Hey when you gotta go...you gotta go!

Hey everyone! I hope that you are all doing just fine. I am ok. The winter seems to be over....for now. I am cautious.

This month's story takes us to the mundane world of the routine chest x-ray. Its one of those tech things, you do it so much, that you end up doing it on "auto pilot". I estimate that in my 18 year career I have shot about 17,000 routine chest x-rays. That means that I have said,"Take in a breath and hold it.......'beep'....you may breath" about 34,000 times!!!

So one day about 10 years ago there was a male patient in his 80's, hard of hearing and in a wheelchair, who needed a chest x-ray. I brought him into the x-ray room and asked him if he could stand. He told me yes and that he had to pee. I looked down and noticed that he had a Foley catheter in and thus he didn't have to pee. The pee was being collected by a tube that lead to a big urine collection bag. I told him very loudly,"Sir, you have a catheter in place, you don't have to pee! Its the catheter making you feel like you have to pee." To which he answered,"No no, I gotta pee." So to speed things along I said,"You have a tube in place....go ahead and pee away if you want!" He then proceeded to stand up, grab the catheter with one hand, his penis with the other and YANKED THE TUBE OUT!!!! With the catheter's retention balloon STILL INFLATED!


OUCH! This the kind of ouch that comes with making love to a cheese grater!!! Yikes! I couldn't believe what I had just seen. What followed was just as bad. After he pulled the catheter out, he PEE'D on the door frame to my x-ray room. I yelled at him,"What are you doing!!??" He says,"You said pee away." Technically he was right.
Take it easy people....I gotta go pee.

Gonzo

I'd love to, but I gotta go to work.

Hi all,

This is aweful! For about a year now my hospital has been designated a "stroke center" which means that if someone has a stroke, we can attempt to treat them. That is, IF they are brought to us within a 8 hour period.

About two weeks ago we were asked to perform a cerebral angio on a guy who had a stroke the night before. They brought him to us on a stretcher. He was about 50 years old, pale and really weak on his right side. He had slurred speach and an obvious facial droop. Poor guy. We did the angio and sure enough we found that he had a block artery in his brain. Unfortunately we could not treat him. Too much time had passed.

While getting him off the table, I asked him when the symptoms started. He told me the night before. I asked him why he didn't come to the hospital at that time. His answer floored me.

"Well, my girlfriend WAS gonna bring me but she had to git ta werk"

I was stunned! So I said,"What about calling 911?" He answered, "Nahh, SHE figured that she could just take me in the mornin' after she gits off werk."

I set him in the hall while waiting for his transporter show and take him back to his room. The transporter arrived with the patient's girlfriend. She was 27!! She was missing a couple O' teeth!!! I believe that she was really familiar with cigarettes. Oh and of course she was blonde. From a bottle no doubt. I never found out where she worked. I hope she makes lots of money. For his sake. I felt bad for everyone.