BOOSTED BY MEDIUM

Real Fun Stories From the Emergency Department by an ER Doctor

A whimsical happy story involving a cantankerous co-worker

Just in case you’re wondering, I’m a retired ER Doc with decades in the trenches and a head full of joyous stories straight from the gates of Emergency Department Hell.

Here’s one of those stories.

One day, Bob the Surgeon decided to play “bash in my head” with his hair-trigger temper and his Defcon 1 personality disorder.

We’ll call him “Bob” because that’s not his name.

We’ll also call him a trauma surgeon, since (unfortunately) that’s what he was.

We can layer in 24/7/365 asshole and malignant narcissist since he was also that.

Bob was hanging out in the Emergency Department’s (ED) trauma area, delighting the female nursing staff with hugs and shoulder rubs.

He was also spreading his special brand of good cheer by rubbing his gut on as many young female employees as possible.

Just then my next patient walked in, slurring the joyous message “I got shot in the head.”

As I leaned in to begin my examination I felt Bob’s hot breath on my neck, his gut nearly brushing my backside.

“Burg” Bob shrieked “this guy’s been shot in the head! Why haven’t you alerted the trauma team?!” (This “alert” would have brought about 15 screamers from the surgical service barging into the ED.)

“Please give me a minute, Bob. He’s only been here for two seconds. He walked in. He’s talking and I don’t see a dot of blood.”

CALM THE FUCK DOWN, BOB! I wanted to bellow.

But that seemed out of character for the party atmosphere that had suddenly reared its ugly head, so I restrained myself.

However, I did allow myself the indulgence of picturing Bob’s tightie-whities bursting into flames while he battled a horde of chiggers invading his mustache, all while he walked barefoot over Lego pieces as nursing staff members jeered and whipped him with used urinary catheters.

Then my patient, who’d walked in talking, and had climbed into a gurney unaided, decided to play possum. We got that a lot in the ED.

Playing possum involved: slumping in one’s gurney, closing one’s eyes tightly and refusing to open them, steadfastly refusing to answer all questions — all in an effort to convince one’s caregivers that mortal illness and injury were present.

Seeing possum-boy playing possum, Bob lost what remained of his tiny mind and directed a stream of commands at my bowed head, all at 210 decibels.

I continued having the most fun I’d ever had indoors and tended to my possum patient.

“Mr. Possum-Boy,” I said “if you do not immediately open your eyes, talk to me, and tell me wtf happened to you, the crimson-faced banshee behind me will jam plastic tubes in every natural orifice you possess, and create several you don’t yet possess, and you’ll be treated to a series of incredibly expensive ED carnival rides the likes of which you cannot imagine, but perhaps Quentin Tarantino can.”

(I MAY have left out the “wft” but I really can’t remember.)

Possum boy’s eyes popped open and he slurred “Hey dawg, we wuz partying at the crib (Yeah, that I could tell from your stench.) then one of my homies shot me in the head.”

“With what?” I gently inquired.

“A gun,” (I didn’t hear, “you fucking idiot”, but I sensed it.) P-B scoffed.

I gave up, donned some gloves, and began pawing through P-B’s thatch of matted hair.

Bob continued his steady barrage, still caterwauling about the need for “tubes in holes”, CAT scans, the trauma team and more, like … what a moron I was and is this what you do when I’m not here watching you.”

My dopamine levels continued to rise as the pleasure centers in my brain, heart and soul continued to be tickled by Bob and my patient.

Weirdly, the thought that at various times in my life I could have become: a long-haul truck driver, a moving man, a rock and roll impresario, and/or a drug dealer and been completely happy, flitted about my brain like vultures pecking at a rotting carcass.

And then I found it, the bullet, you know, the one from the gun, the one to the head, the one that allowed my stone cold normal and stoned patient to WALK from his house, into my ED and calmly lay on a gurney, that one.

It entered P-B’s skull right behind his right ear, right into that thing that fancy schmancy doctors like to call the occipital protuberance and everyone else calls the hard bump behind your goddamn ear.

Well perhaps “entered” is too strong a term.

A bb “bullet” sat there, about half in and half out of my patient’s skin overlying his occipital protuberance.

“Did you get shot with a bb gun?” I inquired. (Thinking all the time that you’re just the kind of turkey another turkey would shoot with a bb gun while you were partying with your homies all up in the crib.)

“Yeah whatever, dawg,” came the reply.

“I’m going to flick it out with my finger,” I said.

Bob left the ED without another peep, probably to rub his jelly rolls on others elsewhere too low on the hospital food chain to protest or be taken seriously.

As I watched him waddle Napoleon-like out of range, I hallucinated that ideas for a suitable apology note to me danced in his head.

Strangely enough, Bob’s note got lost on the hospital server and never made it to me. The 24 red roses, the magnum of champagne, and the Godiva chocolates thankfully did.

Possum boy was discharged when sober and able to look after himself, at least until the next time someone popped a cap in his ass.

And that’s one example, of many I could give, of the kind of lighthearted and joyous events that transpired daily where I worked for 20 years.

Not too grim or graphic for ya, right?

Next up:

• “Let’s see what happens when we brew and drink a tea made from various plants found along the roadside,” quoth the six fun-loving 14-year-olds.
• A 275-pound psychopathic killer, loaded with prison-honed rippling musculature, who has spent most of his life incarcerated, and has zero impulse control on his best day, becomes my special friend when he does PCP, the drug that gives him the strength of a minyan.
• And the always popular: Excuse me, Your Honor, did you come in for a battery change or do you want that thing removed?

I could go on, and on, and on, and on, but I shan’t.

Well, maybe later I will.

If you’re interested, here’s the graphic stuff

You’re hardy enough to handle it, I’m sure.

Besides, they’re not graphic, just real, although so is the story above … mostly.