The cockroach
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un-Touch'd krew
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 51,774
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From: My own level of hell
The cockroach
Was it merely a coincidence that we were all sitting around talking about the wild and crazy happenings of the ER a week before this happened?
While it was slow one day, a couple of us students got our doctors on a STAN roll (Shit That Ain't Nothin') to out do each other. We were in giggle fits at some of the stories. It was then I decided it was a good time to clear the air of stories I have heard.
I had to know if a cockroach in the ear was a story told by veteran doctors as a joke, or if it really happens. I can't believe I still haven't learned not to question any story from the ER.
I regarded my doctor with wide curious eyes. "Have you ever, really, pulled a cockroach out of someone's ear?"
My doctor smiled real big. "Oh yeah," he said and looked across the department while reflecting. "Usually they're dead. Sometimes they're still alive and he's looking back at you waving his antennae." He did his best impression of a cockroach by sticking two fingers to his forehead and waving them. "It freaks you out the first time since it's magnified by the otoscope." It made him chuckle when I shuddered.
Because of the other day, I can now confirm cockroaches in ear canals as anything but fictional. I was working with, I will call him, Dr. M. It was the last overnight shift. The shift before leaves at 3am. From 3am to 5am, he's the only doctor for the entire 55 bed department.
On the computer, "Bug in ear" popped up for a complaint a patient had.
"Oof! Dr. M!" I pointed and he looked over my shoulder.
"Sign us up," he told me. I was excited. Something gross. The doctor was excited. They love to gross out their little worker-bees (in return, we're treated as an apprentice). Soon after he finished off a breakfast bar, he said, "Less go," and I obediently followed.
We passed by the guy we had to sedate who was hallucinating so badly, he was screaming at the top of his lungs. This stressed out those who were in for cardiac monitoring and we didn't need that. We also strolled by the lady with an eye brow laceration. It was roughly 4am by then and we managed to get a plastic surgeon in to sew her up. It was close enough that he would be making rounds on his patients, so he didn't mind too much. And the lady was a wife of a doctor who worked at the hospital, so...there ya go.
Surgeons are an interesting breed. Very anal. For this one inch eyebrow laceration, he had the entire face of the patient scrubbed with the iodine sollution. She was positioned so that she looked relaxed. Her eyes were closed as if she were about to get a mud scrub. Instead, she looked like sunless tanner gone wrong. Very wrong.
We both chuckled about it. I was proud of my sunless tanner crack.
We're usually laughing about something before we go in for patients who aren't trying to die on us. Sometimes patients are glad we're in a good mood. Other times, we get regarded with a "What the hell's so damned funny" look. This patient gave us the "What the hell's so damned funny" look, so we went straight faced when her eyes flicked up to us with an ugly glare.
Her husband sat in a chair covering his mouth still trying not to laugh. The patient was covering her ear, curled up on the bed like a rape victim.
And indeed, she had been "bug-raped" by a little one inch long insect. He didn't belong in the orifice he currently occupied and she was unable to fight him off in her sleep.
The doctor got the story then looked into her ear. "Aw, yeah," he said while looking. He waved me over. "Come here and look."
Note to others: Don't go to a teaching hospital. You will be put on display.
I grabbed the otoscope to steady it and looked. I was greeted by a cockroach butt. The poor guy wasn't even able to turn around while being suffocated by the canal.
The doctor wrote orders for a flush and we later returned when the cockroach refused to be exhumed from his grave. With alligator forceps, the doctor reached into the ear. The corners of his mouth lifting signaled to me he had a good hold on it.
Carefully, he pulled it out, intact. He presented his find to the patient. She turned her head in disgust. The husband busted out laughing, earning a glare from his wife.
He was dead. I wonder what would have happened if he were alive? Is he put into a metal bowl he can't climb out of? Is he flicked onto the floor for the tech to stomp on which would have caused an overhead page of "Housekeeping to room 34, housekeeping to room 34"?
Hmm.
While it was slow one day, a couple of us students got our doctors on a STAN roll (Shit That Ain't Nothin') to out do each other. We were in giggle fits at some of the stories. It was then I decided it was a good time to clear the air of stories I have heard.
I had to know if a cockroach in the ear was a story told by veteran doctors as a joke, or if it really happens. I can't believe I still haven't learned not to question any story from the ER.
I regarded my doctor with wide curious eyes. "Have you ever, really, pulled a cockroach out of someone's ear?"
My doctor smiled real big. "Oh yeah," he said and looked across the department while reflecting. "Usually they're dead. Sometimes they're still alive and he's looking back at you waving his antennae." He did his best impression of a cockroach by sticking two fingers to his forehead and waving them. "It freaks you out the first time since it's magnified by the otoscope." It made him chuckle when I shuddered.
Because of the other day, I can now confirm cockroaches in ear canals as anything but fictional. I was working with, I will call him, Dr. M. It was the last overnight shift. The shift before leaves at 3am. From 3am to 5am, he's the only doctor for the entire 55 bed department.
On the computer, "Bug in ear" popped up for a complaint a patient had.
"Oof! Dr. M!" I pointed and he looked over my shoulder.
"Sign us up," he told me. I was excited. Something gross. The doctor was excited. They love to gross out their little worker-bees (in return, we're treated as an apprentice). Soon after he finished off a breakfast bar, he said, "Less go," and I obediently followed.
We passed by the guy we had to sedate who was hallucinating so badly, he was screaming at the top of his lungs. This stressed out those who were in for cardiac monitoring and we didn't need that. We also strolled by the lady with an eye brow laceration. It was roughly 4am by then and we managed to get a plastic surgeon in to sew her up. It was close enough that he would be making rounds on his patients, so he didn't mind too much. And the lady was a wife of a doctor who worked at the hospital, so...there ya go.
Surgeons are an interesting breed. Very anal. For this one inch eyebrow laceration, he had the entire face of the patient scrubbed with the iodine sollution. She was positioned so that she looked relaxed. Her eyes were closed as if she were about to get a mud scrub. Instead, she looked like sunless tanner gone wrong. Very wrong.
We both chuckled about it. I was proud of my sunless tanner crack.
We're usually laughing about something before we go in for patients who aren't trying to die on us. Sometimes patients are glad we're in a good mood. Other times, we get regarded with a "What the hell's so damned funny" look. This patient gave us the "What the hell's so damned funny" look, so we went straight faced when her eyes flicked up to us with an ugly glare.
Her husband sat in a chair covering his mouth still trying not to laugh. The patient was covering her ear, curled up on the bed like a rape victim.
And indeed, she had been "bug-raped" by a little one inch long insect. He didn't belong in the orifice he currently occupied and she was unable to fight him off in her sleep.
The doctor got the story then looked into her ear. "Aw, yeah," he said while looking. He waved me over. "Come here and look."
Note to others: Don't go to a teaching hospital. You will be put on display.
I grabbed the otoscope to steady it and looked. I was greeted by a cockroach butt. The poor guy wasn't even able to turn around while being suffocated by the canal.
The doctor wrote orders for a flush and we later returned when the cockroach refused to be exhumed from his grave. With alligator forceps, the doctor reached into the ear. The corners of his mouth lifting signaled to me he had a good hold on it.
Carefully, he pulled it out, intact. He presented his find to the patient. She turned her head in disgust. The husband busted out laughing, earning a glare from his wife.
He was dead. I wonder what would have happened if he were alive? Is he put into a metal bowl he can't climb out of? Is he flicked onto the floor for the tech to stomp on which would have caused an overhead page of "Housekeeping to room 34, housekeeping to room 34"?
Hmm.
:lmfao:
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