Armchair Anonymous: Nurses II

0:00Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dan Rather, and I'm joined by the Duchess. Hi. The Sharky Sharky Duchess. We need to do these more. We need to do these as regularly as poopy your pants because nurses deliver. Every time. Holy smokes, do they deliver. It's so harrowing, their job. It is, boy. They go through it all. Heroes. Day in and day out. I love nurses so much. I know. Me too. They're just a party. in their stories. They have great personalities. They have to. Yeah. You have to be so mentally tough. Yeah. And positive. And positive. And funny. I know. To get through. I know.

0:44It's really special. We learned a new term as well. I've already forgotten it, but we learned a term about an object in your butt. And it has a very specific terminology. It might even become a prompt. Object. Fuck. What is it? Should we look at it? Borectum. Oh. Borectal foreign body. Foreign body. Yeah Foreign body We learned that all nurses have a foreign body and rectum story Which is exciting as all hell Please enjoy Nurses Part 2 Hard times come and go Good times take them slow My life I had them old But but one thing you gotta know I'm gonna keep on shining How are you guys? I'm going to go out on a limb right now.

1:35You're the first of four nurses we're going to talk to. And the second I saw your face, I literally was like, all right, nurses are the most fun people on the planet. Thank you. That's the biggest compliment. I like to think I'm a fun person. Anyone that can see the shit you guys see hourly and be laughing and smiling, I mean, that's my kind of people. Well, if you don't laugh, you'll cry. It's a good attitude. So goes the adage. Where are you at, Peyton? I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia. Okay. How do you like it there? I like it. I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota, and this is a small town feel.

2:09We're just here because my husband's going to grad school. So it's just a short two years. It's charming, no? Oh, yeah. Very historic, but yeah. But a troubled past. Is that what you wanted to say? Or a beating around the bush that the most horrific thing ever happened there. Is that palpable when you're there or have people moved on? It's palpable, especially because I work in an elementary school now as a nurse, and it's crazy. They have to do a whole bunch of rezoning for the school districts because it was historically racist zoning. So now they're trying to go back and redo it all. Wow. Yeah.

2:43I'm going to add, I have another stereotype, not just about nurses, but I have a stereotype about Minnesotans. I would argue that Minnesotans are like Michiganders, but a little even elevated. What's that mean? They have so much Scandinavian in them, right? That they're modest by nature. They hate attention and acclaim. So it's kind of the same stock as Michigan, but they have this nice layer of humility, I'd say. I would say the humility aspect didn't hit me. Oh, good. I love talking about Minnesota. I think it's the best. Well, home of Prince, any place that can claim Prince. Yeah. Okay. I'm sure you've racked up many stories as a nurse, but you're going to hit us with one in particular.

3:21This is back in 2021 in Minneapolis. I'm a new baby nurse. and I'm working in the emergency department. I came in and I had an empty room and I was the next to get a patient, lucky me, which is always scary. So I go to the room, I meet the patient. Immediately upon entering the room, I am struck with the worst smell in the world. Oh, perfect. I just ate, this is great. Immediate infection smell. Oh, infection smell is such a bad combo of words. Well, evolutionarily, it has to be the one where most repulse by. I have a mask on, which I don't think is really doing much, but maybe a little. Do you guys ever put anything under your nose?

4:00We have little like essential oil sticks. One time Dax said you should put a Jolly Rancher in there. I did say that? Yeah, you did. Oh, have you tried that? I'll try that next time. Don't try that because I don't want you to choke. I'm assessing this patient. I'm like, where is this coming from? I don't see anything right away, but she's like the cutest little five foot. Monica type old grandma. For sure. But she's old. Okay. Old Monica. In her 70s, she has a scarf wrapped around her head. And I am like, what's your emergency? What brings you in? She says, oh, I just haven't been feeling well the past few days.

4:36She doesn't really go on. And I'm like, what's your history? And she says, well, nine months ago, I had a cranioplasty. What's that? A section of her skull was missing from a birth defect. And so she had to have a mesh plate put in to reform the skull. She really waited a while, it sounds like. She got through most of her life with this gap. I think it's something that gets redone. That makes sense. I leave the room to go get the doctor, brief them that you might want to put a double mask on. We go back into the room and the doctor's like, can you take your scarf off? I want to see you. Like, what's happening under there?

