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77 Of The Worst Things Patients Had To Go Through, As Per Hospital Workers Who Have Seen It All
It takes a special kind of person to work in a healthcare institution. One needs immense emotional resilience and fortitude to work in places where some people experience the worst days of their lives.
Together with burnout, many medical professionals also have to deal with seeing human suffering on a daily basis. This leads to a phenomenon called "compassion fatigue." In fact, seven in 10 healthcare professionals in the UK say they struggle to empathize with patients because of it.
We might think that's unfair, but most of us truly don't know what medical workers witness from day to day. To bring more awareness to how hard it can be to work in healthcare, Bored Panda has compiled the worst experiences from health professionals, courtesy of one online thread.
"People who work in [a] hospital – what is the worst thing you have seen a patient go through?" one netizen wrote. And the stories from these medical professionals are as heartbreaking as they are morbidly interesting. So, be warned, Pandas – you might need a fair amount of tissues as you scroll through this list.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Basically anytime a patient (especially elderly) is hanging on with every possible form of life support (vent, dialysis, repetitive coding) and the family refuses to make them a DNR. I know it is a hard decision to make. I know you don’t want to see them [go]. You also don’t want to be in the room when they code. You don’t want to be in the room the third time they code, wondering if we will be able to bring your loved one back again, just to see his chest rise and fall mechanically. To see him being turned every hour and leaving the room so that your modest dad can have some privacy while we clean him up because he can’t control his bowels. Please think about what the person would have wanted.
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#2
Not exactly something I saw the patient go through, but I saw the sweetest old lady who was suffering with chronic kidney problems because, when she was younger, she worked as a maid for some evil twisted people who forbade her from using the toilet at work (ie 9-5 not including travel). So she had to force herself to hold a full bladder daily for hours at a time. This is a great way to get stones, which in turn can cause obstruction and damage the kidneys.
She was so sweet and lovely, and it just really got to me that people could be so needlessly maleficent.
Upstaged75 2 hours ago
My friend's mom developed bladder issues after being a nurse for 30 years - they get so busy they often don't get a chance for a bathroom break. It was eventually fixed through surgery. Holding it is NOT good for you!
#3
A guy got in a car accident and broke his back and was told that he’d never walk again. When they tried doing therapy he started wiggling his toes so some hope came back into the picture ... the Transport dropped him when transferring him from the bed to the stretcher and broke his back all over again. That was twenty years ago now and he has never moved a toe again. Don’t forget to lock the bed or brace the stretcher kids.
Edit - bonus points I also forgot about the little boy whose brother jumped off the top of the bunk bed to help him do the splits ... screams I will never forget.
#4
In clinical on a Burn/Trauma unit: guy had 3rd degree burns on 80% of his body. He had very little skin left, I could actually see part of his tibia, finger tips were necrotic...he was heavily medicated but still, I can’t even fathom the pain. Idk if he made it bc he was quite septic last time I was there.
I now work in the NICU. Most of the babies end up doing pretty well and going home eventually, but some aren’t so lucky. I could go on about the medical stuff, but really the worst is when their parents don’t [care] about them. Some parents live far away and have other kids to take care of so it’s understandable if they aren’t there every day, but then there are others who never call, never visit, and no one can track them down, so the kid ends up being discharged to foster care. It just burns deep in my soul sometimes. One day I might hand a perfectly nice couple their baby to hold one last time while we withdraw life support, and the next day I’ll be trying to soothe a baby withdrawing.
Despite the challenges, I still love my job, though 🙂❤️.
#5
Hospital I used to work in had an eye clinic with some laser surgery rooms.
Patient with a common surname, let's say smith, had an eye exam and is told to make a follow up appointment.
He's waiting in line to make an appointment when, from the other side of the clinic, a nurse calls for smith. He walks over to her and says he's smith.
She leads him to one of the laser rooms. The MD performs the procedure.
When they're done, the patient asks "what did you just do to me?"
#6
Mother backed out of her driveway and didn’t notice her toddler had crawled into the culvert under the road. The culvert collapsed and crushed her daughter. We tried to keep the daughter alive while the mother was hysterical and the father was in shock. That was the worst.
I’ve seen worse graphically but not emotionally.
#7
I’m a children’s nurse, I worked on a ward that specialises in brain and spinal tumours in children, amongst other specialities. The worst thing I can think of was a little boy, I think he was 3 or 4 years old. He’d been in a different hospital for two weeks with a weakness to his legs that was seeping up his body, eventually causing incontinence. The other hospital hadn’t scanned him, which was the first thing we did and we found his brain and spine were covered in tumours, there was literally nothing we could do. He had weeks if not days left. On my shift he was incredibly poorly and I was trying to push for him to get moved to the ICU. He was barely conscious. Being with his poor parents as they went through this, watching their typical, previously healthy child fade away with no information was the worst. The Mum asking ‘will he live? Please save my baby.’ It was truly awful.
#8
In residency I took care of a young boy (<8 years old) with E. coli 0157:H7. No one knows where he got it and it wasn't part of a bigger outbreak. I'll never forget the screams of pain from the severe abdominal pain and bloody diarrhea, but then I'd go in the room to check on him and when I asked him how he was, he'd just say in a weak little voice "I'm okay" even when doubled over. Such a tough kid. There's no treatment besides supportive treatments (fluids, pain relief) because antibiotics make renal failure more likely. Unfortunately he did go into renal failure anyways and he [passed away] before dialysis could be started.
In medical school I took care of a middle-aged woman with advanced uterine cancer. She was extremely obese (>400 lbs) so it was too difficult to do her hysterectomy without first doing a panniculectomy (basically removing her pannus, which is excess abdominal fat). This involved an incision in a circle around her entire abdomen which was extremely painful as it healed since her whole abdomen was involved so she was essentially bed-ridden post op. Because she didn't move, she developed terrible pressure ulcers in her back, a couple of which ulcerated all the way to her bone. She had a ton of fat on her back too, so these ulcers were deep - I could get my whole arm up to the elbow inside of them when changing her dressings. She'd scream and sob anytime we moved her. I don't remember anyone ever coming to visit her.
