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People Explain Which Professions Have Become Obsolete

Is it strange to imagine that one day your job just won't exist anymore? Not as a position at your individual company, but as a job at all. Imagine a world with no secretaries, no servicepeople,no sales, no ... whatever it is you do - no you.


It might seem borderline impossible, but it's happened repeatedly throughout history. This Reddit thread ended up pretty fascinating, actually:

What job doesn't exist anymore?

Honestly, we didn't even know half of these jobs were things!

Encyclopedias

My grandpa was a door-to-door encyclopedia Britannica salesperson.

- appleseiter15

Let There Be Light

Giphy

The dudes who go around lighting oil streetlamps

- bumford11

Knock-Knock

Knocker upper. People employed to tap on your bedroom window to wake you up before alarm clocks were a thing.

- apintofbestplease

And the knocker-uppers knocker upper. The knocker uppers had their own knocker uppers who essentially worked the night shift, staying up until the early morning, waking the knocker-uppers and then going to bed.

We don't know how they got up.

- SaintPhoenix_

Haha, my paternal grandmother was British and when she went to a hotel in Florida once, she asked to be knocked up. She didn't know in America that it meant to get pregnant.

- degrassibabetjk

Some Screaming Dude

Unfortunately, town criars are no longer a thing. I think it should be brought back really. I'd rather get my daily news from some dude screaming in the streets than waste resources on newspapers that only 1% of people read.

- oreo_salad

The Entire Middle Class

An entire class of middle-class jobs that you used to be able to actually make a living off of.

For example, my grandmother worked at Sears for two decades. She was what is essentially now cashier/sales. She walked around helping people with clothing and then rung it up.

She made good money, plus commission, plus bonuses.

She had a retirement, a separate pension, great insurance, plenty of sick days and vacation, etc.

She was divorced with no child support but she raised 3 kids comfortably off that. She had her own home. She sent the kids to college on that money. She didn't have to work extra jobs or have a roommate or live off Ramen. She only had a high school diploma.

That job no longer exists. Sears no longer exists specifically but you will never see a department store cashier who could live a comfortable life off that salary alone and retire happily off it.

- effieokay

Computers

A "computer" - someone employed to do calculations

- sdavid_benjamin

My Mum was a computer, and now I am a computer programmer which is a little weird

- Mr_Weeble

So the computer 3D-printed a computer programmer.

- alwaysafairycat

Organs Need Air

Organ pumpers

Organs were once pumped by hand. Now, push a button and the organ blower gets turned on to supply steady wind to the pipes.

- Bach2Bach


Pretty Much The Same

Giphy

Buffoon, or court jester.

- dodov21

In the UK, we still have an annual Royal Variety show where performers (many of which are comedians) will perform for the Queen.

Not entirely the same as a court jester, but it's damned close.

- joshi38

Copy Machines

Scriveners!

Before photocopiers were even a thought many documents had to be copied very carefully and exactly over to another sheet of paper by hand.

If someone asked me to do that job, I'd probably have to tell them that I'd prefer not to

- Snapplefacts32

Possibly interesting fact: in legal documents to this day, when a party has to amend a filing due to a typo, it's possible that it will be attributed to a "scrivener's error".

- sophocynic

Retired From Tires

All of my uncles on both sides of my family, 9 of them, worked in tire plants. Two different plants for two different brands but only 30 miles apart. High school was their highest education. They're all in their 70s now living off a fat pension comfortably. All of the wives were housewives. All raised multiple kids and put most of them through college. Lived in nice middle class homes. They spent their entire adult working life doing entry level-type work and were making bank towards the end. Those two plants closed down 20 years ago at like the same time.

I'm Gen X so I don't really shake my fist at Baby Boomers as much as Millenials but they really did have way more opportunities to make a nice living right out of high school that is pretty much impossible to duplicate these days.

- sumuji

“Oh God, I Married The Wrong Person”
Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Most people think long and hard before deciding to tie the not. Well, these Redditors should have thought even longer. Years, months, days, or even hours later, they came to a horrific realization. They’d married the wrong person. Here are the moments they knew.

1. Hypothesis: They Won’t Make It

I got married and went on a honeymoon in China. We were both PhD students at the time. I was working class, while her family was middle class. Accordingly, her father gave her $10,000 for the honeymoon.

So we go to China to celebrate, but she wants to do some light pre-dissertation research while we are there for a month or two. Fine. It turned depressing fast. I spent the entire two months alone in tiny hostels while she did research.

I only spoke a few words of Mandarin and I was a broke graduate student, so I didn’t have the means to easily get to an airport to fly back home. I also had zero family support back home, even if I did manage to make it home. I felt trapped.

So I talked to her about how the trip felt like a research trip and not at all like a honeymoon, how I was alone almost every day. We were sharing a laptop while on the trip (I was too poor to own a laptop, despite being in grad school).

I open the laptop one morning before she leaves to go survey a field site without me. Her email is open. She left a message open on the laptop. The contents broke my heart. It’s to her father, stating that she wishes I wasn’t there on the trip—our honeymoon.

Again, I was told this would be a honeymoon with only maybe a slight detour for research. It turned out to be a research trip where I was a burden. She apologized. We stayed together for a few more years after she got sick and I became a caretaker.

I wish, in hindsight, I had left China after reading that email.

Mtt76812

2. I Scream For Ice Cream

On the wedding day. She spent a fortune on unnecessary things, and I knew I’d be the one fitting the bill on the credit card she ran up. So I told her no more. She said she wanted an ice cream vendor there (we already had two dessert bars) and I told her it was not needed.

She fought me on it but finally agreed. The wedding day comes, I’m standing with my groomsmen, and in comes the ice cream truck. Knew right then, sadly.

StrangeJitsu

3. Get Over It

woman lying on bedPhoto by Yuris Alhumaydy on Unsplash

A woman I was dating told me she divorced her husband because after his father passed in his arms, so he was very depressed and she didn't want to be around depressed people.

Imagine your father passed and a few months later your wife leaves you because you have not recovered from that.

Tor277

4. Life’s Not A Beach

It was actually almost immediately after getting married. Our relationship had taken a nosedive as soon as we moved in together. But after we got married, while we were in Greece on our honeymoon, it hit a terrible climax. He absolutely lost his mind on me in public.