5:11Oh, no. She removes it. There is a quarter to half an inch slit open at the top of her forehead. We can see the mesh plate. Oh. And her brain. Oh.

5:27You can see grandma's brain? No. We can see granny's brain. Her brain. And we're like, all right, there we go. Bingo. Apparently brains stink. Now we know. And it like is very clearly infected. It's like red. It doesn't look well. Am I right to assume that's the last thing you want infected? Definitely. And she was off in all the ways. What happens if the scarf comes off and you go, You can't help it sometimes. You can't do that. Can you? Did you? I mean, you definitely probably shouldn't. But being a new nurse, thank God for the mask, because I was not expecting grandma's brain to be out. Of course.

6:06Right. You're not watching Pulp Fiction. You're only human. Yeah. So we're like, have you been taking care of it? And she's like, I was taking pretty good care of it. I keep the scarf on. I changed the gauze. It's been going well. Like, OK. Has anything been irritating it? Anything you can think of? And she says, no, I take the scarf off at night. And then my cats like to lick it. Stop it! Yes. This is the nasty. Nurses have all the deets. I almost said something really bad. I'm not going to say it. She deserves to. Hey, don't victim shame her. You're going to let your cat lick your open brain?

6:46She said she likes to. She wants to make mittens happy. And also she didn't do her research. Cats love human brains. They eat them. Well, they eat their face. Yeah, yeah. The cat got a little ahead of itself. I think the cat was like, grandma's dying and dead and I can't wait. I definitely think Mittens was like, she's on her way out. I got to have a slice. So she obviously had to be admitted to the hospital because that's not good. But since it was COVID time, it took three days to get her from the emergency department up to a room. So for the three days she was down there, the entire back hallway just smelled the whole time.

7:26We obviously attempt to clean it. We started IV antibiotics and would do the basic treatment, but we weren't like getting in there. Because someone needed to go in there surgically and get rid of this necrotic flesh and everything. And drain all the cat saliva. Pull the cat babies out of her. Don't say cat babies in a brain. Oh, my God. Mittens, kittens. Oh, my God. She was kind of like Voldemort. You know when what's-his-name's wearing the scarf and he takes off and Voldemort's there? Yes, Professor Quirrell. Yes. I literally was thinking that. It's literally that. Oh, my God. You never know what someone's hiding under there.

8:06And what was her spirits? She sounds very nice. She was the sweetest little lady. So kooky. If you were in the room, she'd tell you everything you wanted to know about anything. Yeah, but she was also crazy. Literally cat saliva induced crazy. Madness? Yeah. Maybe you can say madness. So we don't know if she was nice or not. Maybe that was part of the delirium. What ended up happening to Granny? She got a room, obviously. She got a room and that's all I know. I'm glad. I don't want to know the end of this. This is rough. At this hospital, we had a lot of frequent flyers and I never saw her again.

8:45Okay. Oh, that's good. And would you have heard if she had passed in that upstairs room? Would they have told you? Probably. Okay. So I think all signs point to she's probably with mittens now on her lap. All signs point to she turned into a cat. I think her brain turned into a cat brain. And now she thinks she's a cat. Peyton, what if you saw her boogieing down the sidewalk on all fours with the most agility you'd ever seen? That would be amazing. I'd have to call you guys back. What an experiment. I have a hunch we're going to talk to you again. because I'm sure you were probably debating which story to even tell.

9:19I was talking to my husband and I was like, I don't have any stories, just the cat lady. He was like, yeah, you should submit that. That's a pretty good one. Just the cat lady. That really puts a new spin on cat lady. Yeah. Do you think that's Laura's dream in life? No, don't say that. To have her brain licked by her cat. Ew, probably. This is what happens with people who love cats. They love them way too much. It's kind of a good ending. I guess so. Oh, what a joy that was. Thank you. Thank you for sharing. Can my husband come say hi? Of course. Oh, you're as cute as they come. Look at the symmetry.