#9
Obligatory not me post. A friends step dad was training to be a nurse so he got all the gross stuff that came in because, newbie. A homeless man came in complaining of stomach pains. When he told the guy to undress he didn't want to take off his jeans. When asked about it he said, "I can't take them off, my leg will fall off." Sure enough his leg was rotting and had maggots crawling in and out of it.
#10
Seeing a 24 year old (the same age as me at the time) come in with difficulty swallowing, then being told he had end stage oesophageal cancer and had weeks to live, whilst his wife was about to give birth, I was there when he was told, and I still to this day don’t know how I turned up for work the next day.
Having worked there for 5 years already, I’d never experienced anything so awful, he managed a few months, met his son. Something that will stick with me forever I think.
#11
Had a patient 1 yrs old. Suspected meningitis. Unresolved fever for 10 days. Parents refused to do a spinal tap and refused medication. Says that after admission for 3 days the medication is not working and wants to be discharged. We tried convincing them not to but they left anyway.
To me, the worst is that children pay for their parents stupidity.
Upstaged75 2 hours ago (edited)
Hospitals can arrange to have the child taken away from the parents if they refuse treatment. That's @buse. A court order can be arranged so that the kid will be treated. Wonder why that didn't happen in this case?
#12
Patient with a blood born yeast infection. His temp stayed above 106, even covered in ice packs, this pretty much fried his brain, but then his tiny blood vessels started to clog, so he went blind, then we cut off his toes, then his fingers, then his limbs. By the time he passed (after months) he was a blind torso vegetable.
#13
A woman got flesh eating bacteria on her c section wound. All of her limbs had to be amputated and her kidneys failed. Our staff rarely get upset but our nurses would cry after caring for her since it was so heartbreaking.
#14
My wife told me about a young father coming in with a annoying permanent headache. Diagnosed with a terminal brain tumor and [was gone] a few days later. Of all the stories she told me, this one was the worst because it hits close to home and can happen to [anyone].
#15
A dude in his thirties who was playing with his kid on a trampoline. Fell off, broken neck, wheelchair, tetraplegic, minimal use of his hands. From fitness, independence, career etc to complete, permanent disability in one second. Bang.
Just, you know, what the [hell] do you say to that guy? It won’t get better. It’s not like he’s 80 and nearing the end anyway. And it’s not even like he was drunk driving or tombstoning or whatever, he was just really, really, *really* unlucky.
Upstaged75 2 hours ago
Trampolines are just a bad idea - unless they're in a gymnastics gym and used with supervision.
#16
Recently, we coded a baby 8 times in one night. We should have let go after the first code, but unfortunately the epinephrine kicked in... after 40 minutes of CPR.
Parents were unrealistic about the baby's chances of survival. This baby had no chance of survival, but they wanted every thing done. The Attending finally told the parents that we could do this all night, but in the end there was nothing that could be done for this infant's survival.
#17
ICU - lady who was roughly 40 paralyzed from the chest down due to car accident years prior, currently on a ventilator through a trach and had a permanent feeding tube inserted in her stomach. When I saw her, she had a bleed in her stomach that was seeping out through the tube and she kept pulling out her trach in an effort to end it all. They ended up having to sedate her pretty heavily to keep her from repeatedly pulling the tube out. Seeing her pulling the tube loose, and watching her actively begin to suffocate with a totally blank look in her eyes was chilling.
Plentyofoomph 4 hours ago
And all.because the church has decided that s*****e is a sin, you're not allowed to.help end her suffering
#19
Work in a mental health hospital. [Freaking] dementia. Horrible, horrible disease that effects the people you love more than you because, on the good days, you don’t know you have it. I’ve seen people screaming out for their wife/husband who [passed] years ago. What do you tell them? Why put them through that again? Do you lie, and say they’re on their way/our shopping or something else, knowing that will placate them for 10-15 minutes until they ask again? I don’t think there’s an illness worse.
Upstaged75 2 hours ago (edited)
My mom's best friend has a husband with early onset dementia. It's awful. He's @ssaulted her more than once. (pushed her down, not serious injury) Unknowingly of course - he was a wonderful guy before the disease. It's advanced right now so she's basically just biding time until he passes. They have live-in nursing care, but she's with him almost 24 hours a day. He has no idea who she is. I can't imagine it gets much worse than that. 😥
#20
I volunteered in a Children's Hospital throughout high school. There was a sixteen year old patient there who had spina bifida and had no feeling beneath the waist. He had routine surgery, and expected to be in the hospital for about a week. The worst thing I've ever seen was the look on his face when he told me that the doctors had found MRSA on both of his legs, and he wouldn't be leaving the hospital any time soon. Hospital trips are kinda funny, the first week everybody wants to visit you, but after that guests seem to taper off dramatically. I remember him stating that the hardest thing for him was the lack of social support beyond his family (and to a much lesser extent myself), as this was like the year before facebook really being a thing that everybody had. Happy ending though, he eventually did recover from MRSA after spending around 6 months in the hospital.
#21
Hearing the news that their newly transplanted heart is being rejected by their body.
Early stages are treatable and the protocol for testing is there for a reason, but even knowing all of that, it’s scary as [hell] to be given another chance at life and then have it all be hanging in the balance again so soon.
#22
I was a patient in a hospital for a heart issue when I was 22. They kept me for 3 days in the cardiac ward and I shared a room with an older gentleman who I believe was around 80-85 based off his visitors. I never saw him behind the privacy curtain. I was completely okay and sitting up in bed working on schoolwork most of my visit. When his family came in I could tell the situation was bad. His whole extended family came, everyone from his wife to his grandchildren. He was also on a ventilator that was keeping his breathing up. I’m not a medical person but as I understand this tube is down/in your throat. On the same night after they all visited he tried to pull everything off and it set off an alarm and a nurse rushed in. All I could hear from a very muffled voice as the nurse tried to tell him he needed this equipment to live was “what kind of life is this....” it made me question my own issues and cry in the dark next to him.
