaged. The nurses have to rinse and sanitize the intestines and re-bandage him up every time he comes in. They simply take a large bandage and wrap it around his midsection. He has been seen many times outside the hospital holding his intestines with a plastic bag pressed to his stomach—having a smoke.
50. This Experiment Went Very Wrong
A kid, about 13 years old, and his mom came into the emergency room. The mom had dragged the kid in because he was complaining of real bad ‘digestive’ problems. The kid had convinced her he was fine, until he couldn’t hide the bleeding coming from his rear end. We take him in for X-rays—but never in a million years was I prepared for what we found. There on the X-ray, clear as day, is a 14-inch black rubber phallus.
Of course, we didn’t know it was black then, but we found out later, obviously. This thing had wedged itself up far—most likely due to his efforts to remove it. It was pushing on the walls of his intestine and had three days’ worth of excrement piled on top of it. We take him into a private room and ask if there is anything he wants to tell us before they discuss specifics with his mother.
The kid didn’t want to say anything, so we told him that whatever is up there had to be removed surgically. The kid said no, and that he just felt sick. We then asked him again, what could possibly be in his lower intestine. His response almost made me laugh out loud. He said he may have sat on a marker.