9:55It's completely homogeneous. And you're in graduate school. And your teeth are that nice. It's awesome to see you guys. I wanted to say we drove from Virginia to Minneapolis before the holidays, which is about 18 hours. And we listen almost exclusively to Armchair. Oh, that's so nice. Is there one moment that was your favorite? it any anonymous but we just listened to the munchausen by proxy andrea dunlop i don't have munchausen want to say oh yeah thank you for clarifying well you guys don't have a child yet no you can still have it with a partner and but it's most common for the mother to be in the medical yeah we'll let you know okay keep us updated on that well again we were going to talk to you about another nurse story but it might be like tell us about a story of inflicting munchausens on your child.

10:41I'll wait for that prompt for sure. Well, delightful meeting both of you. Good luck down there in Virginia. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye. Hello. Is this Lucy? Yes, it is. How are you doing? Have we caught you at work? Yes, I'm at work in a nice, fancy little telephone booth. And if there were any doubt of the validity to your claim of being a nurse, you are currently in scrubs, which really lends to your case. Yeah, right. I'm out of the bedside now. So I'm in healthcare education and simulation. Oh, and where are you in the country? I'm up in Canada. Okay. So I assume you have a kabillion stories you could have told.

11:21Did you have a hard time whittling it down to which one? No, I definitely have a lot of stories, but this one has just always been kind of in the forefront. So I've been in the emergency room for most of my career. Always small town, always rural hospitals. So you can get creative. Farming accidents. Wood splitter against foot, you know, never a good thing. So I've done some travel nursing too in small urban cities to fly in, fly out communities. Oh, like in the bush, you mean, fly in, fly out? More on the coast in BC or up in the Yukon. Oh, wow. It's been very cool. Who would have thought nursing could take you as many places as like a flight attendant?

11:58And be able to make a good income and have some paid travel and accommodation and learn and meet a lot of cool people and see the country at the same time. So this would be the one you're at a dinner party and they want to hear a story. This is the one you always reel out. If they're with nurses or other health care providers, sure. But not a layman. Not for civilians. So small town emerge. Someone comes into triage after biking in from a neighboring community. It's like a 15 minute drive. So it's not a short bike. Comes in, not really saying much. not making great eye contact, being a little elusive, just repeating that he wants to see a doctor.

12:34We try and obtain a little bit more pertinent information. The triage process is important and only get out of them pain back there. Great. Because I was going to say the times I've had to go to the doctor and talk about something I just really don't want to talk about. I have decided I'm willing to tell this one person. In your mind, you've committed to that. And then you get there and you start realizing, no, I'm going to have to tell many people. and I hate that. Is that common? Where like they don't really want to tell you because they've already decided only one person shall ever know this.

13:04Yeah, it could happen. And then also at the same time, like you're writing it down. So that's a whole other added layer that people don't love. Yeah.

13:28So they're referencing pain back there, just being pretty elusive and not wanting to say much. So we respect that and then get them back. So the physician goes into assess a little bit later, comes out and orders some abdominal imaging. A little while later, imaging is ready and we review it to find a foreign body lodged nicely between those pelvic bones. So deep up into his rectum. Yeah. So like a little callback, this person biked in. Right. Oh, my God. Oh, God. Yeah. Oh. All I can imagine hearing this is every pedal revolution, you know, just going up a little bit further each time. Oh, no.

14:06This is sad. And is it clear from the imaging what the object is? So it definitely had the structure of a bottle. The person just wasn't really saying a whole lot to everyone. So it had a bottle-like shape, but I wouldn't be able to be like, oh, that's a Coke bottle or something. Right. But we're a rural hospital. to try and get creative with what you have. Babies do get delivered here. And there are like vacuum-assisted devices for babies that it was pitched to see if maybe that could work. Ultimately didn't go with that because the physician could barely reach the object. If you had to guess how many inches beyond the anus it was, could you guess?

14:43He said he could barely touch it with his finger. Wow. Three or four inches up there. This physician's probably like your stature too. He really had a long finger to work with. Yes, so he could feel it a little bit, But obviously a vacuum can't suction to that small of a piece and that piece of plastic, whatever it might have been. It took a lot of convincing and encouraging, but he really needed to go to the city to have a procedure to get it removed. The other concern with imaging was there's free air on the x-ray, which means something might have perforated. So there's more severity there that you don't want to mess around with rurally.