#24
Pediatric oncology
A little girl had stage 4 rhabdomyosarcoma; practically the worst cancer diagnosis you can get as a child odds-wise. There have not been new treatments for this disease in many years and last I heard the 5 year survival rate was under 20%.
This child has many surgeries for her left hip tumor, her primary tumor. She had a fraternal twin sister who was always with her over the course of the 3 years she was treated. You could slowly see a huge difference in their growth and development; this child practically remained physically 7 while her twin sister grew to 10 very normally and healthily.
After long and arduous treatment courses, there were no further options and the child was placed on palliative care (comfort measures/ hospice). We didn’t expect to see her again but she was admitted one night because her hip tumor had grown so large that the skin over it was pulling itself dangerously tight, and her mother was afraid it would burst. They came to the hospital hoping there was something they could do to alleviate the impending disaster, when the tumor actually burst, all over the child, her mother, and her twin sister. These twins had an incredible bond and watching them be parted so the ill one could be rushed to undergo a surgical washout was heartbreaking. You could tell they both weren’t sure they’d see each other again. She made it through surgery but [was gone] a couple weeks later at home. I still see her Facebook updates through some people at works’ pages, and the surviving twin is an absolutely stunning 16 year old girl now. It’s terribly sad to think about what she could have been, especially when you see her other “half”.
#25
At the trauma center, 4 year old boy was brought in because he ran into a street to get his ball. Van doing 45mph in a 25mph zone hit the boy and dragged him for 70 feet. Worst part was seeing everyone working on the little boy and the dad covering him and holding him and crying his heart out. The dad was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans and he was covered in his sons blood. I was working on another patient in trauma bay 2 (boy was in bay 1) where a girl was heavily intoxicated and got hit by a car doing 60 in a 45. Her legs were completely broken and she started kicking her legs and they were flailing like those toys where you push the base and they collapse. Seeing it all in the same frame was the worst thing I've seen in my life. I can't verbally tell the story without crying.
#26
ALS. That is possibly the worst way to go. One minute he was a successful teacher that had hobbies such as rock climbing, next thing he was constantly fatigued. Then started experiencing muscle weakness. Doctors thought it was a mild issue related to like carpal tunnel. Before six months are up, he was unable to walk properly. Limb weakness. Next thing he could not swallow properly. Now confined to a wheelchair after a year and a half. Soon he could not control his body. Muscles unable to hold head up. Can't do anything for himself. Muscles wasted away. Breathing and swallowing became hard. Ended up on a ventilator. Pain and eventually [gone] in 2.5 years. It is a terrible disease.
Upstaged75 2 hours ago
It took my uncle about 6 years to die from it. Really awful for the whole family.
#27
36 hours of labor, under induction but without a spinal block or an epidural.
#28
Tiny, frail elderly lady with dementia and the worse case of shingles I've ever seen. Open, weeping blisters everywhere. Half of her face was obliterated by blisters upon blisters, to the point where the eye was swollen and fused shut. Confused and half blind, she tried to crawl over the bed rail and fell onto the side of her face, which basically exploded. The entire side of her head looked like raw hamburger. She did pass away a couple days later.
Elderly man who was still living in his own home, but supported by his son and checked on occasionally. Son deploys and leaves the duty to his wife, who wants nothing to do with the old man, and hires a "caregiver". Caregiver picks up her pay checks, says everything is going fine periodically, but in reality shows up every few days/weeks. Elderly man eventually falls (due to a GI bleed/weakness), and is undiscovered for days. Comes to us in a state of starvation, skin on his back and legs burned off from laying in his own urine, and covered in rat bites. I have never seen anybody as emaciated as that man, except in photos. He made a full recovery after a VERY lengthy rehab. Son got a divorce.
#29
My dad works as an MFM, or a high risk obstetricians. Before this he was just a regular OB/GYN. He stared his new job about a year ago. Because of the nature of his job he often deals with pregnant mothers with serious health problems that cause a lot of risk to both the mother and the baby. In the last 6 weeks he has had to tell 8 mothers that their baby was [not going to survive]. In comparison his co workers who have had there jobs for 3 year have never had to do that. He says that in his 15 years of being a doc there is nothing as sad as seeing a mother go through that.
#30
Working the night shift many years ago at the local children's ER, EMS brings in a 3 month old that was found down in his crib. Parents had him co-sleeping with older brother who was little over 1 yr. Brother in the night crawled on the little one and fell asleep and accidentally suffocated him. Child was long gone before making it to us. The crying scream from the mom when we told her baby son was gone still haunts me.
Don't let anyone co-sleep with your baby :(.
#31
Saw a man get all of his affairs together and quit his job with a rare terminal illness.... then live.
#32
When I was in high school I took a CNA course, we did our clinicals at a state run nursing home. There was one patient who was 89 years old, had stage 4 pancreatic cancer and Dementia. She was married at one point, but her husband had [passed away]. They had 8 children, all of them had [passed away]. All of her siblings, friends, and close relations were [gone]. She first entered the home about 4 years before she [passed away] once she realized she really couldn't care for herself anymore because of age/general health problems that accompany living for 85 years, and later developed the other ailments.
By the time I got there, Most days she didn't know where she was, but would have days where she was lucid, she would remember her cancer and that she was alone. Those days she would cry a lot.
As the lucid days got further and further apart as her physical health declined, she got to where she would only eat if I was the one feeding her. I went in on weekends and after school to try and get her to eat and drink something. Watching that poor woman have to face the reality of her cancer over and over again, then realize she was alone in the world was horrible.
The day she [passed away] I walked by her room as they were cleaning our her things, and saw a picture of her sister... We didn't look identical to one another, but we favored each other. I think she thought I was her sister.
