Everyday that I worked in the emergency rooms was a pleasure. The work was often hectic and tiring but the adrenaline rush was amazing. It is a job I will always remember.
This Friday evening shift was a doozy. There were people lined up in the waiting room. There was standing room only when I peeked out to check. I remember thinking what an interesting crowd of people. Some were cut, bleeding and waiting for stitches, others had all sorts of sick and miserable looks on their faces. To me it was a picture of the shift that was just beginning and would be filled with surprises.
An older couple caught my eye. She had such a sweet look about her and he looked like a real grump. But I reasoned that perhaps he was ill, so I felt bad that I assessed him so negatively.
It took almost 2 hours before I saw the older couple come back into the ER. He was a foot taller than his little wife and weighed over 200 pounds. His skin was marked with the brown spots of aging and the scars of acne from his younger days. He did not and would not smile for anything. Shortly after he was settled into his bed, he told his wife to go and wait in the waiting room. To me that was an unusual request, but people are strange. She complied and smiled as she walked back out into the waiting area. She was only about 5' 2" and 90 pounds and she hunched over when she walked.
It turns out he had a problem that he did not want his sweet little wife to know about, so he sent her out so that he could talk to the physician in privacy.
His chart said he was having abdominal pain. For a brief moment I thought “uh-oh”, then I realized his age. Abdominal pain was the normal complaint of men between the ages of 25 and 45 who came in with "misplaced items" in their rectum, but this man was 68.
We often had people come into our ER with items lodged in their rectums and most pretended they had no idea how that could have happened.
We often had people come into our ER with items lodged in their rectums and most pretended they had no idea how that could have happened.
This patient was sent to radiology for an x-ray of his abdomen. When it came back we were all surprised to see that he had a plastic travel toothbrush holder lodged in his rectum. He was advised that he would have to go to the operating room to safely remove it without damaging his rectum. He said that was ok, he just wanted it out as soon as possible.
I walked passed his room and he called me to his bedside. He spoke in a whisper as he made his request. He said, “Tell my wife that I am having hemorrhoid surgery.”
I explained to him that I could not lie to his wife, but he was welcome to tell her anything he would like. He was not very happy with me but I did what I had to do, it would not have been ethical to lie to this man's wife. He then said,"I did nothing wrong!" He added “I was only experimenting!”
Those words stuck in my head for weeks, months and years. Even today I occasionally think of his words that day. My idea of an experiment is the process of performing a procedure to determine a result. I have thought about this patient many times and I do not know what kind of experiment it is to put a toothbrush holder in your rectum. I suppose that is one of those things in life that will have to remain a mystery.
This man’s family gathered as he waited to be taken to the operating room. His grown kids were concerned and loving as well as his wife. He was surrounded by people who loved him and cared about him. That was a blessing.
The process went well and everything came out ok.
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