I had wanted to go see a beach on the island that is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in the world, so we tried to catch the bus, but it never came. He screamed at me, telling me he hated traveling with me and how could I ruin his vacation like this.

Then we walked to the beach nearby and he went swimming with his two friends who he insisted come with us on the trip. I was too stunned and humiliated to do anything except sit on a beach chair and cry.

gridironbuffalo

5. Run Away From This One

When she sat me down and, with a straight face, said, “I’ve thought about this and you’re not going to exercise anymore”. I was jogging a few miles a day and would usually bring the kids with me in a running stroller.

She said, “You’re a father and it’s too time consuming”. That’s when I realized I made a terrible mistake. Catching her with another man in my car didn’t help the case to stay married.

JD054

6. Dishing It Out

white ceramic coffee cup lotPhoto by Izz R on Unsplash

We were engaged but not quite married yet. I had been on mandatory bedrest and caring for our infant son, after having emergency surgery for nearly bleeding out during a miscarriage. He came home from work and looked me in the face and said, "Why aren't the dishes done?"

I called my mom the next morning and told her I was leaving. Hightailed it out of there twp weeks later.

Neverinfocus

7. Mommie Dearest

It was death of a thousand cuts. One of the first was when I realized she didn't trust me. We had been together around 10 years at this point. But I had a moment of clarity and literally said to her, "You don't trust me, do you?"

Before she could answer I said, "You don't trust anybody”. She agreed. She would routinely throw the kids out of the tub and the bathroom, with not even a towel on, because they splashed her while getting a bath.

And not just that, she would yell at the top of her lungs about how bad they were. The kids were around 2-4 at the time. God forbid the toddler splashes the water in the tub. Another time I don't even remember the cause, but I tried to play mediator.

As in "Ok daughter you did something wrong, let's apologize to mommy". And she would. Then I'd ask mommy to apologize to our daughter for her role. Her reply chilled my core. This adult woman, this mother, absolutely refused to apologize.

I’ve known this lady more than 20 years and I’ve never heard her apologize. Literally never. The final straw was when one of our kids wanted a hug goodnight before bedtime. She locked herself in our bedroom and refused the hug because she had hugged them earlier in the day.

The kids were crying. They didn't understand. I was devastated watching this unfold. Why doesn't mom want to hug me? I try my best to not let it impact me. But we share custody now and I have to watch how she interacts with our kids. It’s hard.

The best consolation is the kids are getting older and they're starting to figure it out.

overarmur

8. For Better Or For Worse

On my wedding day. We were married at her parents’ house, a beautiful place on a private country club. The entire day was all about her, and she spent more time hanging out with her friend and drinking than hanging out with me.

I stayed busy visiting with all the guests during the day. After all the guests left and it was down to her parents and me, I find her passed out upstairs in a bedroom. I picked her up and carried her to our car to take her home.

Needless to say, our wedding night consisted of her sleeping it off. Five years later, she went into in-patient treatment and after she sobered up and was released, she told me that she didn't love me and wanted a divorce.

metrology84

9. See You Later

pregnan womanPhoto by 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič on Unsplash

When I lost twins and he dropped me off at the hospital to get an operation to have them removed. He dropped me off at the hospital bleeding and went to a party with his friends.

I left this man years ago. I'm doing well now.

5ftGrinch

10. A Pregnant Pause

My brother just went through a divorce, and I asked him what his “moment” was. He laughed—then he told me something that made my jaw drop. "It was when she got pregnant and a week later, I found out from the doctors I can't even produce the goodies to have kids”. Ouch.

Permalink

11. Good News Is Bad News

I realized that I was hiding good news from her because I knew she would make me feel bad about it. I hoped she was going to grow up and stop being selfish and childish. She never did.

Dash_Harber

12. You’re On Your Own

woman in black spaghetti strap top and white shorts sitting on bedPhoto by Abstral Official on Unsplash

When she was getting ready to go to the pub and I called her to say the car had broken down and I was stuck seven miles from home. She said she couldn't help. We had two cars. We split two months later.

gaz8600

13. In Sickness And In Health

We weren’t married but were together for years. I got diagnosed with cancer and she kind of shut off. She then decided to leave several months later.

At an appointment I was officially one year clear, which is a milestone. I realized I was alone through a lot of it. She never wanted anything to do with it. It was a revelation to myself that the relationship breakdown wasn't all because of me.

I got my three-year tests this weekend, blood tests and scans. My current girlfriend is driving me and then taking me out to lunch afterwards. Heck of an upgrade.

HarrargnNarg

14. Don’t Do Me Like That

When she slept with a high-school flame for a year while hiding it and staying home on my single income. We weren’t working as a couple, I knew that. I was trying to improve things, and we’d talked about it, but she somehow neglected to give me that detail.

I’m not angry that she didn’t love me. But heck, just tell me. Don’t do me dirty like that after thirteen years.

Winsdaddy

15. Kissing And Telling

woman looking at phone beside body of waterPhoto by Becca Tapert on Unsplash

Six months after our wedding, when I found out about the emotional (he says "only emotional" but I’m pretty sure it was physical too) affair through text messages. Somehow, that wasn’t the worst part. He had sent his affair partner screenshots of my texts to him in which I was begging him to talk to me and tell me what was wrong.

They both proceeded to make fun of my desperation to fix my marriage, and his affair partner said something along the lines of “Poor girl, she doesn’t know anything and keeps begging you for attention and affection”.

The moment I read those words I realized how big of a mistake I had made.

Valiantlycaustic

16. Home Wrecker

When I came home from the ER after being diagnosed with a severe lung disorder, and she immediately left me with the kids so she could go out drinking with friends. Her exact words were, "I need you to make them dinner, I'm running late to meet up with everyone".

No_Nectarine6007

17. Cruelty Of The Highest Degree

About a year and a half into our marriage ,she got an internship with Disney and had to move to the other side of the county for seven months. Six months into the internship, she tells me that she met someone else.

She continued to string me along for another six months, saying she doesn't want to get a divorce but she's just been really confused. Then I found out the awful truth. It turns out she just wanted to keep using me to pay all the bills while she finished her degree.

