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Men Share Their Struggles Dating A Woman Much Wealthier Than Them

Men Share Their Struggles Dating A Woman Much Wealthier Than Them

Relationships are hard. Finances are hard. Making things work with someone from a completely different lifestyle than your own is hard. Being in a relationship with someone who has a lot more money than you can be like a perfect storm of "oh no." When that perfect storm slams into the fragile isles of masculinity and societial expectations ... well ...



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One Reddit user asked:

Men of reddit, what are the struggles of dating a very rich girl?

And yeah, things got interesting. Firstly, there are some happy endings in here, so it's not all tragic. Chin up. I wouldn't do that to you. Secondly, a shocking number of responses didn't really have much to do with money. For most people it seemed to come down to a lack of ability to connect and relate. Finally - societal expectations and the weight they put on people really, really suck. Oh, and shout out to the phrase "wealth whispers" - which is something we'll be thinking on for a long time. Here are some of the more popular stories about men who dated much wealthier women.



3 Hours

A friend of mine dated a very rich girl that grew up a few hours away from us, they bought a small modest house and had a baby. Her family didn't like him because he was a construction worker and didn't have the "class" they expected. They built them a new huge house next to theirs and pressured them to move to it but my friend had a job and life that he liked and she was a stay at home mom. Anyway after a few years it just caused so much tension that their relationship ended and she moved into the house herself and he is basically screwed because they said if he tries to do anything legal that they will bury him. Now he has to drive 3 hours just to see his daughter.

- escloflowne

Punched In The Gut

I live in the Bay area. My girlfriend isn't super wealthy, but wealthy enough to live in an expensive area. Expensive for me, at least.

I love her so much, but it's difficult sometimes because I never have money for anything. She's always willing to pay for me but every time she does it's like getting punched in the gut. Even small amounts like for public transit. She's always very understanding but that doesn't make it any less difficult.

- WaffenWaffel

No Horses

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Admitting financial struggles. When my wife and I were dating in university, her family invited me up to their cottage during the break between Christmas and New Years to ski, skate and otherwise play in the snow. I wanted to go, but I didn't know how to ski, and had no outdoor clothing appropriate to be out n the snow (no ski jacket, pants or boots). I declined the invitation, but my then-girlfriend was really sad and asked why. I had to admit I didn't have the gear needed and I couldn't afford them. She then passed it on to her family and when I visited them on Xmas day, they led me to a a room with 3 types of everything new with tags laid out on a bed for me to choose from. It was a wonderful gesture, but I had mixed feelings - I appreciated the gear very much, but I felt like a charity case.

Also, managing expectations of my wife for travel and expectations with children's activities- she was used to jetting away whenever they felt like it and had her own horses growing up. That's just not an option for us. We do OK and we're happy, but horses are not financially viable.

- BroodingBryanAdams

Keeping Up

Keeping up with her. She wanted to go on European trips, expensive vacations, expensive restaurants, etc. She made very good money and I was limited in my funds and had to spread it out. I couldn't just fly to the Caribbean at the drop of a hat. So, in turn, she left me for a guy who could.

- Runlikehell67

Ruined By Pride

I guess I had a different type than everyone else. We worked together and you wouldn't know she was rich unless you really got to know her.

She worked as a diversion, something to do and meet new people. She never looked at the price of anything, had a $5,000 watch, dolce gabbana glasses she would break at least once a month cause she's clumsy.

Very humble, very sweet and probably the hardest worker there (we were managers). The issue was that there was absolutely nothing we could do together that was new to her. She had more money and free time, her bucket list was completed by 22. There was nothing new or fresh within my... I dunno the word, realm? Ability?
We got along great and I found out from a mutual friend she was excited to be with someone not using her or groveling cause she was 'fuck you' levels of rich.

It was my pride I think that ruined it, nothing she did. I had issues letting her pay for everything and I was unable to show her anything she hadn't seen, I stopped being fun because I couldn't wow or impress her and it got in my head, she was perfectly happy doing normal things, but it wasn't enough for me, I HAD to impress her.

We lost contact years ago, I hope she's doing well, she was fucking awesome and deserves to be happy

- Necro_lancer

Bitterness

My roommate was very wealthy and her boyfriend ended up living with us for 2 years and I remember they would have the saaaame fights all the time. He came from a very poor household, tough family life, in a not-so great area of the city, didn't graduate high school, etc. He was supporting himself working as a bartender. Compared to his childhood financial situation he viewed supporting himself with a steady job as being successful whereas she was always wanting him to do more, be bigger, etc.

They also fought a lot over birthday gifts, Christmas gifts, etc. She would buy him really expensive gifts that he needed, but couldn't afford to buy himself. He needed new winter boots and a coat so she would buy him really nice ones for Christmas. A good coat and boots with one or two other items can easily get close to $5-600. He could never get her a gift of such magnitude. She was somewhat understanding that he couldn't pay for something like that, but he used to tell me he always felt a lot of pressure to match her really expensive gifts with really creative ones. He said he would dread holidays, Valentines day and birthdays, because he would get so stressed out trying to constantly think of creative ways to match her really expensive gifts. It seemed to me like he was getting really bitter about having so much stress over creating a gift vs. her being able to spend 5 minutes using her parents money to get him something.

I think it was also tough because she wanted to do so much stuff and had the financial security to do it. She wanted to travel a lot and he just couldn't afford it. She would pay for him sometimes, but that bothered him. I met up with them once when I was living in Thailand and she kept using phrases like "This is so cheap for..." Like she would insist we got to the most expensive restaurants in the area because a comparative restaurant in the states would be way more expensive.

She also had a massive inheritance. She doesn't have access to it till she's 35, but he used to tell me he was so bitter that he would probably have to work his whole life until he was dead and would probably never make enough to really retire whereas she could basically stop working at 35 if she wanted.

They dated for 4 years, but it eventually fell apart.

- PleasantSalad

Wealth Whispers

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I dated a pretty rich girl. Her dad was a prominent lawyer, her mom a successful artist, and her uncle was a 1980's pop star. Honestly? They were great people to be around. They were old money and not snotty or overly pretentious. Yes they had a big ass old house and drove quality (not overly flashy) cars. Yes they had whatever they wanted but not at all in a "look at me" type way. I on the other hand was DIRT POOR!!! I mean in the early 90's grunge was a blessing for me because I looked like that already. But her parents didn't care and we're always very welcoming. Her mom even took me to my first punk show. I guess it's true when they say cash screams and wealth whispers.

- PforPanchetta511

Little Acts Of Negligence

For me it was the little acts of negligence and damage that would cost money, but could be prevented. She would say "We'll call someone to fix it" but that person in my world was me. Which meant an hour of watching YouTube videos and a trip to the hardware store.

Every time she slammed shut a silverware drawer it made me wince. Doesn't matter that we both have good salaries... no way am I calling someone to charge me $250 for a minor fix.

- seppo2015

Crisis Mode

I dated a girl from a wealthy family when I was in college and I was very poor. The most frustrating thing for me was that our definition of a crisis was so different. From month to month I would literally not know whether I could afford my rent or be able to put gas in my car and she would be freaking out about some (to me) minor social issue or whether a store carried a fashion brand she liked.

It definitely made things difficult and I had to remember that it's your perspective that dictates what is a crisis and what isn't. It was honestly a lesson I've tried to remember over the years.

Joe And Sarah

Let me tell a story that I think will provide a nice contrast to the majority of the comments here... this story isn't mine, but that of a close friends'.

So Joe went away to college and met Sarah there halfway through freshman year. They were on-again-off-again for a while before deciding to date seriously in junior year. They met each others families during breaks or visit days at school. By all accounts, Sarah's family was polite and nice and relatively laid back. Not a whiff of arrogance or anything like that.

Fast forward to the end of senior year. Joe's paternal grandfather is on his deathbed and Joe desperately wants to go say goodbye. However, they go to school in a small town with a private airport (think Cessnas) and the closest major airport is several hours away by car. Neither Joe or Sarah has a car and the big airport didn't have a direct flight, so it would have been pushing 24 hours until he got to the hospice center to see his grandfather. This was destroying Joe, as he and grandpa were very close and he was essentially a second father to him.

Without a word, Sarah pulled Joe into a cab and took him to the airport. Waiting for them was Sarah's families' private plane. Joe and his family were all astounded. They had NO idea Sarah's family was wealthy, and especially not private plane wealthy.

Anyways, off Joe went. He was able to say his goodbyes and he flew coach back to school. Sarah never said a word about it one way or the other and neither did Joe.

They are now married and both doing well in their careers, and from what I can tell live a very normal life. But every once in a while they disappear off to some remote island or jungle or mountain for a few days and don't tell anyone but their family where they're going.

- DreamsOfGreen

History remembers Marcus Aurelius as one of the Roman Empire's "good" emperors—but this is Rome we're talking about. Even the good guys did some pretty twisted stuff. From his scandalous marriage to his tainted legacy, this so-called "Philosopher King" had some serious skeletons in his closet. So who really was the last good emperor? Dive in and find out.

1. He Was A Rich Boy

Marcus Aurelius was born into one of Rome's richest families, but that doesn't mean he had a charmed childhood. He lost his father when he was just three years old, never getting to know the man who gave him life. In a touching tribute, he'd later say he learned "modesty and manliness" by studying his deceased dad's life.

So he lost his dad, but at least he had his mom to raise him, right? Well, not exactly...

2. His Mom Wasn't In The Picture

Turns out, Roman ladies weren't exactly the "motherly" type. Marcus Aurelius's mother Lucilla basically never saw her boy, and instead he spent his lonely childhood in the care of nursemaids. But, as the boy got older, the testosterone-fueled Romans believed he needed a man in his life, so a new father-figure hit the scene.

3. He Had An Evil Stepgrandmother

Aurelius's caretakers sent him to live with his grandfather, Marcus Annius Verus. After his isolated days with the nursemaids, Aurelius instantly took to his ol' granpappy. He spoke highly of his grandfather for the rest of his life—but there was one part of this new life he absolutely hated. When Marcus's grandma passed, his grandpa took a mistress, and he utterly despised her.

Though generally a pretty polite dude, something about this woman rubbed Aurelius the wrong way, and he couldn't get out of the house fast enough after she moved in.

4. He Was...Odd

Marcus Aurelius was a homeschool kid, and let's just say it made him a little...weird. Thanks to his, ahem, "eccentric" teachers, Aurelius started wearing rough, worn-out clothing and sleeping on the floor. Imagine if Prince Harry started walking around in a burlap sack and camping out on the grounds at Buckingham Palace. Yeah, it was weird.

