We tend to scoff at terrible baby names–especially the ones that make us sympathize with the child who will ultimately face humiliation as they grow up.
But equally as cringy are certain names people name their pets.
Sure, they may come from a loving place, but still, poor doggo.
Curious to hear of unforgivable pet names from those who work with animals, Redditor Lia_Julee asked:
"Vets of Reddit, What was the worst pet name you have ever encountered in your job?"
They're choices, but not necessarily the right ones. What were they thinking? We'll never know.
Return To Sender
"Envelope"
– Mskorn85
"Actually, Darren, it's pronounced En-vel-oh-pee"
– Lilzhazskillz
Bad Mashup
"I’m deeply involved in the horse world. There’s a 'discipline' called halter, and many of the horses are genetic atrocities to begin with. They’ve been bred to the point of uselessness."
"When naming quarter horses, many breeders like to create a registered name that incorporates the parents’ names and bloodlines. So, somebody bred together the stallion Kid’s Classic Style and the mare Lookin’ Touchable. The best name that the breeders could come up with for the foal?"
"KidsLookinTouchable."
"Yeah. That’s the best they could come up with."
– ModernPlagueDoctor
Winning Asset
"Old neighbor lady had a cat named 'face.'”
"because it had a beautiful face, she said."
– praisethehaze
What About The Dressing?
"My brother in law named his cat Salad."
– LeagueIllustrious
Poor Doggo
"My old neighbors apparently thought it would be a good idea to let their 3 year old name their dog."
"The dog was named dump truck."
– [deleted]
Here's a name that just left Redditors scratching their heads.
Sensual Misfire
"Sexy - for a chihuahua. Just made the whole consultation very awkward."
– prouvairee
Expected One-Liners
"If you could just lift Sexy up here please, thank you."
"Now I might need your help to hold Sexy down."
"I'm going to put this in your butt Sexy but I'll be quick."
– Opening-Thought-5736
The Followup Appointment
"Yes, but will you bring sexy back?"
– ermahgerdshoez
These examples say a lot about the pet owners.
There Are Worse Things Than Just Names
"Mom owns a vet practice so had a lot of these."
"Best/worse pet parents named their cat D.O.G. and their dog C.A.T."
"James Bond was my favorite doggy (Pekinese). He was hilarious."
"There were so many Mittens, Fluffys, Spots and Buddy's they got lost in the sea of animals."
"Worst story was a rescued golden retriever who was so malnourished they nick named him Pancake. Sadly, Pancake's kidneys were done so he dies 2 days after he was rescued by the local animal control. The two days I got to feed and spend time with him made it all the harder to realize he could have been saved if his family had let him go instead of leaving him chained up in the yard before they left."
"I hate people a lot of the time."
– AzureaWinds
Jokester
"I used to work at a pallet repair yard and a bloke had the last name Pallet. Initial A."
"A. Pallet."
"Funny as f'k when delivery drivers asked him for his name to sign the delivery note."
– Jaster_Rogue
Sure, many of these are hilariously absurd.
But the poor, poor animals are the ones not laughing, right, "Sexy?"
19-Year-Old Cat Abandoned At Airport Finds A New Home Just In Time For The Holidays
This sweet story about an elderly cat changes the meaning of "Home for the Holidays."
Abandoned at Logan Airport, 19-year-old Tangee found a new fur-ever home just in time for the holidays.
While giving a gentleman a ride to Logan Airport, the driver was surprised at what the man did when they arrived at the airport. As the man got out of the car, he turned to the driver and gave him his cat, named Tangee, along with a note that said he was moving to Florida and would be unable to take her with him.
Not sure what else to do, the driver took Tangee to Boston Animal Care and Control. From there, the elderly feline was delivered to Animal Rescue League "ARL" Boston, who were quick to commit to the task of finding her a new home in time for the holidays.
The team quickly produced a blog post to include on their website, as well as Facebook and Instagram posts.
You can see the Instagram post here:
According to the team, the lovely Tangee is 19-years-old, which is the equivalent to being a 96-year-old woman, and she shows early signs of kidney failure. Beyond that, however, she's healthy, extremely energetic, and good-spirited, especially given her age.
The ARL team wrote:
"She's extremely friendly. For a 19-year-old cat, she's very spry and has a lot of energy."
The team also said on their blog:
"Tangee has quickly become a staff favorite!"
It took no time at all for Tangee to become a favorite and win hearts all across social media, as offers poured in from everywhere to provide her a new fur-ever home.
