Sir. I love you.

[docB]

I had a patient with a really impressive tib fib the other day. He and a buddy were wrestling and "pop."

(not his real X-ray due to HIPAA, but close)

After the X-ray I had this conversation:

Me: Hey Sir. You definitely broke your leg there.
New hero: Yeah. I figured.
Me: It's gonna need surgery to fix. I called the ortho surgeon and he's coming in.
New hero: Yeah I figured that too. It hurts pretty bad.
Me: I bet. I ordered you some pain meds. Did the nurse give them to you.
New hero: No. I wanted to hold off. It's not that bad if I stay still. They'll give me something before the surgery right?

Wow. That's not typical for my area.

I then had the following fantasy conversation:

Sir. I will see that you get whatever you want. You have been patient and pleasant and cooperative and I'm going to see that we fix you up free of charge. And I want to get a picture of you and your X-ray and put it on posters, nay, on billboards and Jumbotrons and caption it with "THIS! THIS YOU A******S IS WHAT 10/10 PAIN LOOKS LIKE!!! Your bogus 10/10 pain while you're texting and laughing makes me sick and from now on anyone with 10/10 pain will have this injury inflicted on them as a reference. 10/10 Really? Well is it better or worse than this (envision Kathy Bates from Misery swinging the hammer) CRACK! You want Dilaudid for your 10/10 pain? Really? Ok, hold still, this will sting a little!"

Let me know if you need some of my posters for your waiting rooms.

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[Chip N Sawbones]

Go to 4:12 for Brian Regan's take on the emergency room pain scale.

"Who the hell... Had the audacity... To say he was at a level 10? You know nothing about 10. Give me a sledgehammer, and let me show you what 10 is all about, Mister tummyache!"

 

[Spinach Dip]

If my leg looked like that, I'm pretty sure I'd be screaming for enough dilaudid to kill a yak.

 

[DocEspana]

I'll take 5 posters.

 

[Birdstrike]

Not to reign on your parade on anything DocB, but are you sure he was such a hero?

Or did he just have his own dilaudid base going from his home supply, which caused him to fall when he got up to turn the lava lamp on, causing him to trip while staring mesmerized at his Grateful Dead black-light poster, causing him to twist his ankle while all 5 billion mu receptors in his nervous system were already lit up to high heaven?

Just sayin'...

 

[docB]

I gotta go with my gut and say hero.

I do have some evidence too.

In my experience narc users don't pass up a hit, even if they know it will be a drop in the ocean for them. It's like the rat hitting the switch, they always want more.

Chronic narc users believe that all pain is intolerable. Narcs are to given until pain free, intubate if necessary. How many times have you had a patient who was asleep and when you woke them up they groggily asked for... more narcs. That happens to me twice a shift.

 

[Old_Mil]

One of the downsides to this job is that every shift is like a trip to Mos Eisley Spaceport.

Sent from my Z10 using Tapatalk

 

[doctorFred]

damn. that's a straight up pilon fracture. ortho usually gets pretty excited about those. that's really incongruous with a "just wrestling between buddies" story.

 

[Spinach Dip]

How many times have you had a patient who was asleep and when you woke them up they groggily asked for... more narcs. That happens to me twice a shift.

For some people, consciousness is painful.