Eventually, Aurelius's mother had to beg him to start sleeping in a bed again. It was bad enough that her son was so eccentric—but all of a sudden, he became really important really fast.

5. He Wasn't Supposed To Be Emperor

File:Head of the statue of emperor Hadrian.jpg - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

See, the thing about Marcus Aurelius is, he was never supposed to be emperor. Sure, he was rich and came from a powerful family, but there were lots of rich and powerful young men who were a lot closer to the emperor at the time, Hadrian. But, in 136, something happened that changed everything: Hadrian had a sudden hemorrhage and barely survived.

Suddenly, the most powerful man on earth felt mighty fragile. He started looking for a successor—and there was talk buzzing about this weird kid who slept on the floor and loved philosophy.

6. Hadrian Made A Weird Choice

Soon after Hadrian recovered from his attack, he did something no one expected: He announced that his successor was going to be a dude named Lucius Ceionius Commodus. People were...absolutely horrified. See, our friend Lucius wasn't exactly emperor material. He was old, sickly, and frail. This guy could barely stand under his own power, let alone run the Roman Empire.

So why on earth did Emperor Hadrian make the Crypt Keeper his heir? Well, it all has to do with our boy Marcus Aurelius.

7. Hadrian Loved Him

If anyone thought Marcus Aurelius was a weirdo, Hadrian wasn't one of them. The ailing emperor thought he was just the man for the job, but Marcus was still too young to become emperor. But, here's the important part: Marcus Aurelius was engaged to marry old Commodus's daughter. So, Hadrian figured he'd make Commodus his heir, then Commodus would croak pretty quickly, leaving Marcus Aurelius the emperor.

I know what you're thinking: That plan's more convoluted than an 80s action movie, no way it's going to work. Well, guess what? It didn't.

8. His Father-In-Law Croaked

In 138 AD, the most obvious thing in the world happened: Lucius Ceionius Commodus fell ill and passed. That's right: Hadrian was already on death's door, and his heir still didn't manage to outlive him. Pretty sure he got plenty of "I-told-you-sos" after that one. Instead, he made a guy named Antoninus Pius his heir. Since a gentle breeze wasn't about to knock Antoninus over, I'd say he was an upgrade.

So, what about our boy Marcus Aurelius? Don't you worry, thanks he was very much still in the picture.

9. He Swapped Fiancees

Hadrian really wanted Marcus Aurelius to become emperor one day, but it took some really messy dealing to get it done. Basically, after his first heir kicked the bucket, Hadrian made Antoninus Pius his heir, then had him adopt Marcus Aurelius as his son. Then, to really seal the deal, he made Marcus dump his fiance and marry Antoninus Pius's daughter.

Did I just say that Marcus Aurelius married his new sister? Yes, I did. Turns out, Romans loved marrying their sisters.

10. He Went From Nobody To Heir

File:Antoninus Pius Palatino Inv1219.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

Now that Marcus Aurelius was officially in line to become emperor, Hadrian decided he was pretty much done with this whole "living" thing. He tried to take his own life several times, but people kept stopping him, so Hadrian decided to do it the old-fashioned way: He went to a ritzy seaside resort and started eating and drinking anything and everything he ever wanted.

Yeah, he didn't last long. Hadrian passed, Antoninus Pius became emperor, and suddenly our friend Marcus Aurelius was one of the most important people in the Empire—and that brought a whole host of new problems.

11. He Had So Many Kids

In 145, Marcus Aurelius married his sister-but-not-really, Faustina the Younger. This wouldn't end up being the greatest relationship, as you'll soon see, but at least this couple did one thing really well: Made babies. Faustina gave birth to their first child, a girl named Domitia, soon after their marriage. Domitia would be the first of a whopping 13 children.

But aside from that, I think it's fair to say their relationship was a total mess.

12. His Wife Had An Appetite

Marcus Aurelius was famously stern and reserved—Faustina? Not so much. Already a bit of a wild child, one vice possessed her more than the rest: Lust. I guess her Philosopher King wasn't exactly the most exciting partner, because she allegedly liked to sleep around. A lot. And this was the Roman Empire we're talking about, so she had no shortage of man meat.

This is why Faustina enjoyed one particular Roman tradition a little too much...

13. She Liked Tough Guys

The Roman Empire was one of the most militaristic societies in history, so it should come as no surprise that they held their own version of Fleet Week. Rome's finest legionaries, navymen, and gladiators would parade through the streets in their finest gear—and no one enjoyed the display more than Aurelius's wife Faustina. She would use the occasion to scout out new lovers.

But let's not be too quick to cast aspersions on poor Faustina—she faced more pain than most of us will see in our lifetimes.

14. They Suffered Heartbreak

Marcus Aurelius and Faustina's first daughter Domitia was a sickly child from the very beginning, and she barely clung to life for her first years. Almost immediately after she was born, Faustina became pregnant again, this time giving birth to twin boys. The couple rejoiced, but these were even more sickly than their first. The twins didn't survive long—and while grieving them, Domitia just got worse and worse.

15. He Lived His Worst Nightmare

File:Roman Empress Faustina the Younger, 161-170 CE. Marble ...commons.wikimedia.org

Marcus Aurelius should have been spending his days preparing to rule an empire, but he spent most of his time looking after his frail daughter. Sadly, his doting couldn't save her—she passed at just three years old. The loss devastated the couple once again—and according to Aurelius's writings, this was a moment that changed him forever.

16. He Grew Hard

After losing Domitia, Aurelius wrote this: "One man prays: 'How I may not lose my little child', but you must pray: 'How I may not be afraid to lose him.'" Rather than buckle under the pain of losing his children, Aurelius steeled himself into the hard man he'd become. He would end up needing every bit of strength he possessed—because the hard times were only beginning.

17. His Kids Had A Bad Track Record

Though Marcus Aurelius fathered 13 children, only one son and four daughters outlived him. Not a great track record. And the one son who did outlive him wasn't exactly the kind of boy who would make a father proud...

18. His Son Was A Demon

In 161, Faustina gave birth to a healthy son. They named him Lucius Aelius Aurelius Commodus, but you probably only know him by the last part: Commodus, the only one of Marcus Aurelius's sons to live to adulthood. Unfortunately, Commodus didn't have much of his father in him...He'd go on to be one of the most bloodthirsty, arrogant, and hated emperors in Rome's history.

But that's jumping ahead—we haven't even gotten to Marcus Aurelius's ascension yet.

19. He Made It

It's a good thing Marcus Aurelius was a patient guy (his wife can attest to that), because he had to wait a long time before becoming emperor. Antoninus Pius reigned for 22 long years before he finally kicked the bucket. As soon as that happened, Marcus Aurelius finally became emperor—but there was a bit of a wrinkle. In a strange turn of events, Aurelius wasn't the only emperor.

20. He Didn't Rule Alone

Colossal head of Lucius Verus (mounted on a modern bust), … | Flickrwww.flickr.com

Marcus Aurelius didn't rule Rome alone at first. He had a co-emperor: Lucius Verus. Now, if you think that Roman emperors don't tend to be the "sharing" type, you'd be right. Though both of them were emperors, Marcus Aurelius technically had a little bit more power than Lucius Verus. He also happened to be smarter, calmer, and all-around less nuts than Verus.

And they both got along perfectly and nothing dramatic happened, right? Yeah, about that...

21. They Couldn't Have Been More Different

Poor Lucius Verus, the guy never stood a chance. See, Marcus Aurelius, for his all his faults and saucy personal life, was a pretty darn good emperor. That's why Roman historians called him the last of the Five Good Emperors. He kept Rome stable, managed to expand its borders, and didn't make half the empire despise him. If you're a Roman emperor, that's about as good as it gets.

On the other hand, history has almost entirely forgotten Lucius Verus. He was a total screw-up and he just couldn't manage to get himself out of Aurelius's shadow—but hey, at least he got a (super gross) consolation prize...

22. He Married His Brother To His Daughter

One thing is for sure: Unless your name is Commodus, you definitely did not want to be Marcus Aurelius's kid. First of all, you'd be lucky to see your first birthday. But then, even if you did, you'd probably end up married to some old dude before you were even a teenager. That was his daughter Annia Lucilla's fate. Aurelius betrothed her to his fully-adult co-emperor Lucius Verus when she was just 11 years old.

And if that's not gross enough, it gets worse. Aurelius and Verus were technically brothers, so that meant that Annia Lucilla wasn't just marrying a man decades older than her, but that man happened to be her uncle. Yick.

23. His Happy Times Didn't Last Long

Aside from marrying his daughter to his brother and his wife's taste for sailors and gladiators, the start of Marcus Aurelius's reign actually went pretty smoothly. In fact, he would call his first years as emperor the "happy times." Sounds nice right? Well, not really. See, if you call an early period the happy times, that can only mean one thing: There were some dark times ahead—and were there ever.

Marcus Aurelius's reign was about to devolve into chaos, and to make matters worse, his wife was at the center of it.

24. His Wife Had A Darker Side

According to Roman historians, Faustina the Younger played the game of thrones with the best of them: By that we mean, she never hesitated to poison or just flat-out execute anyone who got in her way. This was a serious contrast to her husband's more pragmatic approach to ruling, but hey, to each their own. And it's not like ol' Marcus Aurelius couldn't use the help. His predecessor had made sure of that...

25. His Predecessor Had Beefs

Take It Personally Michael Jordan GIFGiphy

As he lay on his deathbed, Emperor Antoninus Pius laid down the equivalent of an Ancient Roman diss track. He spent his final moments calling out all the foreign kings and political adversaries who had wronged him like Michael Jordan at the Hall of Fame. No, Antoninus Pius wasn't exactly the most diplomatic guy—and that meant he left quite the mess for Marcus Aurelius to clean up.

Eventually, those old enemies came back to haunt him, and Aurelius learned there's a difference between learning how to run an empire and actually doing it.

26. He Faced Rebellion

One of the enemies Antoninus Pius name-checked in his final moments was the King of Parthia—with good reason. Not long into Marcus Aurelius's reign, said king revolted. To make matters worse, the Roman governor in the region, a guy named Severianus, was a bit of an idiot. Convinced he could take on the Parthians himself, Severianus charged straight at them...and got his entire legion massacred then took his own life.

The situation in Parthia was getting completely out of hand, but Marcus Aurelius came up with a devious plan—a plan that could kill two birds with one stone.

27. His Partner Was A Disaster

Parthia was in revolt, but Marcus Aurelius had another problem: He co-emperor Lucius Verus. While Aurelius was all about running an empire, Verus was all about spending money, partying, and sleeping around, and it was starting to get embarrassing. So, Marcus Aurelius decided there was nothing like a little campaigning to straighten a man out. He sent Verus to Parthia to deal with the upstart king, hoping the conflict would teach him how to be a better emperor.