Dementia is by far the worst way to go.
#33
I was in my second clinical rotation as a nursing student. We were assigned patients and the patient I was assigned to was a grumpy old guy who was 79. He had a good sense of humour but you had to tread carefully around him. He had chronic pain and was diagnosed with colon cancer. His son would visit in the mornings just in time to talk to the doctors doing their morning rounds . His wife had passed a few years earlier.
I was helping him get ready for breakfast when the doctor walked in. This was pretty typical, but he was anxious to see the doctor today as he just had a bunch of tests done and was hoping to hear some results so he could be discharged to go home. I usually just finish up whatever I am doing and leave so that the patient and doctor can talk privately. That morning his son was not able to make it in and my patient asked if I could stay in the room with him to hear everything. In case he missed something. I said sure no problem as long as the doctor is okay with it as well. (Some doctors don’t like dealing with students).
The doctor just got right to the point. The cancer had spread and there was nothing more they could do. The palliative team would be coming to meet with him this afternoon to discuss where he could be transferred to during his final days. My patient thought the doctor was joking and started to laugh and then just sat there with a completely blank look. As a student I was NOT prepared to know how to comfort someone in that situation as it was something I didn’t have experience with. I felt awful because 10 minutes before he got this news he was telling me he couldn’t wait to see his cat once he got home.
For the next week he did not get out of bed, refused to eat and take medication or shower. And then I came in one day and he was transferred out.
#34
Doctor here. Saw a previously very well old lad in A&E who had fallen in his small bathroom and become trapped between the toilet and wall with his knees flexed - his thighs were pressed against the edge of the bowl and his feet were squeezed up behind him. Paramedics found him after about 48 hours in that position.
He came to hospital with two completely black legs, rhabdomyolysis (muscle breakdown), and renal failure.
Vascular surgery wouldn’t amputate, ITU wouldn’t take him, and he [was gone] about 2 hours later.
#35
Emergency room
an old lady came in, I don't know for what but she came in from a nursing home. There is no way to describe accurately how horrific this womans condition was. The patient didn't go through this IN the hospital so idk if it really answers your question but here goes...
Her hair... was so matted and dirty... that it seemed like the bugs who lived in it couldn't even get to the center of the dreadlock... They ended up cutting most of it off
Her skin was just straight up open, infected, oozing sores. Picture like maybe if you took someones skin off and layed it flat then took a hole punch to the entire thing and put it back on... it was HUNDREDS of small round infected smelly gooey painful sores on her entire back and legs.
now ... her mouth... the decaying and missing teeth were nothing... what was something... something that we couldn't figure out... was the mold. Just straight up. Mossy. MOLD. Originally we thought she had a napkin in her mouth or was eating toilet paper... nope just mold. I had to leave the room because I kept throwing up.
This lady smelled worse than a [corpse].
Thank the lord jesus and all of his men for nurses because those people handled the situation like champs ... They cut her hair, patched her up and cleaned her mouth. She looked and smelled and spoke like a new person.
#36
The worst one BY FAR was a man with active bleeding, hemorraging from his esophagus due to long term alcoholism. This was many years ago and there are better ways to treat it now, but at the time the treatment for this kind of hemorraging was putting an inflatable tube down the throat into the stomach. It was attached to some kind of helmet that you had to put on the patient afterwards, which was tough. You would inflate the tube it to stop the bleeding but also aspirate the blood out of the stomach with a huge syringe. Just putting it in was horrible, the patient was so scared...there was blood everywhere...he was vomiting blood, he couldn't hardly talk due to the bleeding. This was in the ER. We got IVs in him, started transfusions pouring into him as fast as they'd go. We worked on him for a long long time but he didn't make it. What I remember is how hard he fought how scared he was and how much blood there was. And this was before rubber gloves were worn for everything. I just threw out my uniform. Everyone's shoes were soaked. I never saw anything like it, before or since.
Don't become an alcoholic. Don't get cirrhosis or esophageal varices. It's a bad way to go.
#37
Mandatory 'don't work in a hospital but'... I did undergo some serious cancer treatment in my early 20s. Any time I felt low about my situation I took a look around the infusion center (for chemo) and saw kids as young as 5 or 6 and that clearly were numerous cycles further into chemo than me. There wasn't much privacy in the infusion center and you didn't have much to do but people watch. God, the look on parents' faces will haunt me.
There are a lot of things from that time in my life I will never forget. One thing that sticks out is just how awesome the nurses on the chemo ward were. One woman in particular had a way to bring joy to anyone and everyone just by being herself while she did her job. She was as black as midnight with a respectably large afro and a high cockney British accent (this was in the States). If heaven ever did speak this woman was it's conduit.
So to answer OP's question, kids [with] cancer and seeing their families look on without hope as their child slowly withers away.
Also, there is rarely a week that goes by that I don't think about that nurse. I never gave her the proper thanks she deserved, but I hope she knows how amazing she is.
#38
Wasn’t employed by the hospital but worked as an inter facility transport EMT at the time. Had one patient that had terminal bone cancer and was morbidly obese. I was transporting her from the hospital to a radiation appointment. I developed a rapport with her and she opened up and told me how she is just buying, maybe, 6 months by treating the cancer.. Well as some of you may know, bone cancer is one of the most painful and terrible ways to [go] so for her to extend that misery for just a little longer so she could experience life and see her family a little longer was very inspirational.
We get to the facility to do the radiation treatment and are told it should only take about 45 min.. then we get to the room where the magic happens and the table she’s supposed lay on is the same size a small adult would use.. they have no modified version for morbidly obese adults, the only way to keep her on are extra straps they use to tie her down to the table. They constantly have to stop the procedure to adjust her for comfort. 2 hours in her fentanyl she was given at the hospital has completely worn off and the facility isn’t authorized to administer meds like that.. Appointment ended up taking about 4 hours longer than it should have and she was just miserable but still so sweet and apologetic the whole time. I felt awful for her and after it was done there was a huge sense of relief in her voice. I told her how inspirational she was to me to see how resilient she was being.