But the home Tangee eventually received was even more perfect than the immense outpouring of love online.
Just three hours after Tangee was settled and registered at ARL Boston, a woman appeared, who loved senior animals, in search of an elderly cat to give a home to in time for the holidays. She was unaware of Tangee's story and had no idea she was internet-famous.
The woman and cat were quick friends, and it was clear that Tangee had found a home she would enjoy for the rest of her life.
ARL Boston posted an update:
"Thank you to the hundreds of caring individuals who reached out regarding this sweet girl. She has found a wonderful home not only for the holidays, but for the rest of her life."
The internet immediately celebrated and rejoiced Tangee's quick find of a new loving home, sharing how deserving the elderly cat was of kindness.
@arlboston / Instagram
@arlboston / Instagram
@arlboston / Instagram
@arlboston / Instagram
It's heartwarming to see how many people were ready to help this one elderly cat, and how committed this group of people is to animals finding fur-ever homes and not just jobs as holiday presents.
If you have a feline (or canine) friend who needs a comfy spot to lay their head, the Soft Plush Donut Pet Bed available here in two sizes and four colors.
People Share What They Think Are The Best Non-Sexual Physical Sensations
Physical sensations are part of our everyday lives, but not all of them are created equal. Hugging a friend, for example, feels way better than a papercut.
There are a lot of great sensations, though. One of my favorites is the feeling of the short fur just under my cat's chin, which she loves to have scratched. Her fur is super soft, and it brings me joy to scratch her chin because she so obviously loves the interaction too.
In search of more of these great sensations, Reddit user Zahfier asked:
"What is the best physical, yet non-sexual, sensation?"
Cool Drink
Giphy"Drinking water when you're really, really thirsty, especially after exercise. Nothing better"
Fall Air
"Taking nap in the fall with the window open and your blanket is a little bit cold."
Floss-tastic
"Finally removing the food that’s been stuck between your teeth for an extended period of time."
Simple Touch
"Someone lightly running their fingers up and down your back. My partner does it to me all the time and it is so relaxing"
Glasses
"Putting on glasses that work for the first time, literally like seeing the world through new eyes."
Crisp
"I get a similar feeling when I clean mine."
"Take them off, clean then, and then putting them back is like, “whoa! Look at the crisp colors!”
Songs
"When that part of the song comes on that gives you a tingle. It starts at the base of your neck and works its way out through your entire body."
Cats
"Waking up to my cat headbutting my face so I'll make room for her to spoon with me until my alarm goes off in 2 hours."
There is so much joy to experience! What would you add to this list? Let us know in the comments.
People Divulge Their Weirdest Paranormal Experiences
Some pretty strange stuff happens sometimes, especially when we're alone at night. Whether it's a series of sounds somewhere in the house, a shadow that you can only see out of the corner of your eye, or some lights in the night sky, there are a lot of things we experience that can't quite be explained.
Reddit user u/GiannisXo asked:
"People of Reddit, what is your weirdest paranormal experience?"
20.
I think it was Summer of '97. A little after 9 pm, I heard a very distinct "humming?" noises coming outside.
I looked out my bedroom window. Just past the houses to the west in an open field, I see a dark, unlit object about 150-200(?) feet in the air.
I stare in awe at it for a few minutes, then commercials were over and the show I was watching resumed.
About 10-15 minutes later I hear helicopter noises, coming in fast, and very low. I see 3 military helicopters fly overhead.
19.
About a month ago, I picked up my brother from the bars. He was pretty much done for the night (Blacked out). Well on our 30 minute drive back home, he looks in the back seats and says "Anthony who is in the back seat", to which I reply no one, it is just you and me. 10 minutes pass by and again he asks, and again I said no one is in the back (as I had previously checked).
With my drunk brother still with me, I met up with a friend at a bar in the town we live in. At this point my brother was really tired, so I drove him back home, with my friend sitting in the back. I get home, and my father had just parked in our drive way. All three of us in my car hop out and my dad says hello to us. Keep in mind 3 of us hopped out of my car, My brother, my friend and I.
The next night my father comes home from work, and he asks me who was in the back seat. I looked at him confused and said "no one, there was three of us only, and my friend got out to greet you". He replies with, "I know, but there was someone else that stayed in the car and didn't get out". I was in shock and confused when he brought this up. I don't know what to make of any of this, but it def creeped me out as my father and brother did not interact the following day due to work schedules. My brother doesn't remember any of it, and my dad brought it up days later, asking me if there was no one in the back. He said the 4th person was wearing a tan jacket.
