Sunday, February 05, 2006

"Things I Learned From My Patients": Hilarious thread on a medical discussion board, mostly anecdotes from the ER. Here are some choice examples (astute readers may notice a few recurrent themes):
(#1) If you're on the street corner selling coke and you see the cops coming to bust you don't eat all your coke. Having been taught this valuable lesson I will now know better than to do this and wind up going to the ER in handcuffs, seizing uncontrollably, aspirating my vomit and doing all of this with a white powder moustache looking like an ad for "Got Coke?"

(#5) Never, ever leave flashlights, shampoo bottles, beer bottles or any long, circular object on the floor because someday you will fall on it and it will somehow, work its way up your rectum.

(#7) Never leave your last refill of Percocet in plain sight after your doc's office closes if one of these 3 friends is coming over for dinner:
1. some dude
2. my friend
3. that bitch
(#13) Latex paint, despite being thick and creamy, does not coat your stomach and provide the same relief as Pepto-Bismol.

(#46) When attempting a self-circumcision do not use dry ice to numb the area... and when the dry ice sticks to the... a.... area, do not attempt to remove the ice with boiling water.

(#84) If you are in police custody and are brought to the ED for evaluation, do not go to the bathroom then try to escape through the ceiling, because the styrofoam ceiling will probably collapse at some point and the NYPD standing outside the bathroom door might notice your bare behind, scantiliy covered by the hospital gown, hanging out of the ceiling.

(#125) Don't allow someone with a known poorly controlled seizure disorder to perform oral sex on you...

(#201) If somehow a ping pong ball should make its way into your rectum and you cannot retrieve it, do not mix yourself a cement enema -- as this will only make your problems worse.

(#291) If you are 13 and feeling....experimental....Don't use the dish hose from the sink as your ambassador to rectal pleasure. If you do, the spring-loaded handle thingy will open after you shove it up past the anus, making it impossible to get out.

Furthermore, it will be difficult to explain to your step-father when he discovers you how you became 'tethered' to the sink by the dish hose.

You'll have to have it surgically removed. And I'm betting nobody will volunteer to do the dishes ever again...

(#399) Don't use hedge clippers to trim your big toe nails.

(#401) If it is late at night and you are hungry, the old chinese food and hunk of cheese that have been floating in a pool of fish blood at the bottom of a cooler full of fish and bait in the sun all day are a bad choice. The amount of projectile vomiting will be impressive.

(#412) Don't use this method of home repair: An unconscious 30-year-old man was brought to the ER by ambulance. His girlfriend had found him lying naked on the floor of his bathroom and called 911. In the ER, he was found to have a large lump on the top of his head and, strangely, several scratches on his scrotum. The doctors figured the lump was possibly caused by a fall or a knock to the head. However the source of the scratches remained a mystery until he woke up and provided the doctors with the following explanation. He said he had been cleaning his bathtub while naked, kneeling on the floor beside the tub. His cat, apparently transfixed by the rhythmic swaying of his scrotum, lunged forward, sinking its claws into this pendulous target. This caused the man to rocket upward, striking his head on the top frame of the shower door.