Anesthesiologists Share The Craziest Things Patients Have Said Under The Influence Of Medication
Some of these modern medicines can really pack a wallop.
Remember that Taylor Swift video her mom took of her?
That was too good.
Patients teeter between a laugh riot and a hideous, dramatic mess.
Either way, it's pretty entertaining.
Redditor DvS_Insanity wanted to hear about what we all mumble when under the influence before surgery. They asked:
"Anesthesiologists of Reddit, what was something you won’t forget hearing from someone that was under?"
I haven't really been under so deep I expressed these kinds of thoughts. I'm ok with skipping surgery, actually.
Fingered
Kung Fu Wtf GIF by A24Giphy"I ask a patient after surgery how he feels. He opens his eyes, stares me dead-on and says 'with my fingers.' Then he goes right back to sleep."
DrBarbotage
'hand... hand please'
"I had an ovarian cyst removed a year ago and woke up from the anesthesia saying 'hand... hand please.' and making 'grabby hands' with both my hands until the nurses finally came over and held my hands for about five minutes while I just smiled and tried to go back to sleep. I hadn't done that in a decade. I used to do it to my dad all the time as a kid to express that I wanted to hold his hand while I slept."
mercyinreach
'Ooo ithh a robot'
"My boyfriend at the time had just gotten his wisdom teeth removed, on the ride home with his mouth full of gauze, he gets a call on his cell phone. He answered it and just starts talking away, whoever it was on the other side could not possibly understand a word he was saying with all the gauze in his mouth. But man, he had a lot to talk about and they apparently didn't hang up..."
"After about 5 minutes of this unintelligible phone conversation, he looks at me and says 'Ooo ithh a robot' and gives me the phone. I put it to my ear, and the whole time it's been the Walgreens pharmacy automated notice simply stating his prescription is ready for pickup, playing on repeat. Probably for the best."
December_Flame
Slurred...
"I’m an anesthesiologist. The best story was a 40-some year old woman for appendectomy, said while I’m giving the propofol to induce anesthesia. She said 'oh I don’t remember it tasting like that before' (slurred). I said 'what does it taste like?' Since propofol doesn’t usually elicit a taste reaction. She almost yelled 'DEEEZ NUTS,' and was promptly under anesthesia thereafter. There have been other stories, but this one has the entire OR staff rolling laughing for minutes after she was under."
Zefside89
“AHHHH”
Oh My Love GIF by WWEGiphy"After an operation on a patient's neck, he woke up and yelled 'AHHHH' then grabbed his junk with both hands and was like 'oh thank God it’s still there' then immediately passed out again."
tv__doctor
People are funny with no censor. And dialogue dangerous...
Beauty
"My personal story. When I had my wisdom teeth out, I kept holding a fake camera up to my face saying 'you're beautiful' and making clicking noises while I was under. I'm a professional photographer and my dental surgeon ended up booking a session with me a year later."
cassiecas88
Nasty
"I woke up from gallbladder surgery confused as to why my mom wasn’t there (I was 18 and looking for my mom). The nurse informed me I had cussed out my entire family and they sent them home and put me on a no visitor list, only for me to wakeup at 2am with no memory making them call my mom back. Another time I woke up and made horrifically inappropriate jokes."
"I told a nurse she was pissing me off because I didn’t like the automatic blood pressure cuff. Another I refused to listen to followup orders until I had a chicken sandwich (my negotiations were not met). I’m a real treat after anesthesia but I get a lot of this done at the office my mom works at so she can warn them lol."
__hill
'That's my wife for ya'
"My aunt got rushed to the hospital for abnormal heart rate - but it wasn't a heart attack or stroke, but her heart was going at like 200 beats per minute or whatever it was. They had to put her under so they could shock her heart back to normal. As they're taking her under, the doctor says something like 'Okay, in it goes' and she immediately quips with 'That's what she said.' All the doctors and nurses busted a gut laughing and told my uncle when he got there. He just shrugged and said 'That's my wife for ya.'"