My friend was wearing all black that night. My dad believes it was his brother, who passed away almost 10 years ago. It's really odd that two people saw something and I didn't, neither did my friend.
18.
Once upon a time, maybe 15-16 years ago I had a friend, with a trampoline and a big Boxer-dog. We would play, jump on the trampoline, and her dog would run back and forth under it because the two of us whooping and laughing got the dog all excited, as dogs do. Of course, the dog would pant as she ran around under the trampoline, it was a very distinct sound. Couldn't miss it.
Cut to one day when I go over to play, and it turns out the dog got hit by a car and killed, the family buried Molly in their back yard. They had another puppy, a ridiculously tiny dust-bunny of a thing, and it was inside when we started playing on the trampoline. Soon after, we heard a distinct sound, like a dog panting right under our feet. We both stopped, looked at each other, and decided to keep playing, until it happened again. We stopped, and looked down through the semi-transparent trampoline mesh to see there was nothing there. We both heard it, both times.
We both recognized it for what it was. That's basically what started me believing ghosts aren't always just stories, and it wouldn't be my first encounter either.
17.
Still the apartment in which my mom and I lived couple of years ago. Missing and reappearing items were really creepy. The bathroom light turning itself on several times one night was worse. The handprint on the glass door to the attic (located in the bathroom roof) was the worst. Funfact: my mom told me around one week ago that the landlords mother has died in that apartment and NOONE lived there longer than half a year - including us.
16.
I don't remember this, but my mom told me the story.
We moved into a new house when I was 4. And one of the first nights I had a dream about a nice old woman who was talking to me the way old women talk to little kids. "How old are you? Do you like pre-school?"
The same night, my mom had a dream about the same old woman. But instead of being nice she was screaming at her to get out of her house.
15.
So... I know this is long but I'll try to be clear.
One day, my 3 year old cousin and I decided to go up to the attic at my mom's house to get something. On our way up, my cousin asks "Are we going to see the little boy?", to which I reply "What??". I honestly thought I had misheard her and dismissed it.
Well, a month later we do the same and, again, on our way she asks "Are we going to play with the little boy?". This time I knew I hadn't misheard and asked what little boy was she talking about: "The boy that is in the attic". Of course, my very "brave" teenage me noped out of there as fast as possible and casually mentioned both cases to my mom and aunts.
Since the house we lived on used to be my grandmas house, and since we knew she had had a miscarriage there years ago, we started addressing the "little boy in the attic" as my uncle. It kinda turned into a joke and no one gave it much thought.
Two weeks go by and my aunt decides to go to a party with some of her friends. In this group is a woman that she has never met before, a friend of her friend. This woman then asks my aunt if she's okay, with a worried look on her face. She says she is feeling fine. But the woman keeps going and says that she is only asking cause my aunt's father is behind her. Note that her father, aka my grandfather, had pasted away 8 years before that.
My aunt gets very weirded out and manages to say "okay... but he is dead". This woman then says that she knows, but he is asking her to tell ME that the "little boy in the attic" is not my uncle, but my cousin, the brother of my 3 year old cousin that wasn't born cause my aunt had a miscarriage at five months. She told her that the little boy was protecting my cousin and that he always follows her. And that my grandpa wanted us to know.
I don't really know what to make of it. But this did happen and I guess we just kinda repress it and try to pretend we don't remember.
14.
I was visiting family in another country. We were driving one night between two coastal cities, it's late, probably 1am and the road is dark with some light posts every now and then. We were talking about mundane things when a huge dog with a fanny pack ran in front of the car, I didn't have time to slow down so we hit it. Instead of a whimper or any animal sound we heard "hijuep*ta" which means son of a b*tch in spanish. The dog got up on two legs and ran into the foliage. My cousin and I screamed and I floored it until we arrived to a toll.
That was the weirdest thing I have ever experienced and to this day my cousin and I re-tell the story at family gatherings.
13.
Was sitting watching television with my husband one evening. The only light was from the screen. A small child, just short enough that the top of its head was right underneath the screen, runs in front of us and into the kitchen. It was too dark in the room to discern any details. For just a split second I accepted it because our kids were about that size at the time. Then, I remembered they were spending the night with my mom. My heart started racing and just as I opened my mouth to ask my husband if he'd seen it, too, he says, "Wait... did you see that?"