15:18And then also if you were just to simply like pull it out, it creates a vacuum. Oh. You kind of maybe got to fill air around it. You might have to be inflating basically as you pull it out. Or like have another hole in it elsewhere to kind of help prevent a vacuum and have all the intestines come with it. Oh. I mean, there's a lot to think about. Yeah, a lot to think about beforehand. This poor person, they finally came around to heading to the city. So a lot of times people don't necessarily come back for discharge or anything like that. Usually when they go, that's the last time we'll see them.

15:52Oh, I'm going to guess. I mean, his bike is there. Yeah. The next day he came back in to emerge to pick up his bike seat. I find this sad. I know. I feel so much for this person. It would be such a hard thing. It would. They have to go back to get your bike. And also you just had a pretty massive procedure up there and you're going to now ride. The fact that he biked there in the first place. Yeah. I don't know what kind of procedure he had. It obviously wasn't an open abdominal anything because they were able to walk in the next days. Do we know what it was? I bet there'd be like a HIPAA issue.

16:26Like they couldn't call the next hospital and be like, hey, what was that? Wouldn't that violate HIPAA somehow? Yeah. I don't have confirmations of anything. Just what I saw on the x-ray, which was impressive for sure. I have an immediate guess. I think it was a bottle of conditioner. I think he was in the shower and he decided to masturbate and he thought it might feel nice to have this bottle up his butt. Now, when you think back in your mind of the image, could it have been a conditioner bottle? It definitely looked like a drink bottle. Okay. Oh, wonderful. I take it all back. He was sitting on a picnic table having a nice cold.

16:59It was an accident. It was a pure accident. He just sat down. It got up there. It's the classic slip and fall. Yeah, classic. And I'm sorry to ask for this detail, but my assumption now is that the thin end was first. Yeah, of course. Okay. Also, Do you think it was full? Of the soda or whatever? Yeah. No, because the cap would have had to have been on. Also, that's what I'm thinking about, the cap in you. No, he would have taken the cap. I think it might have come up a bit more opaque, too, with the liquid in it. But yeah, classic slip and fall. I'm sure many nurses have this story. I hope he figured out how to enjoy that hobby without any further complications.

17:39If someone wants to do that and that feels nice, I'm all for it. I just wish he didn't have to ride his bike. No, that is really a cruel detail of the story. Plot twist for sure. The bike ride in couldn't have been comfortable. Now I'm double set because he didn't have anyone to call. But then I don't know that that's the truth either. Because he might have just been like, there's no way I'm calling anyone. But he also doesn't have a car. The only mode of transportation he has is that bike. That's a little telling. It's also a small rural town. People know everyone, right? That's even worse. Well, Lucy, this has been incredible.

18:12I kind of had fingers crossed we would get something stuck up the butt story. You read about those occasionally. Yeah, I figured it might be appealing in that sense based on what I've heard in the past. Based on the tone of the show, I thought this might interest you. I've been listening to you guys since it started. This is crazy to see behind the scenes. We're so happy to have you. Yeah, thanks for listening. And from the bottom of my heart, I'm more grateful for y 'all than even doctors. I think the stuff that you guys have to do is just the most impressive. From the bottom of your butt. From the bottom of my butt to the bottom of your heart.

18:51Yeah, nurses are pretty amazing. All right. Well, it was lovely meeting you. And again, thank you so much for the work you do. Thank you so much for this opportunity. All right. Take care. Bye, guys. What does bottom of my heart? The depths of my heart. The deepest part. But the deepest part, I feel like, is this center. You're hung up on bottom because we're talking about someone's bottom. No, you said from the bottom of my heart and then it made me think. The rectum of the heart. That's my point is we're talking about bottoms right now, like butt bottoms. But I'm just saying bottom of the heart doesn't feel that much more important than the middle of the heart, the core, the pulsing part.