#39
I'd been a nurse a few years and thought I was pretty awesome. A patient in the ICU was unstable with a heart problem, but with meds, was pretty stable when my shift started. She was a DNR with heart failure. The family had been there for days. Husband, adult sons, daughter in law. They were the nicest folks. They were contemplating going home for a few hours to shower, eat, and rest. I told them her heart rhythm looked good, go home and get some rest. I took their cell phone numbers and told them if anything changed I would call right away.
As soon as they walked out the door I was struggling to keep her alive. Her heart was all over the place. Pressure kept dropping and dropping. I got them on the phone an hour later and told them to come back. I spent 2 hours desperately trying to keep her alive, and they ran back in the door 5 minutes after she was gone. I couldn't stop crying I felt so bad. There was no professional boundary there at all. We all knew a young stupid nurse took their last moments with their mother, and mom [passed] alone, with a few scattered staff doing what they could, but without her family by her side. That family comforted me more than I comforted them. I was beside myself. They told me I did my best, and it was ok. The grace and kindness they showed me was incredible, and affects the way I treat every family now.
#40
Psychiatric hospital: definitely dementia, as is covered throughout this thread, but also patients in deep psychosis; Non-stop energy, paranoia, delusions, violence, aggression, the whole works. Strangely enough, these patients, once sane, are usually the nicest people on the floor. The look of horror and regret when they learn what happened to them and what they did over the previous days [gets] me every time.
#41
A different thing from really gnarly diagnoses, is when a family member insists that the patient be kept alive with repeated CPR so the family can keep getting a check in the mail.
#42
I went to see a patient during clinical rounds a few years back when i was a med student. I think it was for dermatology. Guy was just a year older than i was. Remarkably fit, fairly good-looking, and from what little i got to see of him was also pretty mild-mannered.
Well, so his story was that he loves to play basketball, and he did just so on that fateful day. A quick shower and a wipedown... and he finds blood on his towel. Blood came from his scalp, from some weird scab-like growth. No prior symptoms. Freaks out, goes to a neighborhood dermatologist, and is told to go to a bigger hospital, which is where i ended up meeting him.
So apparently he's taken some tests. The prof and i go over to the station to check out the EMR. He grills me a bit on what exams i would have ordered, knowing what i did. One of the answers was a PET-CT, and so we checked that out first. Now, for those of you that don't know, a PET-CT checks the uptake of radioactive glucose that has been injected for the test. The more active metabolism an organ has, the more radioactivity it shows - meaning it shows up black. Cancer has a lot higher metabolism than normal tissue so it's a pretty neat way to check the entire body for metastasis. When we loaded this guy's PET-CT, we were both struck momentarily speechless. His whole spine and both hips were fully covered in black. Bones... should not be black. The cancer (which the prof later told me was a melanoma, a particularly aggressive type of skin cancer) had spread across his whole body.
The prof gave him about 3 months to live, at best. The guy was just one year older than i was. And a hell of a lot fitter. It was really eye-opening to see that my young age didn't mean i was immortal or invincible. Since then, i've adopted the motto of *Memento Mori*. I still think about him every once in a while.
#43
I’m a pediatric nurse and was working a Saturday night in the ER when we had a teenage boy come through for flash pulmonary edema related to his pulmonary veno-occlusive disease. He had experienced this too many times and now his body can't take anymore. We brought him into our trauma room and he was satting 33% on 15L NRB. Pt was totally with it, he was blue and kept his eyes close, but he was able to answer questions. His mom kept telling us please give him more time he will work through it, call his cardiologist. His cardiologist just happened to be on call that night and came immediately to the ER from the cardiac ICU. He walked through the door and told the mom 'You and I need to have a talk.' The room changed instantly. Everyone knew what was happening. Mom had known this day was coming, she fell to her knees. The dr told her we would move him to the ICU but the goal is to keep him comfortable. So while we are working on getting a line and labs on this kid, his mom is sitting next to him quietly talking to him and telling him there's nothing else we can do, she's sorry, she never wants him to hurt. He just kept telling her it's okay and he understands. He wants to be at peace. We move him up to cardiac ICU and he starts to code. Mom wanted everything done. The ICU staff coded him 4 times. His dad didn't make it in time to say goodbye.
#44
Lady came in to the ICU, non-compliant diabetic, basically laid on her side all day and ate. Her entire front abdominal wall had lost all circulation, everything had to be surgically removed to try to save her, leaving her with her bowels exposed. We kept her in an isolation room, every hour or so we had to go in, clean the wound, and keep wet dressings on her. Her circulation would not improve, no way to do any sort of skin grafts. Worse than any horror special effects I’d ever seen.
#46
There's a good documentary about a guy who had horrible burns after (I believe) a car accident. He was treated in the hospital for months with what he deemed was inadequate pain relief and sedation. The standard treatment is to "debride" the wounds which is to scrub them with a rough instrument to get rid of skin.
Cases like his have led to much greater attention being placed on patient consent and ICU mental state awareness.
#47
Pt with a complete colon blockage because of an undiagnosed tumor. She started to vomit feces because it had nowhere else to go.
#48
During my EMT clinicals, I had to sit in the back of the ambulance with someone suffring from Trigeminal neuralgia. The pain and agnoy that person was in just horrible. I understood it was painful, but seeing it in person is a whole different story.
#49
I don't work in a hospital but I'm a CNA in a nursing home / Rehab center. A gentleman in his 50s came in with stage 4 bone cancer. Over the course of 8 months, he went from being able to walk around just fine, happy and cheerful.. to slowly declining to the point he couldn't get up without help.. to not being able to get up or move at all.
Even when he first came in, he would be up all night screaming in pain because the meds wore off and then it progressed to screaming and writhing all throughout the day.