StrawberryPeachies
Treasures
"One summer I was home from college and my dad needed me to pick him up after his very first colonoscopy. He was nervous so I got there early. The nurse called me back and asked me to help wake him up, as they were having some trouble. I go back and am making chit chat. 'Oh dad, you’ve got those cool booties on!' He raised his head a little bit to look at them then yelled, 'Booty call!' He is a Presbyterian pastor. A moment I will treasure forever."
mildflower9
Hugs
Kat Graham Netflix GIF by GIF RegistryGiphy"Apparently, when I had surgery to remove my Bartholin’s gland (a gland at the entrance of the vagina that can get an abscess), they asked me how I felt as soon as I was awake. I said I felt like I got attacked by an elephant and then I wanted to hug everyone."
relentlessvisions
Oh, the things we'll say when under the influence.
Do you have similar experiences to share? Let us know in the comments below.
Hospitals are supposed to be places of healing and comfort.
Reddit user, u/After-Bullfrog5639, wanted to hear about your worst medical time when they asked:
What's your worst experience in a hospital?
Not everyone can have these experiences when you visit a hospital. Frankly, because not everyone in life is setting themselves up for these encounters.
There Are People There Every Day
"Working in one - RN - patient's can be mean, family members can be mean, doctors can be mean. They give me 6 patients and then expect me to spend a lot of time with each. I have 10 minutes per hour with each and if I have to cover for some one else I have 12, meaning 5 minutes with each per hour."
"People that are admitted are really, really sick and deserve more care - but I'm just the hired gun and it's not my fault that they think nurses can give 6 patients 30 minutes of care each in an hour. Going to private rooms makes it harder since you can no longer take care of 2 on same stop."
An Uncomfortable Confrontation
"The guy who slept with my first wife was a doctor at our regional hospital. When I found out about the affair I confronted him in the lobby of the hospital while very drunk. A brawl broke out and because of both my intoxication and his superior physical fitness he beat the sh-t out of me. I spent the next 24 hours in the same hospital and he took excellent care of me. I left him 5 stars on Google reviews because he's actually a great doctor. I hated the whole experience."
"No good way around this my dude, he dunked on you on a whole other level."
10 Days Of Pain
"Recovering from Scoliosis surgery in 2010 wasn't too bad in retrospect. Just had the pain"
"Heart surgery+pneumonia in that hospital+Impending Covid Lockdown was a completely different animal"
"My parents couldn't visit me that often. When they did, taking care of me was rough. There was an entire day being moved to and from a toilet by nurses after I wasn't backed up anymore. Didn't get Covid, but food did taste metallic for a while. Constant blood draws with a new f-cking needle, IVs that shifted too f-cking much. It was 10 days of hell"
"Still, it ended up being a surprisingly good year after recovery. Worked from home that summer and did a lot of personal writing and art projects. Movie reviews and videos, 3d modeling and animation, and stuff like that"
Drink More Water. (And Cannula = Arm Tube.)
"As a patient, being admitted for kidney stones was bad enough, but on my second night in hospital, I was woken up because my cannula was knocked out in my sleep and my bed was covered in blood. I usually sleep on my side but had to sleep on my back that night due to my cannula. I guess my muscle memory almost killed me lol."
"Even though I was an adult, Mum had been allowed to stay with me, and I wonder if I would have just bled out in my sleep if she wasn't there."
Nothing Hurts More Than Watching Your One-Year Old Struggle
"Watching my son (almost a year old at the time) being intubated for severe wheeze (since has been diagnosed with asthma but was too little then). Seeing 8 or so doctors and nurses just converge on his bed and hearing his screams while they try to get him sorted. Thankfully there was an amazing nurse or other staff member who moved us to a waiting area and made us tea and brought snacks. I'll never forget when she said "don't be afraid, you hear him yelling? He's strong and will be okay"
Something That Stays With You Forever
"6/7 years old with aggressive salmonella. A week at home with "the flu", a week at my local hospital, a week at the children's hospital to make sure my organs hasn't turned to mush. Being held down by 4 nurses and stripped so that they could put a catheter in. Fever so high that I hallucinated crickets in the walls. No one checked my IV line for a week, it wiggled and left a crater in my arm (the scar is still there)."