Instant goosebumps.
Never came up with an explanation for that one. We were the only ones in the house & had no pets back then.
12.
I got a few less paranormal but still paranormal experiences.
When I was in bed and barely awake, I blinked quickly because of the gunk at the side of the eyes. In between those quick blinks I saw a woman clearly holding a tray and all white. I was confused but I didn’t think much of it.
When I was very young I apparently was talking about a white lady protecting me, which might be a connection to above. My parents said I would sometimes just look up or into the hallway and follow something unseen to them.
When my grandmother’s cat died, she and her husband swore they could still hear it meowing and once it felt like some cat stroked against her leg.
Anyway, my family’s got a few more paranormal experiences. This is just a few.
11.
I used to work events at a historic home. It was well known that the place was thought to be haunted and everyone had their own stories. I never believed any of it until one night I was the last one in the house because I was locking up after a particularly late wedding (probably around 1am). I went up to the top floor and the second I crossed the threshold I felt the air change, it got almost...dense? and knocked the breathe out of me. I booked it out as fast as I possible could.
Another coworker said one night when she went up to do the same thing around the same time she clearly heard footsteps and assumed it was another coworker coming up to join her, but when she turned around no one was there and the other coworker had actually been far across the property at the time. Another person said they were walking down the corridor when the door they were about to go through slammed shut in front of them and locked. The facilities guy was absolutely positive the original owners of the home (from the 1800s) were doing the haunting so he started playing classical music at night if he had to be there late to 'appease them' and claimed they started leaving him alone after that.
Nothing too crazy ever happened to anyone but man did it make you not want to be the last person in there at night.
10.
I was riding a bus from class to my car at around 2:30PM and thought I was the only person on the bus as we pulled onto a bridge. Out of nowhere a woman, dressed in nice but disheveled clothes, got my attention and asked what time it was. I told her it was 2:30 and then went back to looking out the window. I glanced back at where she was before the bus had reached the other side of the bridge, and before we'd made any stops, only to realize that I was the only person besides the driver on the bus.
9.
In 1998 I was walking home from a late night library study session and there were 4 very large, shiny, deep gold things in the sky. They were twirling downward like those seedpod things on trees that sort of helicopter themselves, except these were bigger than cars and were doing it very slowly.
I had stopped and was staring up at them before I even realized it. Then I noticed that about 20 people were standing on the other side of the road, they had come out of a bar. There was only the bar, several houses, and a bridge but that was basically it. These days I would never let my daughter walk home like that, but whatever. I thought it was safe.
I hollered something along the lines of, "What is that?" and one of the people said she thought it was spaceships but I knew that wasn't right, and I went home and told people who thought I was probably crazy. A few years later when I was older and understood the Internet more I looked for any kind of news story or anything, and nothing was available.
I wish for the life of me I had talked more to the people watching the same thing outside the bar (which Google tells me is now gone) but I was more afraid of them than whatever was in the sky.
It was...bizarre. In the intervening 20+ years I haven't gone crazy or ever seen anything like it again. lol
8.
Lived in a "haunted house" for a little bit. That's what the landlord told us anyways but we were all skeptical.
Once one of my roommates borrowed my LOTR replica of the One Ring (because of course). When he came home, he set it on the top of my bookshelf (I saw him do this) and then came into the living room with me. We're sitting on the couch talking and hear something drop under the couch... It was the ring. Have no idea how that happened.
By that time we were so immune to sh!t happening that it was like... "Hey, Christine!" go back to talking.
7.
I once lived in a haunted loft apt. Lots of odd things happened there, but my sister vehemently refused to even listen to the stories...at first. She would actually snarl when she called us liars.
Then one day she was visiting and while she was in the bathroom she began shouting: "I'll be out in a minute! Get away from the damned door!"
My roomate and I looked over and the doorknob was twisting back and forth by itself while my sister was getting angrier and angrier. When she burst out of the bathroom and saw how far away we were from the door she turned totally white.
Was absolutely hilarious.
That place turned several non-believers into believers. I wish I could have taken that ghost with me when I moved.
6.
Went running with my dog and saw a white outline of a young woman running alongside me out of the corner of my eye. When I looked over, nothing. About 5 mins later I got a call that my great grandmother had passed, she was in hospice. Still think about that a lot.
