What is the goofiest thing you've ever said/heard in a medical emergency?

[bertha katzenengel]

After ankle surgery, I woke up in the recovery room, hysterical, begging for my sister. They said "she can't come in right now, but she's waiting right outside in the hall." I remember this like it was yesterday; I screamed at the top of my lungs,

She's NOT waiting in the FUCKING HALL!!!

and I continued to sob and scream. Next thing I knew my sister was holding my hand, calming me down.

Mrs. V. says I also spoke once about our cats being shits, but I don't remember that one.

What have you said while in pain, or on drugs, or coming out of anesthesia, or -- what have you heard or seen your loved ones say? )I'm going for funny, not a memory that will hurt you.)

[miss_kitty]

1. Um when I had an intestinal blockage

symptoms of which i had been complaining about to my medical team for weeks (I had extensive gut surgery in April 2001, following botched radiation therapy-SO I WAS A PRIME CANDIDATE FOR INTESTINAL BLOCKAGE) the EMTs who came when I dialed 911 said "Nothing wrong. DO you want transport?" NO. Why would I? You JUST SAID nothing was wrong.

The ER guys I saw later on that evening assumed the gay man who drove me there and I were a couple and without asking my history (No sex in a long long time and I'd had surgery in an area only 4 months earlier which pretty much precluded any activity of that sort, and all that abdominal radiation made me sterile) gave me a pregnancy test and some morphine and a scrip for meds that said "If you have a history of intestinal blockage DO NOT TAKE THIS MEDICINE." Luckily instead of having it filled and sent down to the ER, Doc Dumbass thought I would not mind waiting at the pharmacy. I just wanted to go home while I still had a morphine buzz.

For the next 36 or so hours, I was writhing in pain, telling myself "Only x hours until my appt w/ Dr S__", my GI surgeon. I had an appt booked for 12 Thursday. I got my brother to take me in at 9. I was wearing slippers and the pain was so fucking intense and I hadn't eaten in days. I go to the reception and said "I have an appt w/ Dr S__ at 12. It's an emergency-I have to be admitted to the hospital NOW!" Receptionist "Oh miss_kitty. You're 3 hours early. Just go over there and have a seat." "No. You don't understand" I whisper. I can hardly talk "I am in blinding pain. I can hardly walk. I am extremely ill. It's an emergency-I need to be admitted to the hospital now!" People are staring. I look like a pale steaming pile. "That's alright" she chirps. "Just have a seat."

I had another surgery and spent three fucking weeks in the hospital.:grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :nuke: :grr: :nuke: :grr:

[Zuni]

2. that sounds far more scary than anything

fat malpractice settlement?

[miss_kitty]

8. No

I made it through and quite frankly, three years past the first surgery and I am still so tired. This weekend I have had a particularly tough time-I still have probs. Very depressing. Can't work, can't travel. Can't eat, can't sleep. Always nauseated unless I :smoke:. Happy to have a GI appt Wednesday (I have been BEGGING for since the first op-that part of me never realty settled down. But surgeons don't like to admit they don't know something)

Also, part of the problem w/ op #2 was they tried to decompress me w/ an NG tube, and they hooked it up wrong. I might have gotten out of there w/o surgery if they'd hooked me up right. It wasn't sucking enough. Then I went through a crisis on the table (heart rate, bp issues and I heard my surgeon and another surgeon had an argument over my treatment.

But it wouldn't have come to that if my surgeon (MD PhD, Head of the dept-the guy all the other docs would want to work on them if they needed it) had backed me off the opiates and made me drink more H2O.

Ugh! all the details I am not putting in here. Pissing me off. I am crabby this weekend. :)

[havocmom]

3. My bro was a paramedic in the Malibu/Santa Monica area for years

Don't get me started on funny stories... just let me say WE heard about Jerry Brown's relationship with Linda Ronstadt WAY before any of the newspapers! ;)

[RetroLounge]

4. Two things I remember

My little brother fell on an old wooden fence when he was about 5 and sliced open his armpit. Blood all over his brand new Cubs T shirt. He wouldn't let the ER guy cut off his shirt until my Dad said he would buy a new one.