If you think that's what happened, you're greatly overestimating the incorrigible Lucius Verus.

28. His Plan Failed Miserably

Marcus Aurelius hoped Verus would lead his Roman legions to victory over the treacherous Parthian king. Verus said, "Nah." He spent the entire time partying and gambling with a bunch of bohemian actors while other men handled the conflict. Rather than make Verus finally smarten up, if anything, it made him even worse.

That didn't stop him from taking all the credit when Rome captured the Parthian king's main stronghold, though. But that's not nearly the worst thing he did during his little vacay in Parthia...

29. His Cousin Paid The Price

Anyone who knew Lucius Verus knew not to trust him very far, and that included Marcus Aurelius. He sent his cousin Libo along with Verus to keep an eye on the debaucherous emperor. However, Libo mysteriously turned up dead very early on in the campaign—and few people thought it was an accident. Historians have long speculated that Verus personally had Libo taken out of the picture so he'd be free to party as he pleased.

30. He Was Almost Too Nice

File:Cicero Denounces Catiline in the Roman Senate by Cesare ...en.m.wikipedia.org

It's hard to imagine two emperors more different than Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus. Verus went about doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted—which almost always meant drinking and gambling and almost never meant running an empire. Meanwhile, Marcus Aurelius always asked the Senate for permission whenever he wanted to spend money on a new project even though, as emperor, he could do whatever the heck he wanted.

But let's not go thinking that Marcus Aurelius was some saint. He was good...as far as Roman emperors go. As you're about to see, that was a pretty low bar to clear.

31. He Had A Dark Side Too

The early days of the Roman Empire weren't exactly the best time to be a Christian. Roman emperors brutally oppressed members of the fledgling religion—and somehow Marcus Aurelius managed to top them all. Under this "good emperor," not only did the Roman Empire persecute more Christians than ever, but the punishments they doled out got even harsher.

Apparently, Marcus Aurelius hadn't read the bible: If you mess with Christians, you get a plague—and one of the worst the world had ever seen was coming.

32. He Faced A New Danger

The world was changing fast while Marcus Aurelius was emperor. Trade networks spread further than ever before, and the Romans actually made contact with China for the first time ever. This meant goods and information spread across the globe—but that's not the only thing that spread. Around 165, Marcus Aurelius would face his greatest enemy yet. It came back with the soldiers from the East, and it claimed more lives than any battle ever could.

The Antonine Plague had arrived.

33. His Empire Suffered

As if Lucius Verus's campaign in the East couldn't have gone any worse, when he came back to Rome, he brought the plague with him. Believed to be smallpox or maybe measles, whatever it was, it hit Rome like a ton of bricks. People started dying by the thousands every single day. In a matter of months, Marcus Aurelius's hold on his empire started slipping—but at least there he found a silver lining to this catastrophe.

34. He Found The Bright Side

The Antonine Plague was one of the most horrifying events in human history. By the time it had ended, it had claimed the lives of up to 10 million people. However, it did solve at least one of Marcus Aurelius's problems: In 169, Aurelius's hapless co-emperor fell suddenly ill and passed at just 38 years old. Reports at the time said it was food poisoning, but many historians have speculated it was the plague.

Perhaps Roman officials didn't want people thinking a grand, divine emperor had died the same way as the common people. Either way, that was one less headache for Marcus Aurelius—but the worst scandal of his reign was soon to follow.

35. His Problems Piled Up

person walking near The Great SphinxPhoto by Spencer Davis on Unsplash

They didn't have email in the Roman Empire, so that meant news traveled really slowly. And when news did arrive, who can say if it was even true. That's what happened when a general, Avidius Cassius, received earth-shattering news in Egypt: Marcus Aurelius was no more. He wasted no time in proclaiming himself emperor, completely unaware that Marcus Aurelius was very much alive.

The whole thing started with a simple misunderstanding, but it would end in bloodshed.

36. The Pretender Screwed Up

The smart thing for Cassius to do would have been to renounce his claim to the throne once he realized Marcus Aurelius lived, but no one who wants to rule the Roman Empire would give up power that easily. By the time he heard the truth, he already had two legions behind him and he decided he kinda liked this whole empire thing. That was the biggest mistake he ever made.

37. He Got A Head In The Mail

Cassius got to enjoy being a fake emperor for exactly three months and six days. After he realized the news of Marcus Aurelius's passing was greatly exaggerated, he kept up the charade, but the writing was on the wall. Soon enough, one of his own centurians stabbed him in the back—literally. They then cut off his head and sent it straight to Marcus Aurelius to prove their loyalty.

The head absolutely horrified Aurelius, and he refused to even look at it. Granted a head would horrify most people, but the Romans tended to be into that kind of thing. Maybe he dreaded it so much because he knew who was behind this betrayal...

38. His Worst Betrayal

According to the histories, none other than Faustina herself, Marcus Aurelius's own wife, put Cassius up to the whole thing. She knew that her husband was growing old and frail, so she wanted to set up a puppet emperor to keep the throne warm until her son Commodus came of age. As if it wasn't enough to sleep around on her husband, but now she stabbed him in the back too...

39. His Wife's End Was Mysterious

If indeed it was Faustina behind the false emperor, she didn't last long enough to try something like that again. She passed in 175 under mysterious circumstances; no historian is exactly sure what happened to her. So, not only did Marcus Aurelius outlive the majority of his children, but he also outlived his much-younger wife, too.

I guess he was too busy to die. After all, he was plenty busy finishing his greatest accomplishment—the thing that would make him a legend.

40. The World Read His Diary

Fragment of a bronze portrait of Marcus Aurelius, probably… | Flickrwww.flickr.com

Marcus Aurelius's book Meditations is maybe his greatest accomplishment. Written over the course of 20 years, it's his reflection on life, politics, and philosophy. This landmark work has been studied by countless scholars over the centuries—which makes this next part a little awkward: Aurelius didn't want anyone reading it! He called the work, "To Himself" because it was basically his secret diary, intended for his eyes only.

Apparently, no one cares about an emperor's privacy after he's gone...

41. He Faded Away

Some Roman emperors died at the hands of their own soldiers. Some took their own lives, or partied so hard their hearts gave up. Marcus Aurelius was not one of those. This simple, reserved man met a simple, reserved end. He passed from unknown causes in 180 AD. He was nearly 60 and had been ill for years, and the man had surprisingly few enemies for a Roman emperor, so few historians think there was foul play involved.

The foul play would come later, because with Marcus Aurelius gone, Rome was about to enter a dark time.

42. He Was The Last Good One

When you picture the Roman Empire, you probably picture the 200 years of the Pax Romana, between the reigns of Augustus and Marcus Aurelius. Those were the golden years. Next came our boy's son Commodus, a spoiled and violent dictator whose rule threw Rome into utter chaos. From there, it was basically one long descent to the fall of Rome a couple centuries later. Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

43. His Nepotism Doomed Rome

So where the heck did everything go wrong? Here's one clue: Commodus marked the first time ever that a biological son succeeded his father as Emperor of Rome. Why's that so bad? Well, recent emperors had tended to choose heirs who they thought would make good emperors. Commodus was a brat whose mother spoiled him rotten and believed he deserved the throne with no effort. See the problem?

And the saddest part is, Marcus Aurelius saw all of this coming, yet was powerless to stop it.

44. He Didn't Believe In His Son

Marcus Aurelius knew his kid was a screw-up. He feared that Commodus would be a poor emperor, more interested in his own hedonistic pleasures than in actually ruling an empire. Well, this is one time Marcus Aurelius was actually wrong. Commodus wasn't just a poor emperor—he was one of the worst emperors ever.

45. Commodus Was Worse Than Anyone Imagined

commodus as hercules | The vainglorious megalomaniac emperor… | Flickrwww.flickr.com

Anyone who says, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree" has never heard of Commodus. While his father was intelligent, reserved, and thoughtful, Commodus was arrogant, brash, and cruel. Convinced Hercules was his ancestor, Commodus loved nothing more than doing demigod cosplay and entering the gladiator area to murder innocents and slaughter animals.

And that's not even close to the worst of it. He neglected his people, bankrupted the Empire, and eventually fell to an assassin. So much for "making daddy proud."

46. There Was One Truly Scandalous Story About Him

No matter how much Commodus stained Marcus Aurelius's legacy, everyone still considered the latter a pretty remarkable man. But even remarkable men have skeletons in their closets, and there was one chilling rumor that dogged Marcus Aurelius wherever he went. His wife's many affairs were an open secret throughout Rome—but one of her flings got a lot more disturbing than the rest.

47. His Wife Fell In Love

Faustina allegedly had many partners, but one of them was special. Multiple ancient sources claim that she actually fell in love with a nameless gladiator. Two things made this man different: Faustina actually cared for him, and Marcus Aurelius found out about him. And when the emperor did learn about his wife's affair, his response was absolutely twisted.

48. He Asked For Help

Marcus Aurelius was never one to rush into anything, so when he found out about his wife's new man, he asked some Chaldean soothsayers for advice. And boy oh boy, did they give it. The soothsayers had the perfect way for Marcus Aurelius to reclaim his manhood. First, they said Faustina must sleep with the gladiator one last time. I'm sure Aurelius wasn't too excited about that part—but it's what came next that was the truly messed up part.

49. He Did Some Weird Stuff In The Bedroom

The soothsayers had Faustina sleep with her gladiator—then had Aurelius stab the man while they were doing it. Pretty dark, right? We're just getting started. Then, he made Faustina bathe in the man's blood, and once she was good and lathered up, Aurelius slept with her over the man's still-warm body! If you think Roman histories are boring, you're not reading closely enough, because this stuff is straight out of 50 Shades of Grey fan-fic.

50. Did He Like It?

File:Marcus Aurelius auf dem Pferd.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

After that bananas bit of foreplay, one question remains: Why the heck did Marcus Aurelius put up with his wife's constant affairs? He was, after all, the emperor of the freaking Roman empire, and he could have left her if he wanted. Well, evidently, he believed that as the last emperor's daughter, "her dowry was the empire." Basically, he thought if he left her, he'd have no claim to the throne anymore.

I don't know if I really buy that—maybe he was just into it?

Apple on top of a stack of text books at a teacher's desk
Element5 Digital/Unsplash

As young students, we often looked up to our teachers...well, at least some of us did.

For the most part, we sought our valiant educators for guidance, as they put up with many of our antics as adolescents trying to find our place in the world.