Once she was a month away from finishing school, she admitted that she never really wanted a relationship with me. She only started dating me to make her ex jealous, had been cheating on me for about ninety percent of our ten-year-long relationship, and only stuck around because her ex didn't want to get back together and she didn't want to take care of herself.

She told me she knew this most recent guy she was cheating with was "the love of her life" after three weeks. They had a kid together less than a year after we got divorced and split up within two years.

zimbacca

18. Out On A Technicality

man standing by the window beside bedPhoto by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

There were A LOT of red flags prior to this, but this was the catalyst. We'd been dating four years, slated to be married in eight months. I noticed he was making lots of likes and comments on a “Brittney’s" MySpace. Nothing huge or obvious.

Then not long after, he locked his phone, but I managed to see he was also getting messages regularly from someone also named Brittney. I had suspected this, but still had no proof. I worked swing and nights at the time.

I came home early one night to him in our bed, with you know who! BRITTNEY. FIRST THING THIS MAN SAYS WHEN I WALK IN ON THEM IS...get this..."THERE WAS NO EXCHANGE OF FLUIDS, I PROMISE BABE".

Later, Brittney got a hold of me on MySpace, and we met up. She had no idea I was even in the picture. We're still friends. Brittney let me read all over their correspondence via MySpace and text. She was very upfront about not realizing he was with someone.

I will admit Brittney was not exceptionally bright, but he had this thing all worked out. He stuffed all my stuff in a closet, even removed photos of us from the walls. I don't wear makeup, and at the time didn't own much stuff.

We were poor, and I was the only one working. He kept getting fired for harassment. Red flag, I know, but at the time I didn’t know WHY he kept getting fired. He also kept the house dark while they watched a movie, then moved to the bed. Said it made it "romantic".

There were a lot of signs I should have noticed. First and foremost, how he actually met me. We worked in the same retail store, and he made a lot of advances and borderline lewd comments to get my attention. I didn't pay attention to the fact that he ALSO did/said these things to other women I worked with.

I was 18 when we met, not used to getting any attention from men, and had pretty bad self-esteem. In the four years we were together I was honestly miserable, so miserable I even committed myself once. I also thought he was the best I was getting. It was really messed up four years of my life.

After all this, I kicked him and his "fluids" out of my house.

angelfishfan87

19. An Addict’s An Addict

When I realized that my wife loved playing Final Fantasy to the neglect of our own relationship. She had had a problem with obsessively playing World of Warcraft in the past, and we broke up over it. But she quit the game cold turkey and got a job, so we made up.

Then we got married. Except not long after the marriage, she was back into the gaming (but now it was Final Fantasy. We never had any quality time as a couple to just talk; all she ever wanted to do in her free time was drink and play her game.

My wife was a drinker. She passed recently. I just found out the horrible reason why. Her iPad message history revealed that she had had a whole string of in-game boyfriends the whole time we were together (12 years). Lots of flirty messages. The night she passed, she was excited and happy because she just married her current boyfriend (in-game).

But she partied a little too hard that night and drank herself to death. Truly. I messaged one of her guild mates to find out what happened. Turns out, no one ever knew she was married in real life; she never talked about me. But she sure did flirt with a lot of guys in-game.

The guy she married in-game was, himself, married in real life. We live in the US, but she liked to play on European servers and meet European guys. I had been on a business trip to Germany for a week the night she passed. She was so angry at me for not taking her with me, but it was a business trip and not a vacation.

I realize now that what she really wanted was an opportunity to sleep with her Italian boyfriend while I was at work. She had the Duolingo app on her phone to learn Italian, and her browser history showed that she had been looking up Italian cooking recipes. My wife NEVER cooked, so she was clearly thinking about an in-person meetup at some point.

I was grieving the loss of my wife when I found all of this out, and now I'm dealing with a lot of anger, too. If she hadn’t passed and somehow I found this out, I'd be divorcing her right now.

HaiKarate

20. He Earned This Divorce

I realized like five years into our 19-year marriage that I’d made a mistake, but what made me leave was when my ex said that our children hadn't EARNED his love when I asked why he never said “I love you” to them. That shook my whole foundation.

I was literally speechless for two days and then I started thinking, wondering if I had EARNED his love yet. I couldn't stop those kind of thoughts...you don't earn love, it is freely given, especially to children. I asked for the separation and divorce shortly after that.

Far-Phone8791

21. Over And Done With

selective focus photography of white Sony PS4 console with wireless controllerPhoto by Nikita Kachanovsky on Unsplash

When my aunt—who I loved dearly—passed, she was only 54 and I was devastated by her loss, which my husband knew.

As soon as we got home, though, my husband said: “Well, that’s that. We can move on now”. She was just cold in the ground and he was saying this so seriously while turning on his PS4 to play games. I was speechless and went to bed by myself, feeling so utterly lonely. But there was one last straw.

Two days later he forgot my birthday. We’ve been divorced for seven years now.

Tahity1986

22. What Have You Done For Me Lately?

I waited on her hand and foot. Every night I brought her a tea. I checked every room to make sure there were no intruders, went to the store for her if she wanted a snack, etc. One day I was really sick with the flu and asked if she'd get me a Gatorade from the store.

She was shocked that I asked and said, "Absolutely not”. Then I thought about it and realized that she had never complimented me, supported me, nurtured me, consoled me, or showed any level of emotional care for me.

I knew at that moment that she never would. All she did was complain that I didn't do enough for her. It took me a while, but I realized I was in a dysfunctional relationship. The worst part is I tried to make it work, still, after all that and it was her who pushed me away because she wanted to move to Portland.

incredibleninja

23. Not Kidding Around

After cheating on me the second time, I realized he cared very little about my feelings or the relationship in general. I dealt with that, though, as we had a child and I could put the hurt away for the kid. I finally left, though when I realized he had been neglecting our son while I was away at work.

He was out of a job and had been for months. The quote from our child that really made me decide to leave my ex was: "Mommy, can I always go to work with you? Daddy just sleeps and sometimes I get hungry and can't reach the bread”.

We did talk about this, and my ex always denied it. I tested the jerk next day. What I discovered made my blood boil. I woke the ex up, told him I was leaving for work and he needed to wake up to be with our son—I went to work at 2:30 pm almost every day.