When I was 23, I broke my hand one night in a bar fight (I punched the Oak Bar itself in a drunken haze. The bar won.) The next morning I went to the ER when I awoke with the 5th Metacarpel bone sticking up against my skin and the hand all black and swollen. My roomate drove me. We were both long haired guitarist at the time, and the ER guy wouldn't stop lecturing me about the evils of punk rock and slam dancing, convinced that's how it happenned (I couldn't remember how it happenned, and a friend told me a few days later). It was funny until he set my hand and I almost passed out from the pain...

RL

[greatauntoftriplets]

5. I yawned and dislocated my jaw....

My jaw was stuck in a strange position. I could not talk very well. They kept asking me what happened. Uh, guys, have you noticed I can't talk very well and that it hurts? Why do I have to repeat this damn story 80 gazillion times???

[halobeam]

6. OMG!!!

I'm crying I'm laughing so hard!:rofl: We must be related, my family has the sickest things happen to them too!....

[greatauntoftriplets]

7. And it took 3 docs to get the damn thing undislocated.

I ended up with this extremely good-looking guy straddling me (I had been given something to relax me, thank the gods) who did a bit of manipulating with the jaw.

You cannot imagine how damn good it felt to be out of pain and somewhat able to talk normally again. I was damn sore after that....

It's been almost three years ago, the regular doc said it was a fluke, and I haven't had it happen again. But I yawn very carefully these days.

[halobeam]

9. You got me again!!

"But I yawn very carefully these days."

:rofl:

[greatauntoftriplets]

10. You shoulda seen the final doctor who straddled me....

Yum. Of course, I was damn near old enough to be his mother....

Thankfully, I can laugh at that whole experience.

It was bizarre.

[Dastard Stepchild]

11. I had a medical procedure in 2004 that required a morphine relaxer...

as my form of anesthesia. Apparently when the morphine kicked in, I said "woah - this must be what heroin is like. killer. killer." Then I fuzzed out. And as I was kinda coming back into reality, I kept asking the nurse for cookies and juice (I had to fast before the procedure). The nurses seemed amused by my unintentional patient behavior.

[MountainLaurel]

12. When I was 12

I cut my toe while washing mud off my foot in town creek. At the ER, the nurse let me know that she was going to inject an anesthetic INTO the wound before it could be stitched. The needle went in, I sat straight up and screamed SHHHHHIIIIITTTTTT!

Mom was so embarassed, yet has managed to tell this story to everyone she knows over the past 20 years.

[bertha katzenengel]

13. here's another -- my sister's tale

Long story short I was having severe menstrual problems. So bad I couldn't drive, so my sister took me in to my gyno for a check up two weeks after a D&C.

I was on the table, being examined for a very. long. time. (At one point the doc said, "Um, you've always said you don't want kids, right?") My sister tells me that during this time, the receptionist stuck her head out the window and said, "Anyone waiting for Dr. Smith, we're sorry but it's going to be a while longer, she's in with a paitent in an emergency."

Naturally everyone in the waiting room grumbled and kvetched, except for my sister, who just got more nervous. A woman sitting next to her asked, "How long have YOU been waiting?" My sister said, "I don't even know. My sister is the emergency." She said this loudly enough to shut everyone up.

My sister ROCKS.

[KitchenWitch]

14. I had a minor surgical procedure once

The surgery itself was scheduled for about 10 am, and I woke up in the recovery room at about 11:15, looked at the clock, and said, "Oh my god, it is 11:15 already? Shit, I missed my surgery!"

Yes, them were some gooooooooooooooooooooood drugs.

[bertha katzenengel]

15. LOLOLO

:rofl:

[livetohike]

16. While setting my broken toe

The E.R. doctor asked me, "Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?". Then he pulled on my toe to straighten it.