The last time I saw him, he was oddly calm. He asked me to sing him a lullaby. His favorite song was Stella by Starlight. I sang to him for a good long while..
I had to leave the room to answer call lights and help with dinner service, when I came back an hour later.. he was gone. His body was already cold. He had passed within minutes of me leaving his side.. I cried the entire time I performed his final care, singing that song to him over and over...
#50
I am a nurse and have been working/training/volunteering since I was 18. There are always people that will stand out to you.
- bone cancer- worst pain you can imagine
- 9months pregnant and diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer
- guy came to our floor from icu with a woundvac that was holding in his intestines with staples. It started out the size of a football. Each week, the surgeon would close it up a little bit at a time. He had chronic diarrhea, ng tube and central line.
- everything in the ICU. You do all kinds of invasive things for these people and they end up dying anyways.
- the sound of family members when you are in a code or when you end a code or tell them their family member [is gone].
#51
I used to deliver and sanitize medical equipment at a hospital. I was doing a run in the burn unit and saw a little girl, maybe two years old, playing in her ICU crib. Her parents (looked between 18-21) were in the corner of the room, sobbing and consoling each other. The kid's skin looked like the hot, stringy cheese that drips off your pizza, a lot like Freddy Krueger's :(.
#52
I am speaking as a former patient rather than a medical worker.
The burn unit.
Outside certain rooms of the burn unit they put a picture of what each patient used to look like to remind those who walk in to treat them like people.
Friends and family members are not allowed to be present for dressing changes because it is too traumatic.
I got complimented by a nurse during a dressing change, where I was on dilaudid, morphine, and fentanyl (heavy grade pain killers), that I was the first patient she did a dressing change on that didn’t scream or cry.
I had also had an open skull fracture, and had learned from previous dressing changes that screaming and crying just made my head feel like it was splitting in two along with the feeling of having your skin ripped off for each dressing change. So I opted to silently whimper and exhale.
#53
I worked at the hospital in highschool.
I delivered food trays to hospital rooms so it was a very easy job. We were encouraged to have brief conversations with the patients to try and cheer them up a bit.
The hardest one to deal with - was our high school principal. Our principal dealt with 2,700 students but was beloved by all. Not often you find a person like that. Well, one day she got real sick and had to go to the hospital.
I walked into her room and saw her in there. Somehow she remembered my name after I had only met her maybe twice. I saw her everyday I worked and saw her degrading and degrading for months. All during this time people in school had their rumors that she was getting better. Somebodies mom saw her shopping, people heard she was coming back next week etc.
I couldn't say anything obviously. But it was very hard to deal with watching so many people have hope and me knowing that this truly wasn't looking good. She [was gone] about 3 months into being in the hospital. The school was devastated.
#54
Homeless guy came into the e.r. with a tooth abcess. The infection was making its way too his heart. So we split his neck from ear to ear too get as much infection out as we could. We kept the incision open to monitor the healing. Well the fun part came when we had too do a CT scan. I had to hold this dudes head as we moved him over. It felt like his head was gonna detach at any second...
#55
Not one particular patient, but a common occurrence. I work in the post-op unit, and often people have an NG tube. The purpose of these is the remove of fluids from their stomach due to having a bowel obstruction. Often patients become confused due to meds, age or whatever. Often they pull it out and somehow, end up vomiting diarrhea. That must be one of the most awful things to experience.
#56
Advanced and inconsolable dementia.
Respiratory failure.
Young mothers [with] cancer.
CPR on the elderly with rib fractures and resulting trauma.
People having to choose between keeping their home and having adequate medical care.
Seeing the neglect in long-term care - patients left untouched, unturned, unchanged, unfed for an entire shift. Reporting it and seeing no response.
It's brutal out there.
#57
I want to use this thread as a thanks to the nurses at KU Med that helped me through grade 4 mucousitis during my chemo/ stem cell transplants.
Picture a canker sore but literally covering the entirety of your mouth.
#58
I'm a dentist and during my study a couple years ago, a friend and myself were placed at a nursing home. This was to educate us about the challenges of oral care in an aged care facility. The home was divided in 3 sections, low care, high care, and terminal. On the first day there alot of the residents would approach us and keep doing so throughout the day to become friends with us as they kept forgetting they had met us only hours before. It was very sweet and I became attached to many of them. It's surprising how they will forget you in 1 hr but will never forget "growing up on a farm with a sheep called Gilbert".
I became closest to a woman called Elsa (that had dementia and another fatal disorder I cannot recall) in the terminal section that was named so due to her long white hair as the Frozen character. Every day I'd feed her, brush her hair, wash her dentures yet she only ever spoke two words; Jessica and Joel. She would repeat both names every day and point to their pictures in her room. They were her children. Speaking to the nurses I found out that they dropped her off 7 years ago and never came and visited again. Every day she would get better at remembering me but never said my name once, always just Jessica and Joel. I would check up on her during the day and every time I would see her crying in bed and I would offer to bring her some water, she would reply with Jessica and Joel. One morning after a month of first meeting Elsa, I walked into her room and she wasn't in there. She wasn't the kind to walk around and always stayed in her room so I knew something was wrong and I was fearing the worst. After asking one of the nurses that I hadn't ever met, she told me she passed away last night after gesturing for water, and saying the names Jessica, Joel, Joseph. My name is Joseph. I cried just writing you this story.
#59
My dad's a doctor and he told me about one time about a kid who fell from a tree. A branch went into his bunghole and came out the side of his belly.
#60
I currently work on an intensive unit--ive seen so much.. and I don't believe anything has hit me as hard as below:
I was working at a mental health facility after graduating from undergrad. This facility was interesting-- it was in a modest, ranch-styled house that was made specifically for this population (open layout for easy supervision, panic buttons, etc), but mostly, it was a house and the staff were the outliers. There were 8 clients at a time (they would either get rehospitalized or go on to independent living). It was a step above being hospitalized. I got extremely close to these consumers, and got to know them very well. I have many stories of their antics, good and bad memories, but I recall a certain individual who's situation really hurt.
