She seems nice...maybe I'll ask her to dinner.

Hello all and welcome back. I was trying to remember a good story for you all and I couldn't think of any. But then I remember this one!

Years and years ago, I was covering the ER X-ray dept during the dinner hour. Things were a little slow that night. One chest x-ray here, an ankle x-ray there and so on.
Then I received a request for an abdomen x-ray of a young woman in her 20's. Business being slow as it was, I volunteered to go get her from her little curtained room. I walked up to the curtained area, pulled back the curtained and there sat a lovely blond haired, green eyed beauty. With legs that went on forever. In a patient gown that did her no justice at all! She was cute! I tell no lie. So I wheeled her over in the stretcher. As we made our way to the X-ray room I struck up a conversation about the day and traffic and how long her wait was....blah blah blah. She was well spoken and seemed very bright. Animated. Talked with her hands a little bit. But still very nice. Truly not our typical patient.
I get her on the X-ray table for her abdomen X-ray, I ask her if she's preg-os, she says no, I take the film. Simple. Cut and dry right? Then I developed the film to find that.....girlfriend had some weird eating habits. In her stomach I saw what looked like coins, a small spoon and a 9 volt battery. She had Pica. That's a condition where you eat things that have no nutritional value at all. For instance: Coins, spoons, salt shaker tops, paper clips, batteries....etc. Its really strange.
I asked her what happened and she said,"That's just something I do from time to time." I asked her what she meant. She told me that as long as she could remember, she just gets the urge to eat something made of metal. Knowing full well that it's bad for her. That she could choke and that it could poison her system. Aside from her weird eating habits she seemed really normal. And cute!!!
Having finished her X-ray I put her back in the stretcher and took her back to the ER area. As we turned the corner, I maneuvered near an admin desk and there on the edge of the counter were a bunch of paper clips. Guess what happened next. Go ahead take a guess. If you guessed she grabbed the paper clips tossed them back like peanut....You guessed right! She reached out with her left hand, grabbed that fistful of clips and tossed her head back like you and me taking our multi-vitamins in the morning. Those paper clips were GONE. I had never seen anything like it!! Except for maybe the occasional Fear Factor episode. She made it look easy. I put her in her room and went to the ER Doctor to rat her out. The Dr. says,"Heather's here? Oh she's one of my favorites. Which curtain? Did we call Endoscopy yet?" Apparently "Heather" (not her real name....her real name was Tracy)was a regular customer. After all that, one of the other techs came down from dinner and says,"Hey do you wanna go eat? Oh Heather was here? Ah she's nice. Hey go eat." As I went to eat I saw Heather going down the hall with one of the Endoscopy nurses. They were chatting like old friends...I ate a salad that night.

Go easy people and Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Gonzo

Hey, you gonna eat that?

Welcome back and sorry for the delay! Here we go.
About three years ago I was working overtime on the evening shift for some extra cash. The evening shift functions with at a more casual pace than the day shift because typically you have fewer techs. You end up working alone more often than not. This is especially true if you are the technologist who is doing the portable exams. One night I was asked to go to Bariatric, the over-weight wing, and take a regular old, run of the mill chest x-ray of a woman who was every bit of 600 lbs. THAT'S 600 LBS. PEOPLE! Think of the largest person you know, and make 2 or maybe 2 1/2 of them! This was going to require using all my little tricks of the trade if I was to get an "ok" film. Which means you'd have to see the lungs. After much struggle, the film just ok. The lungs were visiable but everything else was under penetrated. In one of the lungs you could see this weird "metallic-like" webbing on the edge of the lung.....really foreign and definately abnormal. Soooooooo the Doctor asked to repeat the film and insturcted me to physically look at the area to make sure that there wasn't anything laying on the body that would give off this appearance. I trucked my annoyed little self back up to the floor and explained to the woman why we needed to perform the chest x-ray again. So I placed my x-ray cassette behind her. Again. This time, before I shot, I asked her to raise her arm up so I could see that area. To my delight, there was nothing there. I told her she could lower her arm. As she did, I heard a muffled crunch. I said to the patient,"That must have hurt." She said that she didn't feel anything. So I asked her to lift and lower her arm again. She raised her arm. I heard nothing. She lowered it and I heard the crunch again. I asked her,"You didn't feel that?" She didn't feel a thing. So I did what any nosy tech would do. I asked her to lift up her arm and I told her I was going to look under her tent, I mean her gown. Against my better judgment, I took a look and I saw something kinda blue and chromey stuck between a couple of folds. Thank God almighty, I was wearing gloves because what I did next I DO NOT RECOMMEND! I spread the two-three folds with one hand and gently pulled on the chromey object with the other. She didn't seem to have any pain so I kept pulling until......I removed a half eaten bad of Doritos and not one of those little snack packs either. I'm talking about the Grand-Daddy size bags that you buy for the Superbowl party at your house!!!!! She says to me,"Dat's where dat went....I been wonderin' bout dem for bout a week."
I shot the film and left as quickly as I could but as I left, I heard the distinct sound of someone eating chips! Ewwwwwwwhhhhhhh!!! As a result of that I can't always eat chips. If anyone needs me.....I'll be doing sit-ups.

