It is nearly the end of the weekend warrior's shift: hour 39 of 40, only 1 hour to go. There is a young patient getting a cat scan of his stomach. He looks sick, smells bad - sometimes you just know the result is going to be positive for something when they are pasty white, dry lips, no color.
He is lying on his back on the scanner table, and his feet are already in the big gantry's doughnut hole. Since he is young-ish (already hit puberty and considered adult anatomy in the medical field), I ask him how much he weighs.
He answers, "Twenty-one."
I'm thinking "Um, ok..." Instead I say, after a long pause for the possibilities and a bit of quick math in my head, "You mean kilograms...? Or stones...?" He didn't have any sort of accent, nary British or anything, but you never know working in an area that attracts lots of tourists.
But his reply is even more puzzling,"No, I deny all that."
I hesitatingly answer, "Umm..." Think, pause... pause.... pause. Ok. "Deny what? The metric system?" Cause I m completely lost now.
He says again, "I deny all that stuff."
I am still not catching his drift, so I say 'cause I'm all FOR the metric system," You know, it really is easier, the metric system is, I think anyway."
Now it's his turn to look at me like I have three heads. But I am not alarmed, as I am the recipient of strange looks more often than you'd think. He tries to elucidate by saying, "I deny all that. You know, drugs."
"Huh?!" Nervous laugh, then I think, "Whoa!" This is also not a topic I want to be talking about with a fifteen year old just before I inject his veins with icky toxic stuff!
I laugh again, and try to ease the conversation back on track, and, unfortunately, me being the overly talkative person I am, I just dig the uncomfortable hole deeper.
"Well I need to know how much you weigh, actually if you are over a hundred pounds. Oh! You said one hundred twenty-one pounds! I couldn't figure out how you weighed only twenty one anything... I wasn't sure if you meant kilograms. Or stones 'cause I thought that the English weight measurement was one stone equals 20 or 25 pounds or something... The last thing I would be talking about is drugs..." Ugh. Back around again, I should just let it drop. "Ok, here is the injection..."
So I come around the corner into the scanner control area to push the button and start the scan, shaking my head, laughing, wondering what the heck...?! My wonderful tech aide asks what I was laughing about. I relay the story quickly and she laughs, we both do, and she says, "You just can't make that shit up!"
And I agreed, "No, you can't." What a way to end a very strange weekend at work!
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Oh Jen...that story sounds absolutely tame compared to some of the NUT JOBS I get down here! Here's a good one (and I'm SURE you've had similar): old guy comes into the ER complaining of abdominal pain. You know the routine: FUA (along with a CXR, for the more anal *no pun* docs). On the upright, you normally don't get all the way down to the pubic, but lo & behold, we see an odd density just at the bottom edge of the image. Ok, so it's on to the flat. The old guy is having some problems laying down on the table (personally, I figured it was 'roids), but he's finally supine. WELL, what do we find in his rectum but a nice bottle, ALL THE WAY IN TO THE BASE! When the patient was asked how this got in (how could we NOT?!! LOL!!!), he said he was in the shower and fell down on it. Yup, he just so happened to have a SOY SAUCE bottle with him in the shower that was PERFECTLY lined up with his anus so that when he fell, UPSIDAISY it went! Needless to say, he was in the OR for a bit, and now is wearing a colostomy bag for-ever more.
ReplyDeleteP.S. - In further irony, the patient's son was a former Rad Tech at the hospital. When he came by to see his dear ol', bottle-lovin, dad, by some MIRACLE, we did not show him the images that we (naturally) saved (yeah, yeah, HIPA violation and such... yada, yada, yada). You know have techs LOOOOVE to share the crazy images with one another! Now THAT would have been a major embarrassment! (and heads would definitely have rolled in the department!)
God, I LOVE my job! LOL!!!
Joe,
ReplyDeleteOh, *please* do NOT get me started on hospital stories!! There was once a patient who walked into an ER... And there the similarities END!! Scarily, and sadly, there are OH so many that I ask,"Did you REALLY fall in the shower to get THAT stuck up THERE?!!"
Yikes...
So I guess the similarities are that everyone (of the patients, that is) shower with bottles? Gee, I guess there should be a warning label on them stating that they might end up in one's rectum if used in the shower, EH??? (LOL!!!)
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