Some students, however, had the odd situation in which they felt their teachers had wronged them.

Curious to hear from strangers online about their lingering bitterness, Redditor SparkelsTR asked:

"What is something your teacher did in school that you’re still salty about?"

These Redditors unjustly failed the assignment.

The Day Hopes Were Smashed

"20 years ago, we had to make a diorama. We all had them sitting on tables in the classroom and one day some other kid was messing around, fell into the table and smashed mine. I failed the assignment for having a smashed diorama."

– Lumberjack_Larry

Insistent Buyer

"In middle school I did a display with real fossils that my parents had let me borrow. The teacher was insistent that I sell the fossils to him. But I refused."

"So the teacher gave me an F on the display."

– Chrome_Armadillo

"What the f'k, did you tell your parents about it? (I know at that age it can be hard, no judgement if you didn't)"

– InfinitelyThirsting

New Kid In Town

"At the end of my first week at a new school, the teacher handed out slips of paper with our current grade. I had a solid A at my old school, but the teacher said I had an F. I asked her why. She said I didn't hand in the quarter project. I reminded her I had just moved to the school. She said we would give me the weekend to do it. The project was to interview a longtime local resident and write a paper about their experiences. The articles were being collected for a book she was 'writing.' I failed the class."

– Ohhmegawd

Trust Issues

"I had a teach accuse me and a classmate of cheating on an exam because we had the same answer. It was a multiple choice test and she was upset we both had it correct."

– JTGrings1776

Some teachers just fail in humanity.

Blacklisted Teacher

"In about 91, I was starting to get into animals, specifically marine animals. I wanted to be a marine biologist so i thought. Junior year in HS we all knew we had to do a bug collection. So I went on a family trip out of state and collected bugs in preparation. I put a lot of time into it. Mr Cope, the worst biology teacher ever, failed me because 'I could not have collected bugs he’d never seen.' Completely shattered my confidence and desire to peruse science of any sort. F'k you Mr Cope."

– seanmarshall

"I had really severe eczema on my hands as a kid. I used to keep them tucked up in my sleeves to avoid 1 people seeing them and 2 getting blood on my paper - yes, it was that bad. She called me out during a test and said to take my hands out of my sleeves because 'it’s not like that’s gonna help my grade.' I was a shy kid and silently cried through the rest of the test. Also, I was a straight A, gifted student, so why she was acting like I had poor grade I never knew. I’ll never forget that woman being needlessly cruel to a child who was already in physical pain."

– Successful-Snow-562

​Punishing The Innocent

"She told me to get the hell out of her classroom because I forgot to get something signed by my mom. She then marked me as truant and played dumb when the principal got involved."

– shelblikadoo

"Similar story. My mother had me relay a question to my kindergarten teacher about an upcoming field trip. When I asked my teacher started screaming at me. I don’t recall all she said other than continuing to call me stupid and threatening to have me paddled by the principal. I just remember going back and wanting to hide under my desk with everyone staring at me. This was just one example of her behavior."

"That sh*t impacted me for years."

– No_Golf632

Shy Of An "A"

"Never gave my art a higher grade than a B+. Even though she asked me every year if she could hold my art back, to show everyone how to correctly apply a technique or what she wanted from everyone else that next year. Not good enough for an A, but this is perfect and it's what I want everyone to do. Which is it then? B*tch."

– wyntereign

Being bullied is common, but not so much when it's the teachers who are causing the harm.

Terrified

"Threatened to hit me when, as a brand new mid-term transfer in Grade 3, I was too scared to speak to ask for her help, so I had tapped her on the arm instead to get her attention. Apparently, that warranted threatening to assault an 8 yo in the 90s."

"I had been there less than 2 weeks and had just transferred from a school of 40 to a school of over 200."

– airazaneo

Touchy

"Some teacher did the same to me when I transfered from primary to middle grade (small town, one school had kindergarden up to 4th grade then the second one has 5th grade to 8th grade then it was 9 to 12 at another one). I tapped her at recess because I had been waiting to ask her something for 10 minutes and she wasn't looking at my raised hand. She absolutely lost it and berated me. Turns out she had had cancer in that arm not too long ago and wasn't comfortable being touched. I understand but I didn't know about that and I was only like 10 y.o."

– MistressEdaora

Mental Abuse

"High school psychology teacher 'evaluated' me in front of the whole class as 'mentally troubled' and told everyone that I’m 'an undiagnosed ADD-case with 99% certainty'. And because she was a psych teacher, everyone took her word for it."

"Yeah, thanks for making everyone think I was mental throughout high school and giving me nagging self-doubts if I really did have ADD for most of my 20s, until I got that medically ruled out."

"I wasn’t always the best behaved kid and even back then I understood that, but that was pretty harsh of her."

– SilenceFriendly

Growing up Japanese American in Los Angeles, I attended a school every Saturday for Japanese students who were temporarily staying in the US so that my parents were assured I would be in an environment where I could communicate in the native language.

One of the cultural health regimens incorporated into our classes was an exercise/stretching session where we followed an instructor and moved our bodies to recorded piano music. It was called "Radio Taiso"–or radio exercise.

So, being the most agile and naturally limber student in the class, I clearly demonstrated my advanced physical abilities.

However, I was embarrassed for it by a teacher who was observing the session to make sure all the students were giving proper form.

She asked me, in front of my fellow middle-school students, "Are you a homo?" in Japanese.

"Why yes, I am!" was not an answer I was prepared to give at 14, even though I knew I was different and didn't like girls.

That moment traumatized me further into the closet, and it took me a long time to get over that shame until I was ready and came out at 21.

Man hitting a fork in the road hiking
Photo by Caleb Jones on Unsplash

Not a day goes by when we won't have to make a decision of some kind.

On rare occasions, we might even have to make an extremely serious decision which we know will have major consequences down the line.

These might include accepting a job that would require you to move cities, whether or not staying in your relationship is good for you, or almost literally life or death decisions about your own health.

Most of the time however, the decisions we are forced to make day in and day out are fairly minor, such as whether to walk or take the subway, or coffee or tea with your breakfast.

Whatever we choose, it won't end up having any major effect or ramifications on our lives.

Or will it?

Redditor his_Check_4267 was curious to hear if anyone ever made what seemed like a minor decision that ended up having a major effect on their life, leading them to ask:

"What's a small, seemingly insignificant decision you've made that ended up having a huge impact on your life?"

When The Wrong Train Ended Up Being The Right One...

"Took the wrong train in a new city to a job a minimum wage job that I didn't want but needed at the time."

"Asked a random guy for directions when phone GPS still kind of sucked."

"He happened to be going in the same general direction."

"We rode a train together and nerded out on films we were into."

"He was an aspiring filmaker (very beginnings of aspirations), and I was just a film nerd without any post high school education or thought of 'breaking into the industry'."

"We ended up becoming roommates and collaborators eventually."

"Sold our first film to IFC like 2 years ago."- SrgtSquarePants

Right Place, Right Time

"Worked in a kindergarten during my gap years between high school and university."

"I didn't even plan to go at the time."

"A kid with speech and social issues happened to take a special liking to me, resulting in me agreeing to work closely with his speech therapist, despite only being the teachers assistant."

"This reignited my interest in language and made me apply to be a linguistics major."

"My high school grades made it a long shot, but it turns out that very year they tested out a new system of accepting 50% of students based on motivational essays, to try to combat a high drop out rate in linguistics."

"I made it in on that, they ditched it the next year cause it didn't work."

"I now have masters in Language Psychology and start teaching at the same university this semester."

"If I had applied literally any other year, my chances would have been like lottery odds."- MonsieurRud

Graduation Graduate GIF by Reba McEntireGiphy

Secret Setup Maybe?...

"Me and 2 other coworkers decided to grab some dinner after our shift."

"One ended up cancelling, so I thought my other coworker would cancel too."

"We were both hungry, so we decided to still grab dinner together."

"We'd been coworkers for over a year and have always gotten along, but this dinner truly felt like a first date."

"It was so enjoyable and we talked so much that we didn't realize the restaurant had been closed and that the workers had been cleaning up around us."

"Servers were too nice to interrupt our conversation."

"Him and I ended up falling in love soon after that."

"Been together for over 6 happy years and wouldn't change a thing."- stereotypedhonesty

Cracked The Code

"I had a blog where I couldn’t figure out some HTML code, so I emailed the blog of another person who had figured it and they sent me the code."

"They lived about 1,000 miles from me and had never spoken before."

"Four years later we’re married, bought a house, and have a child together."- Manejar

art evolve GIF by ashleyrobertsGiphy

Some Bad Habits Pay Off...

"Was at a conference and stepped outside for a smoke."

"Bumped into a friend of mine who introduced me to the man he was walking with."

"That man encouraged me to apply for an opening in his office and, six months later, he hired me."

"It was the job that jumpstarted my career, changing my trajectory."

"And all because of a bad habit."- The_Dude311

Closer And Closer To The Action

"I took a job in an Emergency Room doing insurance paperwork."

"I thought 'Okay but what happens before they get to the hospital?"'"

"That exposure lead to a career as a 1st Responder."

"I never would have imagined I would be helping people in Emergencies been doing it every day for decades."- YerekYeeter·

There Is Always A Way Back...

"I went to prison for a robbery."

"I did it."

"I was a heroin addict."

"After almost 5 years in, at a work center, I got a write-up which would make me stay in for a few months longer."

"The warden offered a deal if I would paint a mural at a local high school of their mascot, they'd forgive the writeup."

"I had always been good at drawing (they knew that which is why they asked) but had never done a mural."

"I figured out how to scale it up in my head and did it."

" I got out about 6 months later and made it my career."

"I'm now married, happy, and fully booked until summer of next year for work, owning my own business."

"In September, I will have been out for 10 years."

"I also hid my initials in the high school mascot mural."- therealbiggravy

rainbow painting GIFGiphy

Home Is Where The Heart Is

"I was flying to Costa Rica to go backpacking south from there, my sister told me to fly into Guatemala, I had to see it."

"So I did, and here I am still 10 years later, with a son and a life I never imagined."- Old_Insect

Some Things Are Worth The Risk

"I was doing online dating with no success and I was ready to give up."

"I almost canceled my date just out of pessimism but figured it was already scheduled, I’ll just go and if it doesn’t work out I’ll just take a break from dating."

"The date lasted about 8 hours and 15 years later we’re still together."- Rolling_Beardo

Hey, You Never Know...

"Entered the green card lottery."

"Friend was trying to figure out how to do it, so I downloaded the instructions and completed an application to show them how."

"Since it was easier than asking them for all their info, I made a dummy application using my own info."

