What would you do to get out of prison?

Look closely...what do you see?  Look again. 
This wasn't my personal patient, but a friend of mines.  The patient came in with nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain.  hmmm....I wonder why?  He swallowed a screw (which you can see on the left side) and two batteries (which you can see in the middle of the film).  He wanted an escape route out of the R. county prison and went to great lengths to ensure it ended him up in a better place....the hospital, with a dentist as his doctor. haha.  I am serious.  The dental residents have to do shifts in the emergency room.  Honestly, that would be like asking me to do a root canal, or quote lines from movies, or not interrupt in the middle of a conversation...nearly impossible. Even though seemingly odd, a dentist in the ER, it did lend to many hilarious stories.   This being one of them.  It's ironic, because I do everything I can to get out of the hospital, and this guy did everything he could to get himself admitted.  Maybe life is not that bad. 

Not just in hollywood

My husband and I recently watched a stupidly funny movie- Hall Pass, in which there is one scene where the female character is having diffuse abdominal pain, then sneezes, sharts, and abdominal pain resolves.   I recently learned that sharting (made famous by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Along Came Polly)  isn’t something that only happens in the movies. 

Sharting is exactly what it is sounds like.  I don’t think I need to elaborate on that explanation ;)  It was 6pm, I was getting ready to leave the hospital, when I received a page from one of the nurses claiming that one of my patients needs to be seen because he thinks he is in Russia.  He was completely clear headed and oriented on admission.  Was he getting sicker?  Did I give him a medication that gave him altered mental status? 

I walk into the patient’s room to find him sitting up in the chair with only an adult diaper on.  His hair completely disheveled and sticking straight up defying gravity by some means I don’t understand, because had no access to hair gel.  He was ranting about how ridiculous it was for us to keep him in the hospital while he was in Russia and he needed to get out!!  He kept claiming there were men after him and he needed to get out into Russia.    I started to assess the patient.  I asked the nurses to get vitals on him as I examined him.  He continued to rant and rave about Russia.  When all the sudden there was silence.  Everyone stopped what they were doing and starred at the patient.  He had a puzzled look on his face.  The patient lets out a big fart.  Thinking it was nothing but a fart I continue with my physical exam and exploring the cause if his altered mental status.  When all the sudden he shouts, “I am sitting in shit!”  “I took a shit in my pants.”

I step away from the patient to find a small amount of runny brown liquid dripping from the edge of the seat he was sitting in.  I guess a “shit in his pants” was all he needed to slap his back into reality.  After the “shart” he was completely back to his normal self.  We sat and talked as if nothing had ever happened as brown liquid continued to drip from the edge of the seat.  I think someway or another I’d rather be in Russia.