However, I took the kid to work with me. I didn't hear from the ex until 8 pm, and that's only because I texted him and asked how our kid was. "He's fine. He is playing video games in the room”. I informed him the child was with me. Good times.

Permalink

24. Don’t Bring Me Down

persons hand with silver ringPhoto by Jakayla Toney on Unsplash

We were in the bathroom getting showered and dressed for a friend’s wedding. I was in the best shape of my life at the time, feeling good about myself, and I thought I looked good in my bathing suit.

She was finishing her makeup and I remarked at how beautiful she looked. I waited for her to say something nice in reply, but she didn’t. And it just hit me. I couldn’t remember a single time that she complimented me on my appearance.

So I said that to her, “You know, I always tell you how beautiful you are, and how attracted to you I am, but I never recall you ever saying that I look good or that I look handsome”. She stopped applying her mascara long enough to dismissively roll her eyes at me.

So I made the mistake of asking her, “Do you even find me attractive?”

And she flatly said, “No”.

I asked, “Why did you marry me then?”

And she said, “I didn’t think it was important at the time”.

I never felt so ugly and unloved. And it hurt even more when I had been feeling so good about myself for once in my life 30 seconds earlier.

Seandouglasmcardle

25. Go On, Give Me Nothing

I had no idea how he felt about me. Almost nine years together. He didn't propose, I did. He didn't tell his family when we married, they found out online. He never shared his energy or emotions with me.

I ultimately had a realization that I didn't even know what he thought of me, other than that I was pretty. I didn't know if he thought I was cool or funny or interesting or smart. I would share myself with him. My thoughts, interests, humor. I'd get nothing in return.

I realized it had always been this way. I felt unseen, unheard. I felt like I was boring and uninteresting. I didn't feel special. I just wanted to feel some sort of connection. I wanted our souls to meet. He seemed incapable.

Secure_Orange2855

26. Too Good To Be True

With my first wife, I had inklings that I might not have married the right person when I was working full time (making very good pay) and she decided to quit her job and just sat at home. We had a maid come every week to clean the house top to bottom, do the laundry and all the dishes—and the house still looked like trash six days a week.

If dinner was made at all when I got home from work, it was hamburger helper or a microwaved hot dog wiener and blue box macaroni and cheese. It really became clear when I caught her cheating. Her exact words to a friend: "My husband's an angel, but I'm bored”.

The second wife, I realized multiple times, over and over, that I married exactly the right person for me.

Grizzledart

27. All Business No Pleasure

man in gray suit jacket sitting on gray concrete benchPhoto by PodMatch on Unsplash

When I “booked” a business meeting to discuss how our future would change as our teenagers transitioned to university, assured him it was all positive, and just wanted space to talk. It’s always been very difficult to find time to talk to him, so I figured I’d be all business like since work has always been priority number one…that didn’t go well.

I had barely opened my mouth and he spewed all over me about my ever-changing hobbies. Those “ever-changing” hobbies have been guitar and oil painting for the last eight years…I mentally checked out that day.

AliCracker

28. Hoping For The Worst

We had just moved out from my parents’ place with our daughter. We had been living there for about six months because of financial difficulties. I was the only one working, he was not because of a bad back…which ended up being a fake injury.

We were not getting along at all while living there and for some reason I thought things would get better now that we had our own place. I’ve never been so wrong. The opposite happened; the yelling and swearing got worse.

His controlling behavior just got worse and worse, to the point where if I had a shower without his permission he would bang on the door while screaming at me. I don't know the exact moment, but it was sometime during that month that it all finally clicked in that it was never getting better.

I knew he worked with some attractive women, and I started hoping that he would have an affair with one of them and either leave me for her or it would give me the guts to leave. I still felt sorry for him because of his (fake) back injury.

I stayed with him for another year and a half, and in that time he forced me and our daughter to move far away from my parents because they were beginning to figure out that he was faking his injury. He ended our marriage two months after the move because I ran out of money for the first time in our relationship.

Permalink

29. Rotten On The Inside

He threw a surprise birthday for me, and towards the end I was inside near the food table and everyone had already gone outside. I affectionately called him over as he was passing by to have a moment.

He rolled his eyes and walked on, saying he was hanging out with so and so. Anyone, even a stranger on the road, was always more important, he just didn't care about me. He only did things for how he would appear to others.

100thusername

30. Sorry, Not Sorry

a camera mounted to the side of a wallPhoto by James Yarema on Unsplash

We weren’t married, but this was a long-term relationship. She heard a doorbell and asked me to get it. I never heard it and no one was there when I answered. She said, “I’m sorry, it was the television”.

After more than two years with her, I realized that was the first time she ever apologized about anything. That answered all my questions about why the relationship was struggling. I broke up with her soon after.

Newplasticactionhero

31. Say Goodbye To Puppy Love

I came home from a long day of work to find burn marks all over the carpet and linoleum. The whole story disgusted me. My then husband had spent the entire day playing games on his PC. While doing so, he had been ignoring our puppy, who had managed to somehow get a hold of a phone battery, bite through it, and cause a small fire.

Thankfully, the dog wasn't injured. This event, on top of finding out shortly before he had been lying about going to community college for almost a year, was the turning point where my feelings stopped.

ttthelovewitchhh

32. It’s The Little Things

Thankfully not married, but we were living together. It happened when he called me incompetent for taking literally less than 15 seconds to turn off subtitles in Netflix. In that moment, I realized that I had been living in fear and pain for so many years.

In the meantime, the things he was willing to put me down and call me names over were becoming smaller and smaller. I was already walking on eggshells, and I couldn’t take any more.

a-girl-named-kat

33. Here’s To You

man standing near the woman walking in party during nighttimePhoto by Andreas Rønningen on Unsplash

It happened when he didn’t mention me in his speech at our wedding. He thanked everyone else, commented on the bridesmaids, talked about our daughters. I may as well not have even been there.

First night of our honeymoon, I got horrendously sick, and he left me alone in our room to go watch something on the big screen on the beach. So much for sickness and health!