"When I was done I thought 'meh, might as well' and dropped my application into the outgoing mail."

"Then forgot all about it."

"I was highly confused when, nearly a year later, I got a letter from the state dept."

"I’ve been in the US for 20 years now, married, kids, the whole thing."

"Biggest change I ever made, and it was just a random 15-minute thing I did to help a buddy."- dbpnz

Lottery Lotto GIFGiphy

It Pays To Share

"On a night out I went to Burger King and at the last second decided to get chicken nuggets with my burger instead of chips."

"I ate the burger but didn't feel like the nuggets by this point (and wished I'd gotten chips instead) so I asked the person opposite me on the bus if he wanted them."

"My exact words were 'ay lad do you want my chicken nuggets?'"

"He said yes and we got talking."

"That was 16 years ago and now we are married with a beautiful daughter."- gembob891

Even when it seems like it doesn't matter in the moment, it's always worth thinking carefully before making any decision.

As sometimes, taking the long route or ordering a second round could end up being the very decision that changes your life forever.


Medical OMG Encounters
Photo by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash

Medical workers are used to seeing shocking things. Even so, sometimes, even the most seasoned professionals are left astonished. Doctors, nurses, and even some patients on Reddit share some of their OMG moments that left them speechless.

1. Papering Over The Crack

I was working as a surgical junior when my team was called down to A&E to see a patient who had come in with a complication from a recent hernia operation. When we came down, we saw that the patient was holding a plastic bag over their abdomen.

When this was removed, we found that their wound had opened, and their intestine was visible to the air. But that wasn't the worst part. It transpired that this was not something that had happened overnight; it had taken several days.

The patient had started using plastic bags and newspaper to dress the wound when they ran out of dressings.

Permalink

2. She Had A Bone To Pick With Him

This middle-aged married couple in rural Alabama had presented to the ER after they had been drinking for almost the entirety of the evening and got into a heated argument. Things got intense, and the woman eventually fell off the porch of their trailer into the shrubs a few feet below.

The husband, in his plastered state, suddenly dropped the argument and came to his wife's aid. She didn't suffer anything too serious, just a couple of scratches here and there, except for what the man said looked like a piece of glass, pipe, or something that became lodged in the woman's arm when she hit the ground.

He decided not to come to the hospital because he could remove this object himself. He got his largest pair of pliers and gripped onto this glass/pipe-looking thing lodged in his helpless wife's arm. He clamped down and pulled and pulled, cranked and cranked, trying to remove this object, and it wouldn't budge.

After his masculinity was defeated and the booze wore off on both of them, they decided it sensible to come to the ER finally. Upon arriving at the ER, the doctor immediately made the most disturbing discovery. He realized this poor woman had a compound fracture of her humerus.

This "pipe or piece of glass thing" was her bone sticking through her skin that her husband was trying to pry out with a pair of pliers.

kaduceus

3. On The Fence About His Care

danger electric fence signPhoto by Alan J. Hendry on Unsplash

I was a nurse and worked in a very rural hospital. We had a patient population that seemed to avoid the hospital at all costs. My favorite was an elderly farmer who came in with chest pain that, “Wouldn't go away”, as he put it. When we asked him if he had it before, he said that he had been having chest pain on and off for years, but it would typically go away after he grabbed his electric fence.

Apparently, the first time he had the pain, he was standing out near an electric fence on his farm. He reached out to steady himself and accidentally grabbed the electric fence, which shocked him, and made the pain go away. So after that, whenever he would have the pain, he just went and grabbed the fence and it made him feel better.

He had literally been cardioverting himself for years.

FlaviusArrianus

4. An Unwelcomed Vacation Souvenir

A friend, who is a family doctor, was treating a pre-teen girl who was complaining about pain in the back of her neck. He did a preliminary examination and found a lump, and thought that it was likely a cyst that had become infected. The parents agreed that he should remove it. That's when he noticed it move.

It was a large botfly larva that the girl had picked up while vacationing with the family in South America and was the size of a nickel.

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5. Scraping At The Stink

A woman about 35 years old came in for a Pap smear. I saw something dark brown in the right lateral fornix. My first thought was cancer. I tried to gently scrape at this dark brown area to get a feel of what it was when the smell hit me. My medical assistant scooted away to the edge of the room.

I stopped breathing through my nose and started to breathe only a couple of times a minute from my mouth, turning my head away from the source of the smell to take a breath. Maneuvering the speculum a bit more and scraping a bit at the brown area some more revealed an answer to the mystery.

It was a thick cylindrical clump of something—an old tampon! The patient had no idea that it was there, and her period had ended over a week ago. So this thing had been there for over a week and the lady was walking around living life as usual. Thankfully she did not get TSS.

Retrieval of the tampon was uneventful and the lady was sent home with advice on being more careful with remembering to take out tampons, or perhaps consider switching to pads instead.

BetelguesePDX

6. Freed By A Falling Flap

man sitting on grey sofaPhoto by Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

My mom is a nurse and has seen some pretty messed-up things. The one story that sticks in my mind involved an elderly man who came into the hospital three times a week to have a growth on his face washed and redressed. The growth had slowly taken over the left-hand side of his face, so much so that his left eye—his only working eye—had closed over. He was effectively blind.

This meant that his wife—whom he had been looking after for years due to her frailty—was now tasked with looking after him instead. Furthermore, this bloke was old enough that the hospital didn’t want to operate on him. So the hospital visits stopped.

He could no longer get there, so instead, a nurse would visit him three times a week. The growth was unsightly, wept constantly, and smelled bad—really bad. The whole house stank of it. During one of these visits by my mom, she was cleaning his face over the sink and noticed a flap of loose skin.

She went to clean it with the sponge and the unthinkable happened. “SQQUELPCH”! The growth fell off into the sink, and it was CRAWLING with maggots. The sink was now filled with necrotic flesh and maggots. It turned out a fly had laid some eggs on it at some point.

They had hatched and started eating all the necrotic flesh in the growth until it fell off. The man was fine. There was new, pink skin where the growth had been, and he could see again out of his left eye. It gave him a new lease on life.

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7. Totally Tongue-Tied

I noticed a small lump in the middle of my tongue and thought, "Oh, I must have burned it, whatever". The next morning, however, it had grown by a lot. It was freaky-looking, so I told my mom. She flipped out and took me to the doctor right away. Near tears along with my mother in the ER, we waited for hours as she bothered the attending nurse to no end.

Finally, they called my name and brought me to a room. It started as a normal visit until the doctor said, "I've never seen anything like that". My mom was crying, and my heart was pounding. Growing up in a medical community, my 10-year-old brain was conditioned to think that doctors knew everything. They brought in another doctor and another.

Then, they put me on a dentist-style chair with huge, bright lights shining on me. Before long, there were five doctors and the chief of staff staring at my tongue. My mom was sitting silent in the corner absolutely horrified. So what did this brain trust of brilliant medical minds come up with? "We're going to try poking it". Even at 10, I was thinking, "Can I get a second opinion?"

I could not, however, talk because they were literally holding my tongue. They sprayed me with a local anesthetic that tasted like mustard, and the chief surgeon washed up, and put on goggles and a mask. He slowly moved a shining metal prod into my mouth; I could feel the pressure on my tongue. He pulled back, looked at me, and asked me possibly the grandest non-sequitur I've heard in my entire life.

"When was the last time you ate popcorn"? I was completely caught off guard and said, "A couple of days ago". I remembered because I was trying to eat it quietly as we watched The X-Files. So the doctor sets on my bib a perfect half of a kernel husk. It had, apparently, suctioned itself to my tongue, and because tongue tissue is so quick to generate, it was essentially absorbed by my body.

Lots of doctors were laughing, my mom was crying for joy now, and I was totally stunned. I even wound up in a big medical journal because of it.

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8. The Endless Gaping Wound

I was the tissue viability nurse for my ward which basically meant I went around checking people are not developing ulcers from being stuck in bed too long. I was doing a normal round and I came to a 19-year-old who had just had a lung procedure. "This will be quick," I thought to myself, as younger people are generally at a lower risk for these things.

I had been looking after this guy for a few days post-op. We were both pretty young and I got to build up a good rapport with him. So, I approached him and explained how I need to check his sacral area (aka the rear) and apologized, saying it should only take a glance.

He laughed it off and said, "Actually, there is something there. I didn't really want anyone to see, so I have not mentioned it before but for the last YEAR it is always painful when I go to the toilet and wipe after". At that point, alarm bells rang, and I went full-nurse mode and decided that something was not quite right.

So, I put on my protective gear, drew his curtains, and dove on in. However, I was NOT prepared for what was there. As I pulled his cheeks apart to inspect the skin, it literally just kept going, right down to muscle and bone. The worst part, though, was it was full of infection.

The smell was so powerful, it literally hit me in the face. Not only was there a bacterial infection, but a fungal one too. It was as if Jackson Pollock had gone up in there and created a masterpiece. I did not dare part the wound open all the way because I could not see how deep it went.

I turned to the poor guy and explained he had a serious wound there, and I needed to get the doctor to look at it. He was amazing about it. While I was fetching the doc, he got his friend to take a picture on his phone so he could see it. I will never forget the words he said when I came back around the curtain.

He said, "Oh my God. MY [REAR] GOES ON FOREVER. No wonder it hurt". At that point, I nearly keeled over laughing. He made a full recovery.

sillyegg

9. Her Vile Vapor Filled The Vents

woman in teal shirt wearing white maskPhoto by SJ Objio on Unsplash

I was working in a smallish hospital in a rural town in Australia. We were asked by the medical team to see a patient who had been admitted under their care by the emergency department overnight with a CT demonstrating a very distended bladder. They apparently had trouble with a catheter, so they called me to have a look.

With much hesitation, I went up to see her in the ward. I managed to put the catheter in with a lot of trouble. A little bit of urine drained out, and I just kept thinking something was not right. I went back and looked at the CT scan and the IDC placed in the emergency department looked like it was appropriately positioned and subsequently pulled out.

Behind it, was one big uterus, absolutely full of what appeared to be a fluid density. The report read that there was a very distended bladder, the catheter balloon was situated in the PROSTATIC URETHRA, and moderate to severe hydronephrosis was noted. I spoke to the consultant, and we got her to the theater.

With great difficulty, we managed to dissect our way around this HUGE uterus, and we called the O&G guys to come and help get it out. Unfortunately, during this process, the uterus burst and there was a boatload of pus that just streamed out. It smelled horrible.

There were people gagging around us at this yellow-green, sulfuric-smelling goo. The scrub nurse could no longer take it and vomited in her mask. We finished this case; I went home and kept thinking I could still smell this awful thing. The morning came, and I couldn’t have breakfast because I could still smell it.