I think it runs in the family. My mom will straight up say "I need to call X, I feel weird" and sure as sh!t, there's a disease/illness going on. My great grandmother used to talk to dead people and my family thought she was crazy until they figured out the house she used to live in was owned by the couple she "talked" to years earlier. Found this out a year or so ago, been about 5 years since she passed away.
5.
When my son was a baby we had a sound monitor next to his crib and my wife was downstairs and heard a voice on the other end of the monitor saying "what are you doing cutie? Huh? What are you doing?" She said it sounded playful like how people talk to babies or pets. She ran up to his room thinking someone was in the house and he was just laying there awake looking around.
When he got a little older and could walk and talk some, he was laying on the living room floor playing with blocks. Something down the hall caught his attention and he got up and stared down the hall. I asked him what was wrong because he kept looking at me all concerned and then looking back down the hall. He ran over, climbed in my lap, and pointed to the hallway and said "monkey" I think maybe he was seeing some kind of shadowy apparition and monkey was the only word he knew to describe what he saw.
That house always creeped us out, even before he was born. We always had that weird feeling like someone was watching us, and one time I got slapped on my foot while laying in bed.
4.
About 4 months after my old cat died (RIP Neesa ;-; ) we got a little kitten. The night we got her, I was laying in my bed, trying to get to sleep after all of the days exitement. I felt pawsteps on my back, and there she was. Clear as day. She curled up on my pillow like she would always do before she went to sleep. I was so happy she was back, so I didn't make a big deal of it in hopes she would stay. I fell asleep with her by my side. When I woke up, she was gone, and one of her old toys was on the foot of the bed. I still cry when I think about it.
3.
It was probably my brain, accessing information way faster than it could communicate to my body, but one day as I was walking from parking my car to work, I heard this voice as I was getting closer to the intersection. It kept screaming at me, "check this out! look up here, no really this is cool, check this out!!! LOOK UP HERE".
I didn't feel like anyone else was hearing this, I was alone, and it felt like it was for me, and the voice wasn't my own. I hit the walk button, and finally decided to stop ignoring the voice. I look at the top of the building as the light turns green to cross the street, three floors up where the voice seemed to be coming from, and I see.... a flag. A stupid flag on a building. Woo. A flag.
Just as I'm about to step into the intersection this giant white truck barrels through the intersection and takes a right, exactly in the spot I would be in if I hadn't looked up to see what the whole hullabaloo was about.*shrug*
I'm just glad I waited to cross the street.
2.
Once I was house & dog sitting for my then gf's sister and her bf, they always told me about how weird stuff would always happen like washer and dryer door would randomly fly open, the front door would open if it was closed or close if it was already open, just weird stuff like that. Didn't ever really think much of it because I've never personally experienced anything like that ever.
Well the first night I was there I was laying in bed with the dog when all of a sudden the dog got up and started barking like crazy in the direction of their closet(which was open and was the length of the entire wall), I looked in that direction didn't see anything so I just turned around to try and calm the dog down and as soon as I put my head back onto the pillow every single one of the hangers started to move in order just as if someone took their hand and dragged it along the entire length of the closet from left to right. No windows were open and the bedroom door was closed, that's the first time anything like that happened and I couldn't come up with some reason that was even remotely possible as to why it would be happening.
1.
I have an ongoing one for 5 plus years. I work graveyard shift in a largeish senior "community". Different levels ie seniors Apts, retirement, assisted living and long term care. Its actually a very nice setup as far as all the horror stories you hear about senior care. At night the doors (all handicapped accessible, push button and door opens) are locked and armed to the call bell system. Every month or 2 one of the doors randomly opens itself and sets off the alarm. Every damn time someone somewhere in the facility has passed away.
Doctors Share The Most Miraculous Recovery They Have Ever Witnessed
Working as a medical professional is often a very rewarding career; you get to help people stay healthy and save lives on a regular basis.
Some of those lives saved can seem like miracles, as people recover from seemingly terminal illnesses or injuries.
Reddit user u/marybroadmore asked:
"Doctors of Reddit, what is the most mind blowing recovery you’ve ever witnessed?"
*Content Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of injury to humans and animals.*
10. Feelin' Fine
Resident here.