Surgery is an art form, requiring a steady hand and a focused mind. Take your eye off the ball for too long and you might miss something crucial.
Like how you're patient is waking up.
Go Back To Sleep
"Woke up during or right after surgery and couldnt move or breathe, but could hear the nurses chatting next to me. I was desperate to tell them I was suffocating but I was paralyzed and couldnt even open my eyes or twitch a finger. I guess I eventually passed out, and am still traumatized by the experience years later."
No. Seriously. Sleep.
"I woke up during surgery. They were inside my left lung doing some stuff and then i suddently woke up in a paniced way, breathing air theought my open cavity in my chest, sat up in the bed and then they pushed me down and filled me up again with the stuff that makes you go back to sleep."
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"Giving birth to my son because I had preeclampsia and had to be induced. I couldn't breathe during labor. because I had fluid in my lungs. They tried their best to keep the fluid off my lungs, but couldn't. I passed out after hours of pushing and had a c section I wasn't awake for. I woke up with a feeding tube, oxygen etc."
"I learn later that they had to shock my son after he came out. I went from ICU to a regular room. I was fine for a few days.. Went home after a week. I was home for a day. The next day in the middle of the day I felt bad, passed it off as anxiety I had fluid in my lungs again. I rushed to the E.R again and they discovered I had a leaky heart valve. I spent another 3 days in the hospital."
"My son is now 8 years old."
These are the visits no one wants to experience, the times when being somewhere with fluorescent lighting and that lingering smell of medicine and waxed floors isn't making the final encounter something easy.
The times when you have to say good-bye.
The Hardest Visits Of Your Life
"When I was a kid, my dad had epilepsy pretty bad, it'd hit him out of nowhere for no reason, sometimes just sitting on the couch, sometimes when he'd be driving and I'd have to grab the wheel to keep us on the road."
"When he finally got into Emory to have his brain surgery, he had to be taken off his meds so the doctors could get a full scope of how bad his seizures were, which were full on grand mal seizures, so at 13, maybe 14 I can't quite remember now, I had to take time off from school to take over for my stepmother, sit in the hospital room with my dad 24/7, and press a button anytime he had a seizure."
"Those were some of the worst days of my childhood that I try to repress but haunt me forever."
"In the long run though, my dad had a tumor removed from his right hemisphere, made a complete recovery, and only ever had less than a handful of seizures since."
Burned Into Your Brain
"Seeing my dead dad with the recusitation thing still in his mouth and his eyes a tiny bit open. That visual is burned into my brain."
The Hardest Good-Bye Ever
"Ten years old having to say goodbye to my mother as she was dying from cancer."
"I stand by you. Exactly the same happened to me when I was ten. Just that it was my dad. My condolences"
Two Different Good-Byes
"Seeing my mother on a hospital bed with a thousand tubes and wires sticking out of her, closely followed by seeing my mother on a hospital bed after she passed away."
Hope your next trip to the hospital is much better than these.
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What in the world are people doing with their spare time? Some of us are not treating our bodies like a temple, we're treating it like a garbage dump. I'm nervous to get my ears re-pierced, I can't imagine shoving, anything, in any place of my body just for kicks.
That's why I am fascinated and horrified when I hear stories out of an ER or surgery. I have many friends in the medical field and the things they have witnessed, even "Grey's Anatomy" writers would be baffled.
Do people really not care about death that much? Because I'm terrified. It's why I won't swallow swords or fire. At the very least. Clearly others feel differently.
Redditor u/TheFatDuck_YT wanted to know about the times medical staff has been left speechless by inner body discoveries, by asking:
Surgeons of Reddit, what is the most f**ked up thing seen in someone's body?
