Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Now That's Entertainment

A couple of weeks ago, SuperHubby and I visited MUSC. If you have to ask why, you are not my friend. Anyway, we spent 6 hours in the ER and I have never been so entertained in all my life.

First, there was an older lady who was here on vacation and had apparently fallen. Her leg was swollen and purple. She didn't want to come to the hospital but her entire family wanted her to be seen. After listening to her and her son all morning, I think they just wanted her out of the house so they could get some peace and quiet.

Then there was the rode-hard-and-hung-up-wet lady in her 40s that came in. She had tried to OD and was very upset that no one was taking her seriously. She had taken 6 cold tablets. Even the ER doctor couldn't get excited about her dilemma. She was happy as soon as they asked her to pee in a cup.

But my favorite was the trailer folk on the far end of the room. Apparently the boyfriend had some sort of nasty, infected something that needed to be drained. The girlfriend had been doing bathroom surgery on him for quite some time and was very pleased with her ability to drain said nastiness, but it was causing him a great deal of pain so they came to the ER. And he was SCREAMING.

Of course, his honey was kind enough to tell him that he was being a big baby. She told him she'd had 3 babies and never acted as stupid as he was acting. And she called him many unflattering names, which I cannot write about.

At one point our nurse came over and told us the problem. Seems the genius had staples that needed to be removed. He'd waited too long...over a year...and now they were infected. And they were in his butt.

Well that was it for me. If I wasn't paying attention before, I certainly was now. This was some show. (That explains the bill for $9000 we got this week!). They gave him a shot (in his butt). He screamed. They drained the deal. He screamed. And they tried to remove the staples. At that point I think he almost fainted.

According to his by-now-supportive girlfriend, it wasn't his fault that he didn't have the staples removed. He was in jail when they were supposed to come out.

The doctors finally did all they could do for him and scheduled follow-up surgery so they could continue the procedure without him screaming and cussing every 2 seconds.

Then the kicker: He very seriously asks the doctor EXACTLY what he meant when he told him if he didn't get this taken care of, he could get gangrene of the groin area. How bad could that really be? And could he go ahead and check it and make sure he was okay? Sweetness was all for that - she wanted to make sure everything was where it should be before she left with him.

The doctor laughed out loud. And I'm glad, because I don't think they could hear me howling.

2 comments:

The Stuckey Family said...

Very funny stuff! You have to submit this to Jeff Foxworthy...he may use it for his next "you might be a redneck if..." jokes.

Sidenote: Shouldn't you have a wing at MUSC named after you by now? They should at least have a special lounge for big donors like you so you don't have to wait with the pain-in-the-butt type people.

Super Rog said...

Reminds me of the time I broke my ankle. INSTEAD of calling 911 my dad calls his sister--who is not a nurse. THEN before taking me to the emergency room HE CUTS MY TOENAILS.