LBelle0101

34. Me First

It was actually such a small thing that made me click into the fact I married the wrong person. Looking back, our whole relationship was horrible but it was this event that made it all come into focus.

As a bit of back story, I was ridiculously depressed so I had gained a fair bit of weight. He knew I was extremely insecure about this. My husband and I also have birthdays one after the other. His was first and mine was second.

I had expressed that I felt every time our birthdays come around, I feel forgotten as we'd have a party or an event on his birthday and make a big deal about it, and he'd only turn the attention on me after midnight and bring out his now half-eaten cake with mostly burnt-out candles and sing me happy birthday.

That was only if we had a party, mind you. If we had an event we'd do his birthday events and then on my birthday he'd just give me an unwrapped gift. That was that despite me making an effort on his birthday every single year.

He knew how I felt, so we decided to go away to a historical city in my county one year. We were both massive history buffs, so it was right up our alley. We had a lot of fun and spent the first few days looking around to decide what we wanted to do on our birthdays and agreed to arrange something for each of our birthdays.

The city has a lot going on and I pointed out a few things that I'd like as a "surprise" for my birthday. I ultimately wanted to go see the local church, which was quite famous, as well as an exhibition of Richard III—literally a stone’s throw from our hotel room.

He agreed with this and set out where he wanted to go on his birthday. His birthday was a success and I know he still talks about his birthday to this day. We went out to all the places he wanted, I took him to his favorite restaurant and even brought his presents with us so he'd have something opened on his birthday.

Plus, as a surprise, they had a ghost tour around the city on an old hearse bus. This was something he loved and it ended up being his favorite part. We went to be happy and I was optimistic this was going to be a good birthday for me too. I was so wrong.

As soon as we woke up on my birthday, he decided he was in a bad mood and grumbling about every place I wanted to go. I wanted to just have a bit of a lie in as I hadn't slept great the night before, but he was getting antsy about wanting to go down for breakfast.

I said I wasn't hungry and wanted to just stay in the room a little longer. He then pushes me out of the bed, and I just flop onto the floor as I wasn't being rushed today. Yes, this was a bit bratty but I just wanted to enjoy having a bit of autonomy on my birthday.

He then proceeded to grab me by the arm and pulled me up. He said, "Get up you fat lazy lump”. His expression instantly gave away that he knew what he said would hurt me. It instantly spiraled into me getting upset, because not only did he say that to me when he knew it was a sensitive point, but he did it on my birthday.

When he eventually calmed me down, he said, "I'm sorry I made you cry. I only said it because I thought it would make you get up faster”. So after that, we went about my birthday—but instead of doing what I wanted, we went around to every location he wanted to.

We were there a week and never got to see the church or the exhibit, which after the event, he admitted he didn't want to go. He gets worse. He actually admitted he started the fight knowing I’d be too upset to do anything or really celebrate.

This kind of made it click that my happiness and life were never a priority for him. Sadly, it still took me another year and a bit before we actually broke up.

TheEmbodimentOfSock

35. Friends With No Benefits

This will be a different answer. My wife is definitely my soulmate and best friend. I'll never find anyone that I can share my true thoughts and soul with. She's everything I want in a mental partner. We complete each other in that regard.

Bedroom-wise, though, it's not the best match. Did I marry my best friend? Definitely. Was that a mistake? I don't know.

-Yuri-

36. Shoot The Messenger

black laptop computerPhoto by Stephen Phillips - Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash

When I stumbled across an email where she told a friend of ours that she was going to divorce me soon and that she wanted to sleep with him.

jaxxon

37. Man Child Alert

We'd been married several years, and the marriage had gotten increasingly worse. He only ate out of those stackable plastic plates with the dividers. His reason was ridiculous. It was because they reminded him of being a kid and eating with his parents. Yep.

Anyway, he saw them in the cabinet one day and was outraged because I hadn't stacked them inside one another. I stacked them, but at alternating angles, to ensure they were properly dry and wouldn't be wet between plates.

He started lecturing me on how they fit inside each other in an infantilizing way. I'd known for a long time I didn't want to be married to him anymore, but in that moment, I stared at him with hatred. I'm happy to say I'm out of that marriage, and engaged to my best friend from college.

miranda_alexis

38. What A Pill

When he took the pain medication the hospital sent me home with. You know…for pain. Not a nice feeling to find out the person who’s supposed to care about you the most will watch you suffer and feel no guilt over being the cause of it.

kbabykk

39. The Long Goodbye

person looking out through windowPhoto by Noah Silliman on Unsplash

I was engaged, not married. It was a three-year international relationship. I was completely ready for the battle with the US immigration system. She had to leave after a normal month-long visit, which was totally normal and what we’d been doing for years.

We PDA’ed all to heck at the airport and she said herself that she couldn’t wait to come back… Then she went completely silent, zero contact, the second she got home to Europe. It took three days to get a phone call saying she was done. December 21, 2019.

I knew driving to work that morning that something horrible was going to happen that day, I could feel it, and I wish I could forget that feeling. Still ain’t over it, don’t plan to ever be.

MrLanesLament

40. Do It Yourself

When our child was three months old, I had the absolute worst case of mastitis. I was so weak I couldn’t even pick up the baby. I asked him to please stay home from work and help me. His response still haunts me. He told me to call my mom, then left for work.

I stuck it out for another four years, through various other scenarios similar to this one, but finally found the courage to leave. The moment I asked for a divorce I felt the weight of the world lift off my shoulders.

the_serpent_queen

41. The Young And The Restless

When I found that he was texting and calling his 18-year-old student—I think he was 33 at the time. More than that, he gaslit me about it for years and I made myself believe it was fine, even when he met with her in a field at 1 am and even when he would stay out until 3 in the morning with her because she needed “support”.

I knew it was wrong but I was too embarrassed and weak to do anything and wanted my marriage to work. We have been divorced since 2019 and he is now living with her. He really shouldn't work with kids ever again.

wilease

42. Out With The Old

two men sitting at a table playing a game of pokerPhoto by Krišjānis Kazaks on Unsplash

When he left me with a really bad fever to go play cards with his friends. When he accused me of cheating on him while I was pulling all nighters to finish my degree. When he said our kid wasn’t HIS.