There are just somethings insurance doesn't cover, and it really shouldn't. I mean if you're gonna run around shoving things in all sorts of places or swallowing anything off the streets then that really should be out of pocket. Make you think twice.
For Beauty
Botox GIF by memecandyGiphy"Cement. I work in derma and had a couple of women come with cement injected in their face and didn't know why they couldn't feel their face/ do certain facial expressions. And yes, they wanted a discount dermatologist so they went to Mexico."
On the Cheek
"Neurosurgeon here. Guy came into the hospital with 3 days of headache out of nowhere. Head CT showed a large nail through the anterior skull base (think above the nose, between the forehead). When asked about it he had been using a pneumatic nail gun a couple days before. He remembered a moment when he didn't brace the gun right and it rebounded, hitting him in the face."
"It must have fired a nail when the end hit him in the face and he didn't realize it. He indeed did have a small wound in his cheek that fit with the story. Luckily the nail avoided the large blood vessels and other critical structures in the brain. We had to take him to surgery in order to pull it out. Cutting it out of his brain was weird."
T.M.I
"My dad used to work at a psych ward and a severely schizophrenic man got ahold of a pen and jammed it down his urethra. No one realized until the thing had calcified and he was going into organ failure. My dad doesn't know what happened to him, but I'm sure that must have been one gruesome surgery."
Dr. Psycho
"Obligatory not a surgeon but I read a news article about a surgeon who found someone's initials cauterized into a patients organ. Turns out it was a surgeon who had done a previous surgery and felt the need to leave his mark on a patient. I believe he lost his medical license over it."
Down the Hatch!
Pop Tv Eating GIF by Big Brother After DarkGiphy"Guy had put a cucumber down his throat and it broke off so he couldn't pull it back out. He came in with his wife."
I love cucumbers. Now I may have to avoid them altogether. Although I eat mine in pieces in a salad. I'm a novice I guess. And cauterizing patients? Now that is a Dateline NBC episode we need.
Cough it Up!
Cat Movie GIF by The Secret Life Of PetsGiphy"Bezoar (giant hair ball) in the exact shape of a stomach. Turns out, she worked at a hair salon and was eating OTHER PEOPLE'S HAIR!"
Snooker
"Dentist. We had 2 men come in to reception, one of whom had a snooker ball in his mouth. The man who didn't explained that they'd been at the snooker club down the road and his friend bet someone £50 that he could fit a snooker ball in his mouth. He won the bet then found he couldn't get it out. We had to sedate him and dislocate his jaw to remove it."
Lucky Fool
"Surgeon here. Trauma patient with who fell on steel rebar and it went in one side of the chest and out the other side long ways. Somehow missed his heart, esophagus, major arteries. We removed it with no critical injuries."
"I saw a show where they tested something like that - a guy had slipped and fell on a plant stake that went from the bottom right ribcage, up through the chest and out the left side of his neck."
"I think he even walked into the ER like that, and there was surprisingly little trauma for what looked absolutely horrible."
"The show came to the conclusion that his saving grace was that the stake was dull/not sharp, so it kinda pushed past everything critical without serious damage. Their experiment with a sharpened stake was much more lethal. Definitely one lucky guy."
A+E...
"I used to work in medical sales and one A+E Dr I visited had an 8 ball on his desk (it had a little stand and a glass case). I had to ask - thinking it was a pool competition trophy. It wasn't a pool competition trophy."
- ozzieowl
Don't Tell Me
"My mother in law used to be a scrub nurse and she told us a story about a patient they had in the OR who purposely cut up little bits of a metal coat hanger and barbed them so they couldn't be removed, then proceeded to shove them up his urethra. I can't remember the actual medical term for it but he was one of those people who had a mental health issue and wanted surgeries done so he would constantly do terrible things to himself because they would have to surgically correct them."
