A brush?

Where’s my brush?

It was a hectic shift so far in the ER and I felt like nothing more could come in to surprise me that day. I was wrong.

I looked up to see a male patient about 35 years old being rolled in and he was in a great deal of discomfort. He was perspiring and the look on his face was one of a person in agony. He was athletic looking, in great shape with a full head of brown hair. His tan was perfect and his teeth were perfect, he looked like a model to me. 

When I checked his chart it was pretty vague, only showing his chief complaint as abdominal pain. I thought maybe he had gall stones or something. 

Then my eyes were turned to a patient who walked in that was dripping blood as she walked. She had black hair with about 3 inches of white roots that had grown out. She had anger or pain or both that had caused her to be wearing an ugly scowl as she walked through the doors. She had nearly severed her thumb with a kitchen knife. With every step she was cursing her husband for sharpening her knives without telling her. As she passed me she said “Damn it Joe, you could have warned me!” Her husband followed with his head dropped low and his shoulders slumped in shame as he mumbled something.

After the excitement of the angry, cursing wife, I turned my thoughts back to the good looking muscular guy who came in a few minutes before with abdominal pain.

I looked at his chart on the computer and then talked to the triage nurse who had assessed him. She said according to him and his wife, he had come in drunk, very drunk at around 4:00am and he had red lipstick on his shirt, it was a color his wife would NEVER wear. He also smelled of someone else’s perfume. His wife added that this was not the first time. .

When he stripped off and went to bed (she explained he always sleeps in the nude), she began plotting her revenge. He was incoherent and was speaking another woman’s name in his drunken stupor as he slept. She thought about what he had done and she thought about what she would do to him. The decision for revenge was to shove a hair brush into his rectum. She tied his arms and legs to the bedposts as he slept heavily from all of the alcohol he had consumed. She looked through her brushes and found one that had bristles all the way around, it was perfect.

When the xrays proved it was true he had a brush in his rectum and would need to go to the operating room to have it removed, she seemed pleased. She stood smiling and proud of her handiwork, he looked miserable and truly sorry for what he had done. It seemed that a brush can totally sober a person up when used in that manner.

On that shift I had seen two angry wives. One injured herself and was furious at her husband as she blamed him. The other injured the husband and was furious at her husband as she blamed him. Angry wives are probably not creatures you want to cross.