I was specifically hired for a man in his 60s, M, who had suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). M was a successful toy marketer in his "past life" (as his family called it). One day, twenty something years earlier, M got into a horrific car accident. He survived, but was cursed with poor memory and severe PTSD. Many psychological issues and physical concerns. M would scream every 2 minutes (on the dot), begging staff to not bring him to the hospital. He would ask if he were ok. It was difficult for him to communicate-- but he would get moments of clarity. He was a big man-- who seemed intimidating when he had these bouts-- he had come to us with the diagnosis of bipolar with a history of violence. M was never violent towards our staff, and we knew that he was pawned off to us because his insurance was no longer covering the hospitalization-- and his family did not want to take care of him. He was a lot, it was a lot to take care of him, but he quickly stole a place in my heart. He remembered my name because his sisters name was the same-- but other than that, he did not recognize any other staff members, and did not remember his day-to-day living. He needed help showering, and would be embarrassed to have a 20-something year old woman helping him, and would cry, whispering "not fair." We watched Titanic every single shift together. He liked Rose, and wouldn't scream when we would watch movies together. M loved diet root beer, and would smile every so often when I brought it to him, when I indicated that he couldn't go to the hospital when I bought him root beer! He would be still until his next outburst. I would be able to successfully deesclate once I showed him his diet root beer, and helped him drink it. I bought 300 movies on VHS for us to watch together because it was the only thing that calmed him down. M was much more than his impairment. He was still a human-- one who I grew fond of because I could not grasp the immeasurable pain he was in. His wife abandoned him after it was deemed he would not sign divorce papers. She wanted him [gone] so that she could take his money. I never met her. He had sons, and he pleaded for them to come, but I only saw one, once. He only stayed for a half hour. I think M saw me as his form of family (telling me that I was his daughter when he never had one).
The other staff did not like M as much as me. They petitioned for him to be sent to a nursing home, because his care was too much. I would miss M, but hoped for him a better life-- mostly for him to have staff trained in adults with memory issues. I never got to say goodbye-- he got transported by medical staff to his new nursing home.
Fast forward a year.
I am happy in my new role, being promoted to a closer hospital to home. I get a text message from a past co-worker. My old coworker sent me a lengthy email from M's sister. M's sister wrote that M began to decompensate very quickly. He was rarely changed or paid attention to. He was left alone in a dark room, with no T.V, nothing to occupy his mind. M [was gone]. M's sister thanked me for the care I gave him, for our scrabble matches (he would often make up words-- I never let them fly! He would giggle, I think he thought he could pull one over on me), for our movie sessions, for all the joy I had brought to his life of worry. She signed that she was grateful and that she would never forget me. She thanked me again, and told me that she could never repay me for the time I gave to her brother.
I sat in my office, curled up in a ball, and sobbed for ten minutes. I couldn't believe that the stubborn-forgetful-aloof M that I knew was gone. I sobbed because I didn't get to say goodbye, or send him off with his favorite tape. But mostly I cried due to the neglect that is the reality of some healthcare systems. M did not deserve to go the way he did.
I think back to that letter-- and know my time with M taught me a lot more than I could have ever hoped for. He brought me more joy than i probably brought him. His sister thanked me for my time with him-- but I am thankful for the honor of knowing him. M, wherever you are, I hope you have endless reruns of Titanic and diet root beer. Maybe we can play scrabble one day. But most of all, I hope you have the peace that you deserved.
#61
When we get to a point where we are calling family or POA about intubation or DNR status and they have a flimsy excuse why they can't come to the hospital. Come hold your parent's hand while they [perish]. Being there is the last kind thing you will ever be able to do for them. Also the words "Do everything you can" are sometimes so cruel. Some of the worst suffering seems to come from patients in their late 90's getting intubated and having invasive procedures because the family can't just be there and let them slip away. Alone and neglected and intubated is the worst thing every single time.
#62
Previously young healthy nurse in her 20s got meningitis, ended up with bilateral leg amputations and I think one arm. I went to go see her as a pain consult and it was so sad. She was basically a torso, enduring painful dressing changes daily, whereas a week before she had been living a completely normal life.
Another: man in his 50s goes into heart failure, is told he isn’t a candidate for heart transplant for whatever reason. He is fully conscious at this point and on some kind of assist device doing the pumping work of his heart for him. He has a friend who had gone through something similar and he knew he didn’t want to live with the options available to him, so he elected to be taken off support. He arranged for his parents and his young son to come visit him before the support was turned off. I can’t imagine many other scenarios where someone can say a goodbye to their loved ones with full certainty that they are going to be dead in the next 12 hours, that everything they want to say, has to be said now. Still makes me teary to think of him now, years later. I was a fellow in the heart failure unit, and this one made me cry on rounds. I couldn’t stop myself, slumped against the wall as this man was facing and accepting his [end].
Another:
Young healthy guy gets endocarditis, develops a vegetation on his mitral valve. Throws a fragment, gets a stroke. Recovers, goes home. Doesn’t get surgery for the vegetation, not sure why. Comes back with another stroke because of course the vegetation is still there. This time he doesn’t recover and our team has to tell his wife that he is never waking up. The wail I heard from his wife...heartbreaking.
#63
A kid yelling daddy wake up to his father laying in the emergency room. If you go to an emergency room be extra nice to those people.
#64
There have been two instances where I or a coworker has cared for a patient who was perfectly fine, healthy, happy, going about a normal day when suddenly their mental and physical state took a 180. Going from a normal, functioning, independent person to unable to talk coherently, move on their own, control their bladder and bowels, eat, and unable to do anything except cry within a 24 hour period. Absolutely devastating for them and their families.
#65
When I worked in the NICU it was always horrible when a baby passed. Having to call the parents to come immediately or watching them hold their infant while they passed. It was really tough some days.