Tea or table?
spoon GIFGiphy"Not a surgeon. Knew someone who ate spoons. Just swallowed them and had surgery to remove them repeatedly. Batteries too."
Spoons, batteries and hair? Now I've heard it all. And it's more than I needed to know!
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I could never be a doctor, it's just too disgusting. And that's just the every day to day of it all.
I couldn't imagine all the extras, like finding things in patients that are off the wall crazy.
Like what in the world are people putting in their bodies? That's why there are warning labels on just about everything.
I use to think some warnings were an overkill, but clearly I was mistaken. Brace yourselves kids, the body is full of surprises.
Redditor u/sleeplessegg1 wanted doctors out there to share with us about some "odd" discoveries by asking:
Doctors of Reddit, what was the weirdest thing you even seen in someone's body?
I've heard wild stories from my friends in the medical field about what has been discovered inside patients, and I tell you, it has depleted most of faith in humanity's brainpower. Keep reading, you'll see why.
Tony is Stuck
Iron Man GIFGiphy"In my emergency medicine rotation, I saw a little boy who had put the headlight from his Lego Iron Man's motorbike up his nose and got it stuck up there."
"I removed it and we had a talk about how Iron Man says that heroes have to be sensible and not put things up their noses. All the while, I was contemplating the multitude of substances that Tony Stark has undoubtedly put up his nose."
Horrible Leftovers
"Coiled up iv tubing in the bladder that was calcified in a big bladder stone. Cambodian patient who had been tortured by khmer rouge years earlier. The tube was used in the torture to fill his bladder to bursting. After he was released they left the tube inside."
The Surgeon
"My father-in-law (FIL) was a Red Cross trauma surgeon during the Vietnam war. One day the locals brought in a villager with a live RPG round sticking out of his side. No one wanted to operate on him. FIL sent the OR staff out of the tent, so it was just him and the patient."
"Then he piled a wall of sandbags with a small opening around the villager, and used surgical tongs to extract the RPG round while sitting on the other side of the sandbags. Then he sewed the guy back up. He was fine. FIL is about 5'2" and so mild mannered. You'd never guess it but he's a secret bada**."
- FNTM_309
A Spork?
"Urologist here. In training we had a repeat ER patient who always came in after sticking things into his bladder. He had previously cut off most of the shaft of his penis and now he could put things in far enough to make it into his bladder. He would stick gauze, pens, and the strangest was probably a plastic spork. He did this so often we stopped taking them out as long as he could urinate."
In the Womb
Big Brother Reaction GIF by Big Brother After DarkGiphy"Not a doctor but I remember a friend from my teenage years showing me an X-ray of his mother's womb with a pair of sharp scissors in there."
"Apparently when he was born, the doctors had to do a c-section and the surgeon accidentally left some scissors in there and sewed her up. I don't remember how long it took for them to realize it was still in there, but she obviously had to have surgery to get it out."
What in the world? Like, who... how... WHAT?! And none of these stories mention people being drunk, high or crazed. Are people just bored? There are better things to do with your time y'all.
Nailed
Dance Dancing GIF by StaatsloterijGiphy"Obligatory not me, but my sister in law always tells the story of a construction worker who swallowed several long nails. The remarkable part was that he ended up being totally fine, never had any symptoms, and ended up pooping them out."
8 ball from Hell...
"My wife is an RN for the ER and the stories that I've heard are almost unbelievable. Too many alcohol soaked tampons just yesterday. The funniest one though is the homemade sex toys. This guy had somehow drilled holes in billiard balls, ran a string through them and had his girlfriend put them where the sun don't shine."
Civil Air Patrol
"Not a doctor but I was in the medical bay when I was in Civil Air Patrol. We had a guy come in with his wife (both members of CAP). His wife says there has been blood in his underwear she noticed while washing his clothes. He insists he was fine. After separating the 2 and hearing the stories this is what the guy says."