I got to the hospital, and EVERYONE was wearing masks. Apparently, the smell was so horrible, and the extraction in our theater was so outdated that it had somehow pumped the smell into the vents around the hospital. All night, small amounts were leaking out into the atmosphere, causing this horrendous smell.

The lady lived for another three years.

draydz

10. The Ugly Tooth

I was a children’s nurse. On my first week in the pediatric ED, we had a young girl, about six or seven, come in with a really swollen jaw and face. The poor girl was unable to move her jaw without intense pain and hadn’t been able to eat for several days.

It turned out she had only just started cleaning her teeth for the first time ever, and managed to develop several abscesses and rotten teeth in the process. To make it worse, her mom told us she was recovering from the same procedures to remove most of her teeth because of almost the same thing.

They didn’t want to bother going to the GP, as they thought she was just messing about to get out of school.

MontanaT13

11. Cooked To A Crisp

I am a med student, and I've seen some pretty nasty stuff, but the best stories come courtesy of my parents, who are both doctors. My dad's story occurred while we were living in Scotland in the early 90s. It was a particularly sunny day by Scottish standards and one of the rare days you might be able to get a tan. The Scots are not known for their ability to tan, and the typical Celtic Scots less so.

However, one such Celt was rather overzealous and decided he would really go for it on this day in question. He cracked out several sheets of tin foil and basted himself in cooking oil. Probably the biggest mistake of his life. Needless to say, he pitched up to the ED a few hours later with third-degree burns all over his body.

ladotelli

12. Bag It Up!

people in white shirt holding clear drinking glassesPhoto by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

There was a patient who came in with a well-known history of diabetes. When I saw him, the worst of it was already over, but he still had legs like sausages, and the smell in the room was like a garbage dump. There were these strange bands around his ankles that were indented to over a centimeter deep. Apparently, he had developed an ulcer on his foot.

Instead of cleaning it and bandaging it, he decided to just put a sock over it. Eventually, the ulcer developed into gangrene, and the pus began to soak through the sock. The smell became overwhelming, even for him, so he decided to seek medical attention as a responsible adult would do. Just kidding—he put a plastic bag over it.

Eventually, the pus seeped around the edges of the bag and started leaking again, giving rise to the horrific smell. Now things were getting out of control, so he decided to get it properly looked at. Got you again! He put another plastic bag over it. This process was repeated about 9–10 times.

In the ER, they had been peeling off this giant mass of plastic and necrotic tissue glued together with pus and held on with elastic bands around the ankles. It was like his foot turned into a giant onion with each layer smelling worse than the previous one.

Two or three nurses apparently threw up and they had to rotate people in to do the next layer. He wasn't even in much pain because he had long-standing neuropathy in his feet, which was why he was able to ignore the problem for so long.

clessa

13. Bladder Leakage

I have seen a lot of things, but the one thing that really sticks out is something I saw as a medical student. I was on a general medicine rotation and was seeing an elderly lady for urinary problems. Specifically, she was having trouble holding her urine. She mentioned in passing that she had something coming out of her, like a mass, but she couldn't see what it was.

My resident and I decided that we ought to take a look. Upon examining her pelvic region, we were unable to use a speculum to visualize the interior of her parts because there was a firm mass protruding from her. That's when we made a chilling realization. The mass was her bladder. It had prolapsed.

ktthemighty

14. An Out Of This World Excuse

I was a med student and have a few stories. This one isn't gross, it’s just sort of a Twilight Zone moment. I was explaining to a woman that we needed to do an MRI and she calmly informed me that she couldn't get an MRI because she had a metal tracking device in her body that had been implanted 10 years previously when she was abducted by aliens.

Previous to that, I had been speaking with her for an hour, and she had given every indication of being a perfectly sane and normal person with intact mental faculties. I just replied, without skipping a beat, that we could safely CT her instead. Virtually nothing shocks me anymore.

screenmagnet

15. Blind To The Truth

black and gray wheelchair on blue floorPhoto by vitor camilo on Unsplash

I had a patient come in saying he couldn’t see. When we asked how long it had been going on, they said five days. The man had been blind for five days and didn’t come in because he thought it might be “like a cold or something”. During the exam, when I asked him to move his legs he said, “Oh, I can’t do that”. My jaw DROPPED.

I asked how long he’d been unable to move his legs or walk and his wife chimed in, “About two years”. He never saw a doctor about it. They just borrowed a friend’s wheelchair and kept it rolling. It turned out he’d had multiple strokes with multiple risk factors he never addressed.

Given how little insight he appeared to have into the condition, I honestly felt sorry for him.

DOctermom

16. Some Crazy Monkey Business

A good friend of mine is a nurse and by nature has the best stories. She was working the med-surg floor in the hospital and had a female patient who was so obese, she needed a service animal to help her. It was not a dog, as most people would think, but a monkey.

This lady had a service monkey that would get her glasses for her, grab the remote for the TV—all kinds of things. It was odd, but not really a crazy moment...until she walked into the room to take the woman’s vitals and found her with the monkey sucking on her bosom feeding it.

octopencilpus

17. Stash Bang

I was working in the ER one night when a woman came in with a "retained foreign body". When I went in to see her, she told me she had been doing the deed, and the man told her that something had slipped off inside her. She tried to retrieve it but was unable to, but she could feel that something was in there.

I grabbed a nurse, a speculum, and some forceps and took a look. There was certainly something in there, but not what I was expecting. I pulled it out, and it was a $20 bill. I asked her if she had put it in there, and she said she hadn't. She was clearly as confused as I was.

I asked her if she wanted it, and she declined. Needless to say, it went in the trash. I could never come up with an adequate explanation of why this woman had a $20 bill in her, nor why her partner would have put it there.

Permalink

18. The Discovery Of A Tasty Treat

woman in blue and white polo shirt standing on yellow flower field during daytimePhoto by Luke Jones on Unsplash

My dad is a nurse. I have asked him this question before and most of the stories are about people who come in with deodorant cans up their rears and try to claim that they were climbing in a window and fell on the can or something. However, there is one story that he has told me that really stands out.

When my dad was in his mid-20s, he worked in the emergency department of a hospital. One day, this overweight lady came in complaining of abdominal pain. They started to look her over. Everything was going fine until they decided to look in the folds of her gigantic stomach when they smelled this horrible smell.

They found a decomposed chicken wing covered in maggots, which had started eating at part of her skin. Yum.

Bonjizz

19. A Bundle Of Joy

I was on OB/GYN rotations, delivering my first baby. It was an older lady from the rural side of town. When I asked her to push as the baby had fully crowned, a bundle of worms exited her rear. I'm talking at least 60 live worms. I gagged so hard but managed to keep a straight face throughout and deliver the baby.

I realized then and there that OB/GYN was not for me.

svinch

20. What’s In The Bag?

I was an ER nurse. We brought in a code trauma off the helicopter; a lady who was a passenger in a really bad wreck. Her husband was driving and lost his life at the scene. Once we got her stable, the OR staff came to take her to surgery. I gathered up the clothes we had cut off of her and grabbed her purse that the EMTs had removed from the car.

There was a lot of blood on it, so I thought I should just grab her wallet instead. What happened next still haunts me. I reached in and grabbed what I thought was her wallet and pulled it out—it had hair. It was a chunk of her husband's scalp.

canigooutside

21. Quaking In His Shoes

man in blue and orange adidas crew neck t-shirt standing beside white van during daytimePhoto by Michel E on Unsplash

My friend worked as a paramedic in Hamburg for some time. They were called to an unconscious person who was slumped down on a park bench close to the train station. They approached the guy and tried to wake him up, checked his vital signs, etc, then put him on the ground. He had no shoes on but had wrapped up his legs in plastic bags.

If you have ever been around addicts, you know most of them don't smell too good. After a while, they just give up on personal hygiene, which, incidentally, is actually more dangerous than the substance itself since they tend not to treat their scabs, etc. This guy reeked to high heaven, and once they proceeded to check his plastic bag shoes, they discovered the heartbreaking reason why.

His legs up to his knees were completely black and full of maggots. He had an infection in both legs due to using needles and never treated them. Once they lifted the plastic bags up a little, which were melted into his decaying flesh, little mountains of maggots would fill around his feet.

It was hands down, one of the most disgusting things he had seen.

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22. The Crusty Old Man

When I was working in the ER one evening, I had my worst experience so far. I was called to one of the examination rooms that were designated for infectious patients. This was already a bad sign as it usually involved some sort of abscess that needed to be drained. However, this time it was far worse.

I was told by the nurse that it involved a man who had bilateral venous ulcers on his legs and that they were now infected. I looked through his journal and saw that he last saw a doctor about ten months earlier, and no note of any check-ups after, not by a nurse or a GP.

Therefore, I asked my nurse when someone last took a look at his legs. They replied, "Not since his last journal entry". Then I asked when was the last time he changed his dressings on the legs. They said, "He hasn't". The patient was an old man who lived by himself in his trailer that was parked in the middle of the forest.

He had no running water. He was a bit of a drinker and had a general "I don't care” mentality. I suited up and went into the room. The room smelled like an odd combination of stale brew, mold, and disease. Certain infections smell different, and this one was very pungent, almost sulphuric.

I introduced myself to the patient who didn't understand what he was doing there. All he wanted was some antibiotics for the flu, and then he was sent here. He asked, "Why do you want to look at my legs for? They were already taken care of last year". We started unfolding the dressing.

They were crusty and crackled as we unwrapped the first leg. As we got deeper, it changed color to some sickly yellow and the stench became worse and worse. One of my nurses left the room to throw up. Then I saw it. It was very small but inside a fold, there was a little maggot who squirmed.

When we finally got to the wound, we saw all the little maggots feasting on this man. There must have been 50 of them. The stench was absurd, I was focusing a lot on breathing through my mouth, but then it felt like I could taste them, which made it even worse.

My nurse came back and promptly went out again. I unwrapped his other leg and, same story there, but the infection was much deeper and I could see a few tendons on the base of the ulcer. We had to clean off the maggots and place them in a bowl, but they were squirming, and went on the floor and crawled all over the place. I had to watch my feet so I didn't step on them.

After that, we took the patient to hose him down to at least try to get rid of some of the smell. Then, we booked to the OR for debridement and a fresh vacuum dressing. He was discharged a few days later with strict instructions, and we booked him in to return for re-dressings and check-ups. Then, we never heard from him again.

lazilymotivated

23. Dancing With Doom

There used to be a well-known patient who would present to the emergency department with frequent urinary tract infections. Urinary tract infections are much less common in men than in women and don't occur sporadically that often. This gentleman was a male exotic dancer, and his party trick would be what he called a "ruby shower".