I was laughing so hard, I forgot about the pain.

[Taxloss]

17. Once I had a very serious infection in my leg

that needed emergency surgery to dig it out and clean the hole (I have the scar to this day). The doctor drained the infection, but left my area while I was lying there, in great pain, in order to fetch a colleague to show him the infected mass. I was nuked out of my tiny mind with gas and air, but apparently I said, strongly, "THIS IS NOT A SEMINAR!"

Then they stopped discussing it and started cutting it out of my leg.

[dubyaD40web]

18. I had knee surgery once....

About a month after my brother did. My brother's left knee went out on him and they operated on the wrong knee.

Me, being the smarter, was told to shave my knee area the morning of the operation. I did that but also used a permanent marker with the words "Wrong Knee, Doc" written on it.

I must say the Doc was very amused at that. After I told him the story of my bro, he understood.

[johnnie]

19. When I was 30

OK, this isn't the funniest, but I laughed.
I was going to shoot a guy here at work with a rubberband, and the damn thing broke. It snapped back and nailed me in the eye. My eye started watering and wouldn't stop. I decided to let it go and heal itself because I have to be on my deathbed before I will go to a doctor.
I went out that night and watched the ballgame at a local bar, and everyone kept telling me I best get to the doctor.
The next morning I woke up with my eye caked shut so i decided to call in work and go to the doctor. I walked in the door and the nurse was sitting there, she said "Oh my God, what happened to you?"
I said.."Remember when you were young and your mother told you not to shoot rubberbands because you will shoot your eye out? Well, mom was right." I laughed, but she said "That's not very funny young man, you could go blind".
Well, it turned out to be a torn cornea or something like that. I don't shoot rubberbands any more.

[Dogmudgeon]

20. Delerious from an ear infection

I was being wheeled into surgery when the Vistaril kicked in, and I began to sing "Slip Slidin' Away" (which was popular at the time, late in 1976) loudly.

Very loudly. And I sing fairly well, too, so there was no motivation for anyone to avoid me.

I noticed a man and a couple of women in medical regalia laughing. Then my anesthesiologist came over and said, "time to shut you up" and injected me with diazepam and hydromorphone.

The next thing I knew, it was 1983 and I was slam dancing to Husker Dü in an otherwise unused warehouse in North Philadelphia with a bunch of tweaked-out punk rockers. Somebody told me I had graduated from college, lost my virginity, and was dropping acid on the weekends.

Honest.

--p!

[Scout1071]

21. I injured my neck once and my mother took me to the emergency

room. It was just a tweak, but I couldn't even hardly breathe it was so painful. They gave me a muscle relaxer or pain killer of some sort and before I know it I said to my mother, Patty, "Hey Fatty...I think the Cain Pillers are kickin' in."

[DrZeeLit]

22. I thought the world was coming to an end in a blaze of ....

.... Welllllllll.

I had major surgery the day the LA Riots started, but I didn't know that.

I woke up, dazed and confused by that delightful anesthetic fog, and heard, what was later explained to me as the medivac helicopter.

But I didn't know that.

Some family member was watching the t.v. in my dark room. All I could see was the city in flames. And all I could hear was the "whop, whop, whop," of the helicopter.

Really... I thought it was all over. I just pushed the button on the pain meds and floppped back to sleep. Ugh.


HOWEVER... earlier....The funniest thing happened (I think you had to be there)... they were prepping me for the ride into the operating room and my doctor came in. Standing by the gurney were my mom, my sister, and my (now former) husband. Everyone said hi.

They wheeled me in and the last thing the doc said was the bright lights glared around was something like, "So glad your dad was here."

I started to laugh (was it the drugs?).... my (former) husband was 15 years older than I was. I found it funny for the doc to think he was my dad.

Hmmm.... did that foreshadow the end of the marriage?
Could be.
Or...it could have been that sordid affair.