When he never complimented me because he said it would get to my head. When he took anyone’s word over mine…and I literally mean anyone. When his way of flirting with me was putting me down.

When I had to keep the stupidest secrets just to keep peace in the house. When the counsellor I confided in told me he was jealous of my accomplishments instead of being proud of me.

Good riddance!

ozraf

43. Too Much Too Soon

It happened about two years after marrying. I was 29. We had been together for eight years total. We were arguing constantly and I’d never considered or really paused for a second to consider if we were actually right for each other.

I’d never been great with girls, but we clicked and we went from dating to moving in to being engaged in about 3-4 years. Then you get swept along wedding planning, and when you pause for thought you realize it was wrong, but you were on an escalator that kept going from checkpoint to checkpoint so fast, you didn’t pause to think, "Is this what I want?"

So we’re laying in bed one night and she was ill. I’m such a soft and considerate person (to my detriment) but I glanced at her asleep and the thought “I don’t love you” popped in my head from nowhere. Terrifying, and also embarrassing, when you’ve had a 150+ strong wedding two summers ago.

GrandDuty3792

44. Daddy Issues

When he let our few-months-old baby roll off the bed because he couldn’t get to a save spot on his video game. Oh, also when I brought the baby home an outfit and he was jealous I didn’t pick out something for him too.

Don’t worry, as soon as the baby turned a year old, he moved out and we got a divorce. That baby is now 18 and surprise surprise, no relationship.

teppiecola

45. Seeing The Light

a man holds his head while sitting on a sofaPhoto by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

We had been engaged for just over a year and together for around a decade. Then I realized I didn’t actually want to be with her, I just was too invested and I didn’t want to make her upset. I knew we would end up getting divorced at some point down the road, so I decided to end it before then.

I went to therapy and realized I had spent my whole childhood trying to make my parents happy, and then I immediately got into a relationship and spent all of my adulthood trying to make her happy. I was miserable because of it, but I just didn’t know.

PM_ME_GARFIELD_

46. Second-hand Embarrassment

When I realized that every time we were in a public or social situation, I ended up either cringing at what he said or did, or apologizing for it. He would do and say things for shock value and would be deliberately antagonistic.

That kind of opened my eyes to the fact that while I could overlook other issues we had, I was going to spend my life being embarrassed by him. We got married young, and grew up into different people.

CrosswordGirl

47. The Heart Wants What It Wants

I figured it out after the 5th guy she slept with over seven years of marriage. At least five I knew about anyway. Every time I thought it was me. That I could be a better husband, more caring, more supportive, more anything she needed.

If I could just be a better spouse, she would love me and then everything would be alright and we would be fine. Then it hit me. She doesn’t love me. I was just never going to be someone she loved no matter how good of a husband I was.

So I told her I wanted a divorce and why. She didn’t even cry. I moved out that week, filed for divorce, got an apartment, and moved on. It worked out for me, though. I found a wonderful woman who does love me, we are happy and thriving together.

We have been together for 15 years now. I’m just so happy.

jimillett

48. Look What I Can Do, Mommy

wooden ladle and spatula on top of tablePhoto by Calum Lewis on Unsplash

Back when my son was two, he woke up early and snuck downstairs to do something nice for his mom and me. He had seen me make pancakes and he decided he wanted to do that and be nice. Of course, a two-year-old has no concept of what he's doing, so he made a complete mess of everything.

Flour everywhere. Eggs broken on the floor. He destroyed the kitchen with his mess. When his mom and I made it downstairs, he had this huge smile on his face because he was sure he had made us the perfect surprise. It was very heart-warming. Until she went absolutely crazy, yelling at him for the mess.

I thought he was sweet, she thought he was a little monster. She just couldn't get past the mess to see he was doing something out of love. A mess is easy to clean-up. A kid is only making breakfast in bed for you for so long before they grow up.

jaxmagicman

49. Liar, Liar

There were a lot of red flags. Things like him telling me I was low on the attractiveness scale, and embarrassing to him because I was intellectual, highly educated, yet extremely shy, so I came across as a stuck-up snob to everyone.

Spoiler: Only he and his friends thought this, and maybe not even his friends. He also did other stuff, like spending money on toys for himself that we had allocated for remodeling our house. Pretty necessary stuff like getting rid of a 25-year-old disgusting carpet in a new-to-us house.

The kicker for me was when it came time to have kids. He swore he was all in, but when we weren’t getting pregnant we both got tested. Turned out he had borderline low testosterone and some other issues that were solved with a simple over-the-counter daily medication that had zero side effects.

We tried and tried and I increasingly went through more painful and invasive testing and procedures. The whole time with him saying how he was in 100%, because I checked in with him often to make sure.

Turned out he had been sabotaging the process the whole time. Intentionally not taking the daily medications and doing some other stuff to ensure we would fail.

tossitintheroundfile

50. X This Ex

It was a day after the wedding. She didn’t have to hide anymore, and I was stuck. So the love-bombing girl I had happily married turned from nice to pure narcissistic sociopath, just like taking her mask off.

Since we had a daughter, I tried for two years to survive it in an effort to try and fix things. Funny thing is, narcissists are never wrong, so everything was naturally 100% my fault in all aspects. By the end, I was so broken down I didn’t have the power anymore to break free.

You accidentally made a mistake, you got heck. You did something good, you got heck. Ends up with you doing apathetically nothing, since that way it takes them a while to accumulate enough on you to get angry at you for.

I just accepted that I was indeed worthless and pathetic in every and all aspects in life. Then she made a mistake. She started using my daughter as a weapon, scaring the living heck out of her in the process.

I couldn’t save myself, there wasn’t even a shadow left of the ghost of the man I used to be…but I could save her, with powers I still have no idea where they came from. So here I am, 11 years later, with custody of my happy daughter who no longer wakes up screaming in the night “No mommy! No!”

Pro-life tip, don’t get an ex-wife. Those things are absolutely horrible.

Nisseliten

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.

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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.

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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.

Permalink

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

Facts People Were Taught In School That Were Later Disproven
Photo by Firmbee.com

A malleable fact isn't a fact, it's an opinion.

So it feels like much of early education has been a big bag of opinions heeped onto generations prior.

No wonder those standardized tests were such a mess.

