Booogly Booogly
Posted by WhiteCoat on December 2, 2008
Medics roll in a 60-ish year old patient that was found lethargic at home.
He was morbidly obese, his legs were swollen, and he had agonal respirations.
Nurse yells out “We need a doctor in here NOW!”
Resident goes in, can’t find a pulse and says “this guy is coding!”
He starts doing chest compressions.
After the second pump on the guy’s chest, the guy wakes up and starts flailing his arms.
“What are you DOing to me?!?!”
OK. Code over.
Still not sure what was causing the guy to go into agonal respirations, so a head-to-toe examination begins.
The intern starts at the top of the head and works his way down.
Whoa.
One of the patient’s pupils is fixed and dilated.
Not a good sign.
There’s no head trauma, but there isn’t much other information available about the guy at the moment.
The attending makes her way to the head of the bed, raises an eyebrow, and asks the intern “Are you sure?”
She grabs the light off the wall and holds the patient’s eyelids open to get a clear look at the eye.
She got a little closer look at the eye than she wanted – as she retracted the eyelids, the patient’s eye popped out and landed on the patient’s cheek.
The attending let out a muffled scream. The intern jumped back from the side of the bed.
Then the patient, in his semi-conscious state, wakes up enough to ask “Did my glass eye pop out again?”
Uh … yeah. Yeah it did.
Thanks for the heads up on that one.
Now everyone in the ED will be giggling like little kids for the rest of the shift.
HyperAl said
I used to work in an Acute Care Center and room one at the Center is the Eye Room.
On one April Fool’s morning as soon as I walked in, our nurse told me that we have an “Eye” in room one and been waiting there for quite a while.
I said, this early? Anyway, I put on my coat, picked up the chart and without even looking at it, proceeded to room one.
There I found on top of the examining table, on a piece of gauze my receptionist’s glass eye. She was cool enough to allow her glass eye to be used just to see my face turn red.
hashmd said
The case sounds like one of my sleep apneic, Pickwickian patients. “Agonal” breathing is his normal sleep state. Chest so thick you can’t hear the heart tones. Neck so big that you can’t find the carotid pulse. Chronically hypoxic and hypercapneic.
R. S. Sahsi said
I once had a medical student try to repeatedly elicit patellar reflexes on a patient before she realized she was banging on the prosthesis for his above-knee amputation. I can only imagine whether what was going through the patient’s mind was amusement or horror.
trauma junkie said
Easily entertained, aren’t we?
mottsapplesauce said
Ha! My father’s had a prosthetic eye since his childhood (he’s 75). I don’t think he’s ever had this happen but I’m sure he’d find this hilarious–I sure did. Thanks for the laugh WC.
PallbearerOfGoodNews said
I saw that one coming from a mile away! Probably because something similar happened to me once just without the glass eye popping out and screaming.
GuitarGirlRN said
A childhood friend’s father had a glass eye, and when we went out to dinner with him, we would beg him to do his trick.
When the waiter would come to take the order, my friend’s father would hem and haw, and then look up at the waiter and ask, “so, what’s good tonight?” all the while idly scratching the surface of his glass eyeball with a tine of his fork.
The look on the waiters’ faces was always hysterical.
PJ Geraghty said
I hope someone was in charge of keeping an eye on this patient all night long.
(I can’t believe no one went for that earlier!)
[Cringe] You’re right, I didn’t *see* that one coming …
premedjourney said
Now that’s funny. I imagine that must have been a little traumatic.
SeaSpray said
Oh that’s FUNNY!
Strong One said
Classic! Oh-so classic.
Goes ta show ya… A good history is important!
Heh heh