19:32From the top of my heart. Yeah, I'm just curious who made that up. From the left chamber of my heart. Probably. Or Abraham Lincoln. I'm never going to watch that doc. You already told me the whole doc. It was Abraham Lincoln. Yes. No, I'm just kidding. Hello. How are you guys? So good. Do you want to use a code name? Let's go with the name Evan. You look like an Evan. Yeah, and I like the name Evan. Do you have a best friend named Evan or something? I don't. It's actually a family name. Oh, okay. So Evan, where are you in the country? You can be as vague as you'd like. I just am curious. I'm in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

20:06But funny enough, about a year ago, I moved. I was in LA for 10 years. and I lived in a pretty decent apartment complex right near Hollywood and Western. So I always used to go to Maru and hope that I would run into Monica. Oh my God. Well, you're more likely to run into Rob. I'm shocked you didn't run into Rob. Probably did. You probably did. But oh man, that would have been great. Now, were you on the hunt for Monica so you could explore something romantic with her? No, I'm actually gay. Oh, okay. That's a bummer. I feel like that's more substantive. Yeah, it's more pure. Yeah. I'm sorry I missed you.

20:42Okay. So you are a nurse, I presume? I'm an emergency room nurse. For how long? It'll be 14 years this year. Okay. So you have a juicy story. I'm sure you've got many, but you have pared it down to this one. Oh, God. I hope juicy isn't an operating nurse. Oh, I do. I hope juice is involved in this story. No juices in this story, but it's a pretty wild one. This doesn't take place in LA. It does take place somewhere else in California. I was working in a pretty busy emergency department. It was a level two trauma center. So we see pretty much all the crazy gunshots, stabbings, car accidents, falls, all of those things.

21:15Will you tell us about the levels? I've never heard it being described as level one or two or three. It goes from level one to level four. Level one is the highest. So that's your Cedars-Sinai. The main difference between a level one and a level two is that they have neurosurgery 24 hours a day in-house. So if you have a head injury, they can do procedures right then and there. Whereas level two, they have to bring a neurosurgeon in or they have to fly the patient, depending on their injury, to a different facility. Okay. And then down to level four, it just really is resources that are available at that specific facility.

21:48So this particular hospital was a level two, but there were only two trauma centers in the area. So we would get a lot of the traumas and the crazy stuff along with just basic medical patients that come in. This was around 2017, 2018. Busy day in the emergency department. We had a lot of traumas coming in, the waiting room was full. But on top of that, we have a lot of psychiatric patients that are on a 5150 hold. They're there on the hold for 72 hours for whatever reason, either they're suicidal, homicidal, or gravely disabled, meaning they can't care for themselves. We're kind of responsible for those patients until they get to a psychiatric facility, which sometimes, you know, that can be days that they're in our emergency department.

22:28And is protocol to kind of, for lack of a better word, anesthetize them? Do you want to get them on some kind of benzo to calm everyone down? So it depends on their level of how violent they are. If you come in and just say, hey, you know, I'm thinking of committing suicide, but they're willing to be there voluntarily. That's one thing. Some other patients will be brought in by the cops because they tried to kill their spouse. At that point, we hold them, but some of them are cooperative and they're calm. Other patients are a little less calm and we have to end up restraining them physically, or we have to sedate them with a chemical restraint.

23:00I remember this day we particularly had, I think, probably seven or eight psychiatric patients, which is a lot. They will be in our psych rooms, and then some of them are in the hallways. But typically, they have to be a one-to-one sitter, and the person that's watching them has to be within arm's reach in case they try to hurt themselves. So we're busy doing our thing throughout the day, and the chief medical officer comes to the department, and he quickly tells the team, hey, we just received a call that there was a bomb threat made at the hospital, and we need to evacuate the emergency department immediately.

23:34Whoa. With seven or eight psychiatrists? Does that mean bring them outdoors? Bring everyone. Oh my God. There could be 50 patients, including the psychiatric patients outside. This is the worst kind of bomb threat, I'm going to say. Yeah, this is a mean one. I've worked places where there's been a threat called in and we typically have security teams and the police are always there because of various reasons. But this particular day, he made the decision that we need to evacuate the emergency department. So as ER nurses do, our team figures it out. A lot of times for disasters, we'll put up tents out in the parking lot.