On the flip side of that thought, life, and science evolve, so facts do change.

Once you're out in the real world, so much has to be relearned and disproven.

Who can keep up?

It feels like we should be paid as participants in the school of life.

So let's do some relearning.

Redditor yepvaishz wanted to hear about the times we've learned some new things about some old things, so they asked:

"What was a fact taught to you in school that ended up being disproven during your lifetime?"

The amount of lies we were fed in school is too high to count.

So let's sift through memory lane and make some corrections.

RECOUNT!

My Work Animation GIF by AndiGiphy

"From an educational filmstrip: 'Saturn has four beautiful rings...' The Voyager photos of the thousands of rings had come in like a week before we watched this."

robaato72

Never say Never

"Germany would never reunite. The French would never allow it."

Powerful-Ad9392

"I'm German and I was 11 when it happened. We housed our East German part of the family for a couple of weeks when they came over to visit. My cousin was my age and had never been shopping (just wandering around a mall looking at things) and my uncle begged my dad to take him to a hardware store just to see what stuff was available."

"Just three months before the wall fell, my dad had been over to visit them, just by himself, saying it was too dangerous for us kids (and I imagine it would have been a hassle getting permission for the whole family). It was such a wonderful time. A peaceful revolution without a single gunshot."

"I'll never forget the moment when the people who had fled to the German embassy in Prague got told they were allowed to leave. That collective scream of joy and relief by 4000 people still makes me tear up every time I watch the video. https://youtu.be/Qh9EwNurawE"

best-in-two-galaxies

200 MPH

"Pompeii was buried slowly by falling ash. They pointed out that remnants of people were found, right in the middle of doing things, but didn't realise this contradicted the burying being slow. It's now thought that it was buried very quickly by pyroclastic flows - superheated gas travelling over 200mph."

ablativeyoyo

"It’s also blew my mind to find out the 'bodies' you see at the site were the hollow spaces where a body once was, filled with plaster, and the hardened ash removed. As a kid I never thought about it I just saw shapes of bodies and thought 'that's a body.'"

Zanzoken814

Bye Kraken

"When I was a kid, the Giant Squid had never been captured or photographed, and some people talked about it like it was el chupacabra. My little brother always said he'd be the first person to get footage of one. Sadly, it has since become an ordinary animal that we know exists. RIP the Kraken."

EarthExile

"I’ve seen the preserved corpses at the Smithsonian. It’s pretty fascinating to think no evidence existed until our lifetime."

UnihornWhale

Crack Away

Sonic 2 Punch GIF by Sonic The HedgehogGiphy

"Cracking your knuckles causes arthritis."

panda388

"They just wanted us to stop."

Admiral_Minell

I've cracked for years and probably will for life.

My fingers are still slender.

Diet Lies

Season 7 Nbc GIF by The OfficeGiphy

"Food pyramid."

OutrageousEvent

"Of all the facts that have since been disproven, this might be the worst. We have a generation of adults who are getting diabetes and fatty liver disease because of what these people said."

calumin

Bad Illustrations

"Your tongue has different areas for tasting different tastes:sweet on the tip, sour on the sides, bitter in the back, etc. I feel like this was some elaborate prank played on my generation. But I remember seeing this in my elementary school biology textbook. I don’t even think it was disproven, like, they just stopped telling this lie. WTF."

"From what I have read, more like a game of telephone.Study results got slightly distorted, and then changed into a graph which didn’t have meaningful numbers, which lead to an illustration, which got re-purposed. That an illustration got put into textbooks for years and years."

danneedsahobby

Exposure

"Blood is blue until exposed to oxygen."

mwjb86SFW

"This one triggers me. I had an old lady teaching my 6th grade science class that sent me to detention for arguing with her when she said the blood in your veins was blue but red in your arteries. To be fair, I argued with her on a lot of things she was wrong about, but this is the only one that resulted in detention."

"That's the only time I can remember my dad, a chemist, actually go to the school to confront a teacher for being wrong. Incidentally, she also counted off on a test because I said sound was one of the senses. She wanted hearing. I said you sense a taste, you sense a sight, you sense a smell, and you sense a touch, so why don't you sense a sound? That argument lasted several days, but she did give me my points back."

pacer_3iii

The Science of It All

"Neurons can never regenerate. This was from my then-one-year-old anatomy and physiology textbook, and my private, Catholic school actually took - and still takes - its science seriously; we never talked about creationism or the divine influence on our natural world, not to mention our solid AP Physics and AP Chemistry scores. It turns out that that the peripheral neuron system actually can regenerate; as of now, it doesn’t seem that the central nervous system has much in the way of that capability."

Brunt-FCA-285

Jokes on Them

muppets computers GIFGiphy

"Playing with computers is a waste of time and won’t lead to a career. Said to me by a very old, and bitter teacher. 25 years in IT and counting."

zerbey

Who knew computers would take over the world?

They seemed just like big cumbersome machines at first.

Now they build and destroy lives and careers.

Guy holding up a fan of $100 US dollars
Photo by Shane on Unsplash

Though our definitions of "making it" vary, we can all agree that we would at least like to have enough disposable income to live comfortably and debt-free, while some dream of living more luxuriously.

For those who have already "made it" and live among the elite, it's incredible how clueless they can be about how the average person lives day-to-day.

Redditor Always_Wandering_ asked:

"What's the most out-of-touch thing a rich person has said to you?"

But First, Wine

"Long ago when I was a server in a Country Club."

"I was very new to properly opening wine bottles, as I was using my key to take off the foil and gashed the webbing on my hand badly."

"There was a husband and wife at the table. I put down the bottle and was about to leave when he said, 'Who told you to stop pouring?!'"

"I picked it up, poured the wine while dribbling blood all over the white tablecloth, and then went outside, had a smoke, and thought about my life."

- SleepyCountingSheep

Seriously, SO Funny

"He said, 'Isn't it funny we are the same age, but my dad bought me a condo and you have to work two jobs?'"

- BopbopHereWeGo

Living On a Whim

"I worked for a small company that was owned by two wealthy individuals. They were very kind and generous but completely out of touch."

"One day I was at my desk and my then-boss came to me and said he was leaving early for the day to go waterskiing because the weather was nice. It was early summer and the weather was no nicer than it had been the rest of the week."