"Don't tell my wife. I've been having an affair and I have an angel with an approximate 12 inch wingspan all the way in my bum. We tried getting it out but we only snapped off one of the wings. It did end in a divorce and the guy had to wear a colostomy bag the rest of his life."
Back to Life
Tired Dont Look GIF by TLCGiphy"My mother-in-law was an ER surgeon at one point, and always tells the story of a guy who came in with a budgie stuck up his butt - acted surprised when they identified it, but then cried something terrible when they informed him it was dead and no, they could not bring it back to life."
I give up. And I'm even more thrilled that I didn't go into the medical field. Like people have lost control. Everyone... please don't stick crazy things in your body!!
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We all like to assume that a big old scar has an amazing, hardcore story behind it: maybe a valiant fight or some life threatening-escape.
But despite what Hollywood would have us think, that is so rarely the case.
Usually, some kind of bizarre accident leaves us with the biggest scar of our life. There's no action movie story behind it, just a careful mixture of foolishness and bad luck.
Clearly not put off by some gruesome anecdotes, Redditor fluffybear45 asked:
"People with scars, how did you get them?"
For many, it was the wild antics of childhood that left them slightly maimed. With many years now separating the Redditor from the event, these were pretty hilarious.
Out of Nowhere!
"I was playing on a swing and then my leg got stuck in barbed wire." -- Soviet_God-Emperor
"I feel like we missed a couple steps here, or your local park had some serious issues." -- Henfrid
"Yo that went from 0 to 100 real fast" -- IHaveButt
Classic
"2nd grade, defective slip-n-slide." -- AdmiralAkbar1
"I'm pretty sure the general design of the slip'n'slide was defective. Those stakes weren't covered originally, so you had to be straight down the middle of the slide or else....." -- Q-burt
"Could you refer to this incident in a gravely voice while staring into the middle distance, pausing only to shudder and sip your scotch?" -- CaptValentine
That's Why You Need an Axe Yard
"My dad hit me with an axe (bladed side) in the face. Stupid 10 yo me just had to look over his shoulder while he was hammering in herrings for our tent."
-- Gruuuf
Others talked about freak accidents that came not from the stupidity of childhood, but the bad luck of mistakes made as an adult.
Bad Conditions for Practice
"Dad gave me a folding knife for Christmas"
"I read online that you could flick it open with one hand"
"So I practiced it, after my hands were greasy from eating a burger"
Take Your Pick
"Multiple long scars on my back are from falling onto a old soviet steel welcome mat ( i dont know how to describe it in english but its meant to wipe dirt of your shoes with triangle shaped steel beams."
"Medium sized one on my forearm is from a barbed wire fence, another one next to it is from a motorcycle accident and one on the base on my thumb is from a cars hood slipping and cutting me."
-- Iracc1
One Heck Of a Fall
" 'This one is from a skateboard, this one was a truck accident, and this one was a fire hydrant.' "
" 'Oh really? I bet each one has a very unique story.' "
" 'Not really, I skateboarded off of a truck into a fire hydrant.' "
-- Aearly1
Last, some people talked about the medical procedures that left them with the big gash. These stories had some ninth grade words and not nearly as much stupidity.
Google It!
"A rare auto immune disorder called pyoderma gangrenosum twice... Don't google If you don't like gore... I had to have daily wound care and high doses of medical steroids"
Even Longer?!
"My intestines telescoped on themselves 8" scar on my belly." -- Anom8675309
"I never wanted to see the words 'intestines' and 'telescoped' together. Ouch." -- LadySygerrik
Frankenstein
"I was born 2 months premature. I wasn't born with an esophagus so drs. cut my stomach open and used parts of my colon or intestines and created a new one for me. I have a huge scar on my neck and my stomach is one big scar. Also had a stomach feeding tube for quite a bit and heart surgery at 2 days old."
"I love science. I wouldn't have experienced life if it hadn't been for advances in medical science."
-- rev2Arsenal
So if you've been sitting on an embarrassing backstory for one of your scars, feel free to share. You're hardly alone.
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