In essence, he would empty his bladder, and replace its contents, via a catheter, with red wine. He would then empty his bladder during his performances. Unfortunately, fate caught up with him. One infection became too severe and he did not survive.

drlittmann

24. Guess What Was Bugging Him

When attending a urology conference, you get to hear quite a few stories. My favorite even had a video along with the question, "Guess what we're looking at?" My guess was what was being shown was the inside of a bladder—got that part right—and two small corn cobs floating around inside of it.

Two small corn cobs would have been weird enough as it is, but we were looking at two slugs. Apparently, the patient walked into the hospital claiming that something did not feel right when peeing. After being confronted with the contents of his bladder, he claimed that he had taken a nap in the grass the day before, and the slugs "must have crawled inside by themselves" without him noticing.

berlinerbolle

25. Intestical Distress

two men wearing blue lab coatsPhoto by Olga Guryanova on Unsplash

I recently spent some time working in the operating department and one day we had a "giant inguinal hernia". At this point, in my experience in the hospital, I thought nothing could surprise me, but dear Lord, was I wrong! The patient had mental health issues, and we got him on the table, knocked out with anesthetics, and pulled off his gown to take a look.

We did an open surgery through his abdomen and spent hours pulling his INTESTINES out of his family jewels. Basically, the guy’s abdominal wall broke through and allowed his intestines to slowly fill them up, but this had been going on for years before he got it checked.

Bendersas

26. Two Gut-Busting Dilemmas

My father-in-law, Dr J, was an ER doctor for 20 years. Twice he's been really surprised. The first time was a patient that came in holding his stomach, with the front of his jacket bloody. He looked very out of it, and it was obvious he was under the influence of something. Dr J asked him what the problem was, and the guy calmly said, "My stomach hurts".

He went to have a look. As he pulled the guy's coat away, the worst happened. His intestines spilled onto the floor! It turned out he and a friend were getting high when the friend accidentally blasted him in the stomach. He explained it very matter-of-factly, "Oh man, I need to go to the hospital".

The other incident was when a male patient came in complaining of abdominal pain. Dr J decided after an examination that they needed to do a scope. So there he is, minding his own business, navigating through this guy’s bowels with a camera when suddenly a light facing the opposite way blinded the camera.

It was a flashlight. I can imagine why it was there, but I h have no idea why it was on. Dr J had told the man he had to consult with another physician, then left the room and collapsed from laughing so hard. He said it was like watching a cartoon where somebody runs down a tunnel and meets a train head-on, except the tunnel was a rear end, and the train was a flashlight.

Sideshow87

27. How To Free Willy

silver and black combination lockPhoto by Nicolas HIPPERT on Unsplash

While working in the ER one night, we had a guy come in complaining of groin pain. So we brought him back and it turned out he had a Master Lock—the kind with the spinning dial that you use to secure your locker at school—locked around his member. Essentially, blood could flow in but could not flow back out, so this thing was hugely swollen.

He had panicked after he realized he could not remember the combination and he took a screwdriver to the dial and snapped it off. So, we consulted with urology and the urologist wanted to take him to surgery, cut him length-wise, slide the top out then the bottom, and then suture it back up. Needless to say, the patient wasn't thrilled with option A.

So, option B was for this big nurse, Tom, to go in with bolt cutters and cut it off. Option B was selected. The curtain closed and Tom gave a “one, two, three”. There was a loud scream at “three” and a popping noise. Tom exited with a broken lock and the man was sent to the floor to recover.

Plays_in_traffic

28. Fountain Of Goo

I was working in the emergency department one afternoon, and we had an elderly lady just calling out, “Help me, help me," repeatedly all afternoon. She was brought in by her nursing home for “agitation," which is normally code for they can't handle them anymore.

So the patient was placed with a care assistant to try and calm her down and make sure she didn't wander around the ward. The carer was helping to feed the patient and I walked past when, suddenly, the lady just breathed in her liquid diet and collapsed backward.

I, of course, instantly pushed the medical emergency button and everyone came running from all over. We assessed her airway and it was deemed clear, but not self-supporting. There was no food in there, which was strange. She wasn't breathing and no heartbeat was present, so one of the male nurses started compressing her chest, while another nurse tried to insert an airway.

As he compressed on her chest, a nightmare ensued. A literal fountain of murky green goo spurted from her mouth, all over the walls, ceiling, and medical staff. The poor male nurse had to keep compressing the chest while the other nurse kept trying to suction the patient's airway to clear it enough to insert an airway.

After five or six minutes, the nurse finally got the airway in after suctioning over six liters of this goo, and after some defib, the doctor declared the patient deceased. The bay and the surrounding area was just drenched in this slimy, murky brown-green mess. It was absolutely breathtakingly disgusting.

Eventually, we found out the poor old lady had a massive bowel obstruction. Her heart stopped while eating, and the goo was days and days of liquid poo. Safe to say I scrubbed myself raw in the shower that night.

Nursekate15

29. Stuff A Sock In It

When my professor was an ER nurse, an elderly 80-something-year-old woman came into the ER. As he assessed her, he noticed her oral temperature was normal despite her neck being extremely hot to the touch. He decided to take her temperature through the rear, which ended up being around 103 or something crazy.

While he was down there, he noticed something peeking out and proceeded to remove it. It was an old sock. She said her uterus had prolapsed months before, and she was using the sock to keep it in. They began treating her for toxic shock syndrome immediately, but sadly she went septic and lost her life later that day.

pinkawapuhi

30. Trying To Absorb What We Saw

woman in red shirt wearing blue gogglesPhoto by MedicAlert UK on Unsplash

So this young female came in complaining of acute abdominal pain and a fever. We ran through all the normal procedures and came up with nothing. So, we pushed ahead and gave her a quick pelvic exam. As soon as she spread her legs, I almost threw up. I've been around some stinky folks and some smelly wounds, but this was horrendous.

We wound up evacuating half the clinic because the smell that emanated from her was causing people to gag in the hallways and waiting room. She had left a tampon in, forgot it was there, and shoved another one in, burying the first one. That tampon sat for what we guessed was at least two months, decaying.

Then, of course, the area around was extremely infected. When she came to us, she was in the early stages of septic shock.

ArrowInTheMyst

31. She Sprung A Leak

As an imaging tech, we once had a patient who was close to 400 pounds who was fairly well bedbound. To assist with hygiene, the patient had a tube that drained their poo away, but it had fallen out probably a day earlier. As a result, there was a pool of horrible substances trapped beneath her, brewing.

This was discovered when we rolled her to position her for X-rays. The smell cleared the room and lingered there for hours. Meanwhile, people went and showered and changed their clothes from the pervasive creeping miasma that was the worst thing I have ever smelt in 15 years working in hospitals.

MacroDacro

32. Poor Little Kitty

I just recently caught up with an old friend who is now an OR nurse. She told me she was preparing a morbidly obese woman for surgery, scrubbing her down and cleaning the areas up underneath the fat rolls that hadn't seen the light of day in God knows how many years. When she picked up one particularly hefty roll around the side of this lady near the lower back, she stopped suddenly.

She discovered what looked like a bone. She mustered her courage and continued to investigate. A moment later she uncovered the skeleton of a small kitten. The bones were fused with the still-rotting flesh of the sad little creature. Holding back tears and vomit, she walked around to face the large woman and said, "Ma'am, I don't want to alarm you, but I've just found the remains of a small cat in one of your fat rolls".

The lady's response, seemingly unfazed, was, "Oh! I've been looking for him!" Apparently, people that are huge develop rather thick calluses in their rolls from all the friction. This cat could have been clawing for life in there and she might not have felt a thing. Poor little guy.

_meetmeinmontauk_

33. As White As Snow

Doctor wearing a maskPhoto by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

My dad is an internal medicine physician. A young man in his late teens came into the hospital with a question about a condition he was having. He said his groin region was itchy and uncomfortable, so my dad asked him to remove his pants, so he could try to identify the problem.

The guy was African American, so my dad was shocked when the man pulled down his pants, and the hair down there was white. It turned out the guy had gotten crabs from his lover, and the little bugs had laid microscopic eggs in his groin hair, making it look white. The mental image still gives me the chills.

jaugust13

34. Not A Leg To Stand On

My wife is a surgeon. I get about an hour every night where she unloads the horrible stuff she sees. One that sticks out is the girl and her boyfriend, who were on a motorcycle. They were taking an underground turn from one highway to the next, and he was going way too fast.

He started to get close to the wall, so the girlfriend on the back made a disastrous decision. She decided to go ahead and put her foot up on the wall of the tunnel. Her foot caught the wall, she flew off, her leg broke at the femur, and the broken bottom half of her leg drove straight into her groin.

Permalink

35. Getting Busy After Baby

This has happened a few times, but I had a gal come in on a Monday after being discharged from the hospital the Friday after giving birth. So, basically, we tell ladies to avoid intimacy until a doctor clears them. Well, her spouse kept insisting and insisting and insisting, so on Friday night, she caved in and let him go to town.

He wound up tearing some stitches that were placed and she was bleeding badly all weekend long. She came into our clinic, blue in the lips and fingers, and her hemoglobin was a four when the normal should be 12–15. She didn't want to be a bother, so she waited until she started feeling dizzy all the time before she came in.

She got another trip to the hospital for a transfusion and repair for that.

Ssutuanjoe

36. Clear Out!

man wearing white uniform salutingPhoto by sydney Rae on Unsplash

I was a nurse working in emergency for the first five years of my career. An old guy about 80 presented with a foreign body in his rear end. It turns out he was a Veteran and had a live shell about the size of a slim Coke can up his behind, probably about nine inches long. He was very stoic.

However, we had to call Australia's version of the bomb squad to assist in the removal.

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37. Picking His Brain

A group of guys were plastered and driving around town. The passenger was leaning far out of the window vomiting when the car took a sharp turn around a corner and began to tip over. The top of the passenger’s skull was literally rubbed off along the asphalt during the wreck, leaving his brain showing. But it doesn't end there.

My friend, who was an EMT, had to PICK GRAVEL AND DEBRIS OUT OF HIS BRAIN. The guy was still conscious too. He said that human brains have a very distinct smell he will never forget. The story still makes me cringe, and I wasn't even there.

rtofirefly

38. Someone Did A Hatchet Job On Her

My mother was an ICU nurse for over 10 years, so never a dull moment. On her first day, she was taking a break when a woman walked into the hospital with her head wrapped in a towel. The woman was speaking quietly and calmly and explained that her husband had a vicious outburst and threw a hatchet into her skull.