When I was a medical student on a cardiology rotation, we had a very nice 40 yr old lady that was being treated for a heart attack (kinda young, but ok). This type of heart attack, deemed an NSTEMI, is the type where she did not have to be urgently rushed to the cath lab. So she had hers the morning after she was admitted, seemingly fine before going down. While in the cath lab, she spontaneously went into cardiac arrest. They got her back after 2 shocks, multiple rounds of CPR, and a round of epi. Usually, if someone is coding for awhile, it doesn't look good for them. But she came back and was intubated, so it's more of a "watch and wait" deal after.
Well, overnight, she self extubated herself. When I rounded on her in the morning, she was awake and said she felt fine. Her only complaint was that she felt like she got burned on her chest, and that was irritating her a bit. Uhhh yea, that was the 200 J of electricity going through you a few hours ago. She then went on asking when she was going to be discharged because she needed to go home and take care of her two dogs.
The fact that she went into cardiac arrest in house and in a shockable rhythm definitely helped her chances of a good outcome. But it's still one of my cooler stories.. bc contrary to what people see in the TV shows, people don't just wake up, eager to take on the day, after cardiac arrest.
9. A True 180
Have seen a lot of remarkable recoveries back to baseline from people unconscious and intubated in ICU. Especially in young people who have high physiological reserve to bounce back from catastrophic events e.g. thyroid storm, aneurysms, ketoacidosis.
I'd say the most surprising recovery was in a drug & alcohol patient. Man in his twenties with a very difficult upbringing, dropped out of high school at 15 and was just hooked on meth and alcohol since. Very expensive habit so he'd commit crimes to fund the drugs, get out of prison and back to us for rehabilitation, commit another crime. A horrible cycle.
He wasn't motivated to recover because he didn't have much of a life to return to. Serious health problems from drug use, nobody would hire him due to his criminal record, parents in prison. Also seemed mildly intellectually impaired, possibly from chronic drug use. He only had his girlfriend.
Then his girlfriend died of a drug overdose. I thought he'd follow after because he was hanging on just for her. But he did a total 180. Booked himself into detox, attended all his appointments, got his high school equivalency. Stayed clean for years and got hired as a security guard. On discharge, he was with a new partner and they had a baby on the way. During his last appointment he'd dropped into the dollar store and had a bag with a stuffed elephant and pink blanket inside.
8. Changed Her Mind
Not a doctor but a nurse who worked in long term care.
I had a patient who was apparently actively dying. She had stopped eating for 3-4 days and was on comfort measures only. This meant she was receiving morphine every hour and the rest of her medications were discontinued, and she was only being fed and given water as tolerated.
Out of nowhere one day she just sat up and said "I'm hungry," and like that she was back to normal. She lived for around another year or so after that.
7. One In A Million
Paramedic fireman here. Had a guy (65ish years old) who dropped dead while on a treadmill. Leads showed asystole, which means dead as hell, zero electrical activity in his heart. 1 round of CPR with 1 round of ALS meds, goes into a shockable rhythm, defibrillate ("shock") 1 time, guy gets a normal heart rhythm back with a pulse. Loaded em up, had a 5 minute transport. By the time we got to the hospital, this man was making jokes with us and would have walked in if we let him.
This is not how cardiac arrests go. You usually die. And if you live, your quality of life after is usually greatly reduced if not negligible. This was absolutely incredible.
6. Don't Try This One At Home
As a resident I admitted a patient for a COPD exacerbation. Pretty routine. What wasn't was her history. She had been discharged from the hospital 4 years before with hospice. She had biopsy proven small cell lung cancer that had metastasized to other organs. Essentially zero survival and she had gone home to receive medicine to make her comfortable. She hadn't taken any cancer treatment.
Four years later when I admitted her there was no trace of cancer. The only suggestion from the pulmonologist was her crack cocaine habit must have been lethal to the cancer. Or her body just found a way to fight it off. Basically we don't know how and her odds of doing it should be about zero.
5. Still Here
Sorry i am not a doctor, but my brother had been given hours to live 3 times during his battle with cancer. I flew to see him and say goodbye all 3 times and another 20 odd times to give morale support over the two years he fought. One night in the hospital the doctors told us to say goodbye as he had only hours to live. We all fell asleep holding his hand and at 6am i opened my eyes and listened to see if i could hear breathing. It was quite dark and all i heard was my brother's voice saying "holy sh*t i am still here!!" He lived for another year.
4. A Chain Reaction
Not a doctor, but a relative. My grandma ended up in bed for a about a year when she was in her mid 70's. She had been declining for a fair while, and just kept getting more and more medication to take care of her different illnesses and discomfort. I went up there three months before this and I was sure I wouldn't see her again, she was almost comatose just lying in her bed barely being responsive.