"I inquired where they were going, thinking it was somewhere near where we were, and he said he was going to his friend’s house in Florida. He’d just booked his private flight, around a three or three-and-a-half hour flight, lol (laughing out loud)."

"Then there was the time he left early to fly to his friend’s house to go quail hunting…"

"The other owner, also wealthy, would jet around the world on a whim to go surfing. Like everywhere. During a conversation about what we were doing for the holidays one year, he said he rented a big house in Canada and hired a helicopter so he, his family, and friends could go heli-skiing. It was totally normal thing to him."

"On the other side, they would give great gifts like good wine, dinners, sometimes small trips, and stuff like that. They were very nice people and I sometimes miss working for them and seeing them, but they both basically semi-retired during the pandemic."

- GratefulGuitar2022

What Daydreams Are Made Of

"I was between jobs and a bunch of my friends told me that I should take the time to go travel the world."

"Like, just because someone doesn't have a job doesn't mean they can just up and travel the world (in fact, the opposite is more likely) but also, you motherf**kers thought the reason I wasn't traveling the world because I hadn't thought of it?"

- Annual-Intern5669

...Wow, Thanks

"He just offhand was like, 'Oh yeah, you can keep all of this since I'm moving out. I'll buy new stuff for my next place.'"

"Some dude I knew who was taking classes at a prestigious university in a very nice studio apartment, whose father had just flown in from Indonesia just to help him pack his clothes."

"I got a full mattress set that was about 3000 dollars, multiple leather rugs for carpeting, expensive looking paintings, way too much IKEA stuff, and a Dyson vacuum."

- Wallow_Whispen

Such a Small Price to Pay

"She said, 'I have no hair on my body! You should have your husband take you to get laser hair removal! It only cost me $10,000!'"

"…Maybe in my dreams."

"She was the Mayor's daughter, and I was catering her dog's birthday party."

- Open-Ad-189

The Reality Check Job

"Had some kid in his early 20s start working at the restaurant I was at. He was a total trust fund baby but his parents made him get a job or they would cut him off (Phone, car, apartment, school, credit card, everything)."

"We were talking about plans for the summer, I mentioned I was gonna take a weekend to head north and visit my mom, someone else was going camping, and another guy was taking a long weekend to help his brother move."

"Holy f**k. He goes, You guys have no idea what vacation means, do you? I'm taking my GF to Spain for two weeks and then spending a few days in Italy before we come back.'"

"He got really upset when I asked him where he was gonna work when he came back. Apparently, he didn't understand that taking three weeks vacation not even two months into a job isn't a thing, especially when part of that was during our busiest season of the year."

"Even better when we all looked at him and told him we couldn't even afford a week off, let alone in Spain."

"He didn't last long."

- subtxtcan

Reality Show Worthy

​"In college, I made most of my money cleaning and tutoring for rich families. Here are the highlights:"

"'It's so much more convenient to have a sauna in your house.'"

"'We ordered our wallpaper from Europe. It's the only way to go.'"

"'I just bought the empty lot next to ours so we won't have neighbors.'"

"And my personal favorite:"

"Rich person's kid: 'Gosh, I can't find any babysitting jobs. They've been taken by the one percent.'"

"Rich parent: 'Honey, you are the one percent.'"

- bombasticfox

Well, They DO Need Their Own Bedroom...

"They lived in Boston and we were talking about how small condos are there."

"They were lamenting that they had no space and, as a result, they had to buy another condo (this was Beacon Hill) because they ran out of space to store their Persian rugs."

- SsureBreC

Start Saving For That Honeymoon

"My boss's wife grew up wealthy and then married an "heir to the throne" for a multi-million dollar organization."

"She is meandering around our office bullpen one day and brings me into the conversation, 'How about you, where would you take your lady on a Honeymoon?'"

"Me: 'I dunno, go to the coast for a week and just enjoy the sun.'"

"She laughed out loud at me and said, 'Oh my god, no woman will ever marry you unless you're going to take her on a Hawaiian honeymoon.'"

"At the time I made 10 dollars an hour."

- Flailing_Aimlessly

The Math Ain't Mathin'

"I was working at a car dealership and saw the owner pull up in a $250k Porsche GT3. I told him how much I loved the car and dreamt of owning one someday."

"The owner looked at me confused and said, 'What do you mean? We sell them right here you know?'"

"It totally blew my mind that he didn't realize his employees couldn't afford the cars they were selling."

- tbh3900

The Disappearing Paycheck

​"I was talking to my manager about a mistake on a check."

"Me: 'This isn’t even enough to cover my daughter's daycare for the month.'"

"Her: 'Well, what did you do with the money you were just paid?'"

"Ma’am. Food, rent, electricity, and car payments. Boom, check gone."

- Lv69

Illusion Broken

"I dated a rich guy who loved my authenticity, and he would pick me up in one of his dad's cool collector cars and take me to record stores. When I went to visit him, I showed up in my grandpa's old Ford f150 truck."

"He asked me why I drove around in that thing."

"I shrugged and said, 'Because I'm poor.'"

"And he said, 'No, you're not...'"

"It was like I ruined his whole hipster aesthetic and he realized I wasn't grunge."

- char-le-magne

Yeah, I'll Just Go Do That

"Me: 'Yeah, I love flying. I have a nice flight simulation setup at home. Wish I could do it for real.'"

"Owner of the company: 'Yeah, the real thing is so much better. You should buy a plane. I love taking mine out for trips.'"

"Me: 'You sign my checks.'"

- Jefo_Bezos

Forgotten Expenses

"My boss is an attorney. A client who was filling out her financial statement for a divorce realized that she had forgotten to include her student loans on the report. Laughing somewhat ruefully, she said, 'I can’t believe I forgot to include that.'"

"And in a bright, sunny, voice, my boss laughed and said, 'I sometimes forget that I own a boat!'"

" The client and I quietly locked eyes with a shared understanding of how out of touch that was."

- headcase-and-a-half

Some of these examples are almost laughable, considering how far from reality these comments are for most people.

It's wild to think about how far away a luxurious life feels to the average person, and how equally far away that life feels to someone who has everything.