Lucky for her, he hit her in the forehead, the thickest part of her skull, so, she was able to wrap herself up and drive herself to the hospital. The woman was fine overall, and the authorities took the husband into custody.

weiers08

39. The Face Of Self-Destruction

child in blue hoodie sitting on floorPhoto by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash

I am an ear/nose/throat doc, and while I mostly take care of sinus diseases and ear infections now, I had a hard-nosed residency, and we took a lot of facial injury calls. One day, we got a call down to the ER for a self-inflicted wound to the face. Those are never good, but I wasn't prepared for what I saw.

A guy had filled his face with buckshot. He completely blew off his face, and some hero EMT somehow got an oral airway in the field. We converted the orotracheal airway to a breathing tube in the throat and closed the tissue as best we could.

A couple of days later, he had a 14-hour operation in which we used part of his abdominal wall and part of his leg to rebuild his face and mandible. We actually were able to make him a mouth in a subsequent operation so that he could eat some things, but without a tongue, it's pretty tough.

bryantuga

40. Crab Nauseum

When I was a paramedic student, we used to do rotations in the ED. A guy was brought in from what I assume must have been a horrendous nursing home. He looked fine at first, but once they took his pants off, the issue became apparent. His balls were about the size of a football and necrotic. It’s called Fournier gangrene.

He must have had it for quite some time as well, judging by the size, color, and smell. He had a stroke in the past and was now much less alert than his normal. It looked painful, but the worst part was the smell. It smelled like rotten crab meat. One of the residents that came in to evaluate him looked as if he was going to vomit and left the room within 20 seconds.

I felt terrible for the guy, he had no clue what was going on, and he clearly must have become used to the smell. When I went home that night, my roommates and friends decided to make appetizers. One of them brought mini crab cakes. The smell gave me an image of that guy's situation immediately. It was the most bitter irony I could think of.

BrotherSporter

41. A Hernia As High As The Heavens

I had a 95-year-old patient with an inguinal hernia. They had it for the last 25 years or so, and it was getting bigger. As a student, I knew I was going in to examine a "lump," and prior to the examination, I was warned by my assessor to refrain from showing any expression.

I went in, uncovered the patient appropriately, and was literally like, “Oh my GOD," but obviously in my head. I clenched my teeth so hard that I felt all my facial muscles tense up like never before and proceeded to examine this "lump!"

This "lump" was, basically, this patient's intestines that were protruding entirely through this defect. It was a HUGE hernia that was reaching their knees, and that's with them laying flat! As soon as I walked out, I needed to vent. I couldn't do that with the assessor, so my placement partner and I had a good long chat about it in the pub straight after.

The patient sadly passed.

rugby_14

42. The Worst Split

My mom's an RN. One night, a dude walked into the ER holding a bag under his crotch. He had been drinking with a bunch of his friends. The designated driver drove a pickup, and this dude and his buddies sat in the flatbed, speeding down the parkway. The dude, in his infinite wisdom, decided to stand up when the driver hit a bump. He went flying. Then I found out why they call it a "split".

He was carrying his insides—including his lower GI tract—in the bag. The guy was rushed to surgery and had his full reproductive capabilities restored.

UtMan88

43. Pull My Finger

I had a guy show up in my clinic one day with a complaint of finger swelling. So as the story went, his finger got swollen and painful about a week prior. It just got worse and worse, and about three days prior to coming in, a hole opened up in the tip of his finger.

So, when the day of his visit came, he said, “By the way, I pulled something out of the hole in my finger yesterday with a pair of tweezers; no idea what it is”. I asked him if he had taken a picture or kept it, and he produced a tissue from his shirt pocket. I couldn't believe my eyes.

It was his distal phalanx—the last bone in the finger. The bone had become infected, and the body did its thing and basically tried to eject what was now a hot foreign body. The guy pulled his fingertip out of his fingertip. A better magic trick I have not since seen.

AN-I-MAL

44. His Beard Was All Buggy

My ex-husband was a cardiovascular tech and did echocardiograms. One day, a patient came in with a scruffy, unkempt beard. He started doing the test and kept noticing something moving in it. Upon closer inspection, he had roaches in his beard. He called in a nurse, and they discovered that he also had a massive case of body lice.

My ex had to go get sanitized and had to wear scrubs for the rest of the day.

Lovekats29

45. That’s A Wrap

white and red car on road during night timePhoto by Yassine Khalfalli on Unsplash

I’m an EMT. One day my partner and I got called to a house for someone who was “unable to be ambulated”. This is a common thing we get dispatched to, and it usually means someone is too weak to get out of a recliner or out of bed. We expected to go and help this person to their feet and maybe get a refusal or transport them to the hospital based on an assessment.

When we arrived on the scene, an officer was there, along with a neighbor who told us it was really bad in there. The second I walked through the door of the house, the smell hit me. I have smelled many decaying bodies that were not this pungent. We walked into the living room to find a man lying on the floor, saying he could not get up.

His legs were wrapped in what appeared to be plastic wrap and plastic bags. You could see the wrappings filled and dripping with brown liquid. The guy said he had started getting sores on his feet, and rather than go to a doctor, he elected to just wrap them up in plastic wrap. I don’t know how long he had been doing this, but it had reached a point where he could no longer gather the strength to get up, and he was extremely septic.

It was HORRIBLE. We carried him out of the house, and I was down at the legs, and the gangrene juice was dripping all over me. The back of the ambulance smelled horrific for days. We dropped him off at the hospital, and I went outside and puked. I see nasty stuff every day, but this was by far the nastiest.

When they took the wrappings off in the ED, the nurses told me both his legs were completely black and rotten up to the knees. They had to amputate both legs up to the hip, and they found the gangrene had gone up into his pelvis, so they had to transfer him out for more surgery.

bored-but-happy

46. Hoping For A Miracle

My father was a plastic surgeon in the emergency room of a major southern city. A family of four was driving on an urban highway that passed right by the hospital. The parents were in the front seats and their two young children—boy and girl, 3–5 years old—were in the back seat, apparently unrestrained by child seats or seat belts.

Coming from the opposite direction was a speeding and swerving woman driver in the throes of a psychotic episode. As the two cars approached from opposite directions, she swerved into the median and hit a barrier that launched her into the air upside down. Her car landed on the roof of the family's car, bending the roof of the rear portion of the passenger compartment downward and backward.

It was bent in such a way that left the mother and father unscathed. But tragically, the children met truly terrible ends. The parents carried them into the emergency room. It was an unspeakable sight—and obviously, nothing could be done.

embryophagous

47. Making Its Way Out

I’m a CNA at the moment, and this was the strangest thing I have ever seen. At work, we had a payroll woman who in a previous marriage had been blasted in the back of the head. When it came to removing the slug, the surgeons decided it was too risky to remove.

It hadn’t caused any major damage to the brain, and she would be able to function normally as long as it healed properly. One day, I was in her office, picking up my paycheck. We were chatting as usual when suddenly she started coughing sporadically.

I patted her on the back to help, and the next thing I knew, she coughed up the round into her hand! I was in shock; the slug over the years had slowly moved its way out of the body. She was fine after and kept the metal item as memorabilia.

Permalink

48. Nothing Upstairs

person in blue denim jeans lying on bedPhoto by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash

In college, I took part in some psychological experiments. Most of them were surveys and games, but one researcher had me do a few MRIs. They mostly looked at the occipital lobe and left parietal lobe, which is the back left side of the brain. I did this stuff throughout all four years and became familiar with the research team's findings.

In February of my third year, I hadn't seen them in a while since they were still between their main experiments. Out of the blue, I got an email from the graduate department’s head of neuroscience. I got it at around 6:00 PM. He was polite but essentially said, "We saw something on an MRI, and you need to come see me tomorrow".

He gave me his office location and said to email him so he could meet me at that time. I didn't quite register the significance until the next day when I was walking to meet him. The HEAD of a graduate school department put himself on call to meet with me, a lowly undergrad taking part in their studies, within 24 hours. I was pretty nervous.

I met with him, we introduced ourselves, and he asked me to sit down. He got out this piece of paper and gave a short speech that they found something on one of my MRIs. They couldn't make any diagnoses because of the quality of the ones done, and I needed to schedule a medical-grade MRI and a consult with a neurologist right away. He then handed me the print.

There was this empty, round space about the size of a ping pong ball on the top right center of my brain. There wasn't a mass or disfigurement; there was just nothing.

The rest of my brain was somewhat smushed out of the way for this invisible ball. I was in shock for the rest of the meeting, pretty much. He asked my permission and then did a brief neurological exam to test my senses, reactions, and motor movements, but oddly enough, they were normal.

He was VERY weirded out that everything seemed normal, and he seemed more concerned. He actually took my planner, called the student medical center, and scheduled an appointment for me so I could get the referral with minimum wasted time. I basically made an entire research team and their department head say, "Oh my God, what is that?"

Namtara

49. Snakes Alive!

While my wife was in medical school, she helped treat a patient who was having difficulty urinating. She and the doc asked all the preliminary questions, but they still weren't sure what the problem might be. So, the doc ordered an X-ray. She noticed a tangle of dark lines in the patient's bladder. The doctor then went in to show the patient the results, as she was thoroughly stumped.

After the patient saw the X-ray, he freely offered up the jaw-dropping reason. Apparently, he liked to take baby snakes and let them slither up his urethra where they ultimately perished in his bladder. His reason for doing this was that it gave him a "funny feeling".

beardjeezy

50. A Real Jaw-Dropper

One day, my friend who was a nurse, was working in the emergency room and it was just one of those bloody days. She had seen more nosebleeds that wouldn't stop on that fateful day to the point where a person freaking out and getting woozy from the blood pouring out of their nostrils with no end in sight had become routine. Then this guy walked in.

He entered the room holding a bloody rag tightly to his face. She took one look at him and thought to herself, “Oh, another nosebleed”. She said to him, "Lower the rag sir," so that she could take a look at how bad it was. The man lowered the rag and his jaw just dropped. It literally dropped from his face and swung about, dangling.

Shocked and unsure how to respond to the sudden surprise, she could only say, "Please, put the rag back sir," which he did. Then, he was taken to the trauma center for help. She looked into the guy's case, curious as to what had happened to him. She found out that he was cleaning a piece upstairs in his house.

Then, when he was done, he was walking downstairs with it to put it away when he tripped. He discovered, in the most unfortunate way possible, that it was still loaded when he accidentally set it off in his fall and nailed himself in the face at close range.

HoochCow