#66
Worked in a hospital:
1. guy came into the Er after working on his car that exploded in his face. All the skin was burned off the front of his body.
2. A guy whose wife was in the hospital as she was just diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was distraught. I took him on a walk around the outside of the hospital tell him to take her everywhere she wasn’t a to go now. Spend time and take pics. They did for 4 weeks. They ended back in my care. RIP Barbara... I’ll never forget you.
#67
Last month my “worst” patients were a
- 37 yo girl with metastatic breast cancer. She had just got out of a failed brain surgery and essentially had really bad short term memory. Every day I would round on her and everyday I would have to tell her there was no more treatment modalities available, and that we would have to consider hospice. Every single time she was devastated, but the next morning she would wake up, open her binder and start to formulate a haphazard treatment plan only for me to destroy all her expectations. Hospice took a long time to arrange so she was my patient for 2 weeks. Literally dreaded seeing her every day.
- a 78 yo man who basically lived out in the boonies and never married, never had kids, never had much in terms of a life. He basically came in with a moderate case of pneumonia, but the strange thing is that he was hell bent on dying. He kept claiming that he was here to die, and that he was scared but he didn’t want to keep going. He said he was just so miserable. Looking at his blood work, vitals signs and X-ray, the guy wasn’t too bad off. Two days later he died right after breakfast.
- a 72 yo lady who came in with Severe abdominal pain she had beginning signs of dementia, but her husband that came in with her was fully demented and relied on her for everything. She kept saying that she was dying and that by the end of the day she’ll be gone. Turned out she had a abdominal aortic aneurysm, and it was pretty much ready to burst. We treated her to make her comfortable since surgery was not an option in her case. Her husband kept patting her hand telling her to go to sleep and she’ll feel better when she wakes up. She eventually passed away and the husband thought she was asleep. We kept trying to tell him that she passed away but he kept laughing and patting her hand saying that she was just asleep.
This was just the month of January in one of the better hospitals I worked at. No joke.
#68
Am a nurse. Had a patient who took care of horses. She was kicked in the head, TBI traumatic brain injury. She was 20 something beautiful, had her fiance and family there constantly trying to calm her, she was physically strong and had no ability speak meaningful words, mostly sounds moans. She would not sit still and a cocktail of keppra, ativan and other anti seizure meds had a few brief periods of rest followed by her trying to sit up and move in an uncoordinated manner trying desperately to get out of bed.
She eventually went to a sub acute rehab, they put in a feeding tube. I wonder if her fiance stuck around, if I would have had the fortitude to be there for her.
I have a young daughter that took horse back riding lessons. She fell off and luckily only sprained her wrist and lost interest.
#69
My cousin is a nurse and she's got lots of stories, but three of them stick out.
1. A young guy was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer and his case was so advanced that there was absolutely nothing that could be done for him. When they broke the news to him, he started screaming and crying and throwing a tantrum, begging the doctors to not let him die and saying he's got a wife and 3 kids with 2 more on the way and can't leave them. The doctors had no idea what to say to him.
2. A little boy was hit by a car and had a massive bleed in his brain. There was nothing that could be done for him, so they had to break the news to his mother that he was [not going to survive]. The doctor entered the waiting room and saw the mom surrounded by a couple of other kids nonchalantly reading a magazine. When the doctor told her the news, she just said "thank God. One less mouth to feed," then went back to her magazine. That got a call to CPS.
#70
The head and neck ward has a ‘carotid blow out kit’, for people with neck tumours that are invading the carotid artery and can’t be removed. It has towels in it. Nothing else.
I’m glad to say I’ve never seen it used, but I once saw an old woman with a nose bleed that no one could get to stop. Just seemed unbelievable that you could [pass] from a nose bleed, but she did.
#71
I wouldn't say this is the worst but she is one of those patients whose story made me upset. A young lady who just finished chemo for breast cancer came in with behavior changes. She would scratch the staff, pull out her IV and lines. At one point it got so bad that we had to restrain her. Whenever we give her an antipsychotic, she calms down and becomes lucid, but when it wears off, shes very aggressive. She's still in the hospital, but very sad because she's so young and was normal before the chemo.
#72
I used to work as a respiratory therapist and CPR on children is always rough. Their faces tend to stay with you.
#73
Seeing a relatively young patient (20-30 years old) who fainted at home and brought in by EMS going into distress and vocalizing difficulty breathing before she went into cardiac arrest. Despite the efforts of CPR and prompt medical intervention over 45 minutes, she was not resuscitated and the news had to be broken to her parents, husband, and child.
That she is roughly the same age as me, and that she was well the day prior is more shocking.
#75
I saw a patient wake up during surgery.
I'm not a medical officer, I'm IT. I was in the operating theatre to repair a printer the anaesthetist uses to print records of the patient's vital signs for the records. Things have to be going according to plan for the OR manager to let support staff into the room -- it was almost *serene* in there.
Then the patient started making an urgent moaning sound and someone said "He's waking up." A nurse took me by the arm and firmly escorted me to the door.
I've read that there's something like a half-percent chance of this happening. Since I only went into theatres during a procedure a handful of times a year, it was funky odds for both of us.
#76
Not me but my mom. She said that this one lady who was at least 500 pounds was supposed to be moved, rolled, and taken places by the CNA's. However this did not happen. The lady continued to ring her nurse call button but nobody responded. After a while my mom noticed that nobody had been in there to roll her. Upon checking she realized that this lady had developed massive blisters and sores from sitting in her wheel chair. Eventually these had gotten infected and the lady had to be moved to ICU.
#77
I don't work in a hospital, but while I was in a hospital post-op from a surgery on my stomach, I was told to walk around and try to get my strength back.
While walking I found out that I was the only kid in the whole wing that wasn't in a huge bus crash that left almost two-dozen elementary school students butchered. Like, missing limbs, intestines sticking out, faces and chests crushed, on ventilators and in comas.
I found out when my mom asked what happened and the nurse explained there was a horrible bus crash.
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