Chao

Butt Sarge.....nevermind.

Many years ago, I was in the Army. I had the great fortune of being stationed in the gem that is Schofield barracks, Hawaii. Good times. The weather's always perfect. Even when it rains its great. Oh and the work was cake!!! A couple of chest x-rays in the morning, a couple of ankle films, then the occassional neck x-ray of someone who fell off their surfboard. During the regular work week we'd average about 20 patients per day. During the weekend however, it was totally different. In a 12 hour shift on a Saturday or Sunday we'd do about 4-5 patients. Borrrrrrring. Thank God we had cable!
One particular abdomen x-ray stands out in my mind when I think back on those days.
I was nodding off at the front desk when the front door opened and in walked a soldier who looked like he had fallen out of the recruitment poster. A perfect soldier. He was about 6 ft tall with his uniform perfectly pressed, boots highly shined, haircut was perfect, his muscles were busting through his shirt. Simply impressive! So he handed me a request from his doctor for an abdominal x-ray. One shot, one film. E-Z! I made him put on a gown, took him into the x-ray room, layed him down on the table, shot the film, told him to go ahead and get dressed.(I never miss by the way) I took the film into the darkroom. Processed it. Pulled the x-ray out of the processor and bang there it was...........

The killer was......it was STILL ON!!!!! The x-ray showed motion. Normally if an x-ray has any motion we repeat the x-ray but I wasn't about to. Not this time. You know with this type of soldier, I was very surprised!!!! I didn't think an Army soldier could ever afford the Ass-Crammer 2000 XL Delux on his salary!! Goes to show. You never can tell! Peace.

Might as well JUMP!!!

Hello everyone,

About six years ago I was called into the trauma room to take x-rays of a man who had
attempted suicide by jumping off a building. Feet first. From three stories up. Well needless to say he didn't die. He shattered both ankles though. When I walked into the trauma room he was laying unconscious, strapped to a back board holding perfectly still. First, I took a chest x-ray, then a neck x-ray and I started on some lower leg films. I carefully slide my x-ray film under his leg and he woke up. PISSED! I wasn't sure if he was mad because I hurt him by lifting his leg which was twisted the wrong way or because he wasn't dead. Anyway he start yelling over and over,"Let me up, I'm outta here. Let me the F*** up!! I gotta get out of here!!!" and when I say over and over I mean like 15 SOLID minutes of this. Continuously!!! Those of you who know me might know that I really dislike needless repetition. So I start getting irritated. I tried talking to him but it was no use Sooooo..... I started messing with him. I finished all my x-rays then I unbuckled his back board straps and said," You wanna go? You wanna leave....go. Get the hell up and go. If you make it to the door, I will GIVE you a ride home!!!" He sat up, looked down at his legs, saw that his feet were pointing in all the wrong directions and promptly passed the hell out. I put this safety straps back on a went about my business. As I was leaving I high-fived the Orthopedic resident because he had the evil job of realigning the guy's legs. Can I just tell you, that's a new kind of pain. The kind of pain that might one wish they were dead. I felt bad for the guy but not REAL bad.

Bye guys.

Gonzo

If you want blood.....you got it!!!!!

Welcome to this week's installment of Goofy medical stories.
I heard this story from one of the surgeons that works with us.
He trained in NYC or in Lubuck, Texas, I can't ever keep the two
straight. Anyway he tells this story of a recurring patient who had really bad veins. I guess when it was time to draw his blood for tests and stuff it was always a huge ordeal. The "hot-shot" nurse who try; and fail. Then the ICU nurse would try, and fail. Then the resident would try, and would fail. Then the chief resident and so on and so on.....
One day this new resident from the Middle East arrived. I will call him Sheik Aleed Omar von Gonzen-trooper Al Eta Momar Syed Gonzenheimer. He had come to train in NYC/TX. While there he overheard members of the staff complaining about how hard it was to draw blood from this particular patient. He, Sheik Aleed Omar von Gonzen-trooper Al Eta Momar Syed Gonzenheimer, volunteered to give it a try. Everyone else had tried and failed so they figured why not. Besides, what's a few needle pokes among friends.
The resident walked into the patient's room, pulled the curtain for some privacy, explained to the patient what he was going to do....and low and behold moments later emerged most triumphant with vials of blood for everyone!!! And the staff cheered him and layed palms in the hospital hallway that his feet would never feel the cold hospital floor underfoot, while others praised him loudly to friend and foe alike.
This scenario played out a bunch of times over the next couple of weeks. It seemed that everyone would try and fail except for "The Anointed one". He would walk in, and moments later he'd come out with blood samples. It just came easy to him. So one day a junior resident asked him how it was that he was the ONLY person who could get blood from this patient. His answer was as follows:
"It is wery eezy I tek needal dat is ten centimeters long (about 5 inches) and go in under sturr-num at about fortee five de-grees and git blud. Verks eh-vry tyme."

This crazy wacko was drawing blood from either the HEART itself or the Superior Vena Cava, also known as the giant f-ing vein in your chest! People, if you can help it, don't let anything sharp EVER go into your chest without X-ray guidance. Really.

Peace out PeePoe!!
Gonzo