At one point my 7 year old second cousin randomly overhears my mom telling my aunt that grandma started on yet another type of medication (far into double digits). 7 year old start crying because apparently she thinks that medicine is making grandma more sick and "everytime she gets more pills, she gets more tired".
My mom and aunt comfort this poor kid, telling her that it is not the medicine that is making her sick and whatever you tell a 7 year old to calm them down.
My mom is a nurse (or was back then, she is retired now), she worked with her best friend at a smaller private hospital in Denmark and a week later in the lunch room she is telling her friend the story about my cousin. The in house anaesthetists picks up on the convo, asks about what type of medication grandma is on, mom starts mentioning the ones she remembers. Which really gets this guys attention; basically my mom names a chain reaction; like medicine A has lack of energy as a side effect and another side effect, which is then treated with B that causes lack of energy and another side effect that is then treated with C etc. So basically if grandma didn't get A, she wouldn't need B, C, D or E and that is just the 5 medicines that my mom remembered of the top of her head.
Mom gets a list of all the medicines together for her colleague, apparently him and his doctor misses went over them as an after dinner activity and the next morning he had a three page letter written up that my mom could give grandma's doctor arguing why 25 out of 28 medications where at best unnecessary if not harmful.
Mum got the next day off, drove 450 km to see grandma's doctor, showed up with out an appointment, pulled a Karen, got to see him, showed him the letter and half an hour later left with a new medicine schedule to step grandma out of 25 different medicines and half the dose of the three remainings.
Two days later my grandma got out of bed for no apparent reason for the first time in six months, two months later she was walking the dog and baking again. 15 years later grandma is still alive, she is missing a leg now and 4 years ago she moved into a retirement home with my grandpa. I haven't seen her for 3 years, but she is doing good. She ended up getting compensated by the stated, can't remember the figures but it was the maximum amount (Mind you, not that high in Denmark).
3. Back Up On 4 Legs
Someone brought their cat in that had been missing for a week. It had pulled itself in through the cat flap that morning dragging both back legs, matted, thin, and covered in oil. Very high likelihood that it had been run over.
His right hind was obviously broken with the knee completely in the wrong place, couldn't immediately tell what was wrong with the other leg just by palpating. The owner didn't have the money to x-ray, much less do surgery and the cat was less than 1 year old, so I offered to have them sign it into my care so I would become financially responsible for the cat.
Took some x-rays, hoping for one shattered leg and one relatively normal one, as an amputation was looking pretty likely at this point. The other femur was still intact, but had come entirely out of it's hip joint, which pretty much skunked amputation as an option. I'm a passable soft tissue surgeon, but I am not an orthopedic surgeon by any means. So I contacted a friend and asked him if he wanted a crack at the leg. He managed to wire to together for a bit before the wires failed, but cats heal remarkably well, particularly young cats, and he managed to get a pretty functional limb out of the ordeal after several weeks of cage rest and popping the other hip back in.
He currently lives on a farm and catches rats, climbs trees, and gets on the barn roof just as well as the rest of the cats.
2. Stayin' Alive
Cardiac care nurse here, got called to the ER to assist with a cardiac arrest of this patient in his 50's. He had a delay of 10 minutes (no oxygen to his brains for 10 minutes), the EMT already tried reviving him for 45 minutes on a flatline. After 15 minutes the doctor said, last check before we declare this patient deceased and when we did he actually had a pulse and a decent rhythm on the monitor. Mind you, we use an automatic CPR machine so we don't have to do manual compressions so we had to turn off the machine to check. He got wheeled to the ICU, ended up on the corony care 2 days later (pretty confused I might add) and a week later he walked out of the hospital when the doctors discharged him without any brain damage or visual physical damage.
Edit: they give him a pacemaker before his discharge.
1.
When I was in trauma surgery in upstate by, got a notification about a man who was shot 3 times in the head. He comes in, literally one eye hanging out of the socket, blood everywhere, and he's slumped forward. Apparently he was shot in the temple, exited out his right eye socket, in the nose exited from the roof of the mouth, and In the cheek one with exit from the side of the head. At this point I'm thinking they just brought him in so we can pronounce him in the ER because he looked dead. I go to examine him and tilt his head back, and he's says "yoooo be gentle!!!!" I jump back and scream like a little boy, as did everyone in the room. Literally the bullets missed his brain in every single shot.