The Regrettable Ring Bearer

Friday afternoon in the Emergency Department is typically the calm before the human-induced storm of rampant substance abuse, public urination, and overall questionable decision making. This Friday evening shift was no exception. I arrive around 3pm and I’m immediately met with a litany of human despair. My first patient is a woman who has checked in with the chief complaint of “my cookie is crumbling”. Evidently she had been experiencing vaginal discomfort and a malodorous “cookie”. It will later be determined that she has tested positive for chlamydia, a revelation which will appear to shock her to her core despite her admission that she “only uses condoms when I know for sure they got the clap”. My second patient turns out to be 4 juvenile delinquents who decided to steal a car and go joyriding through the city, only to bust out a sharp turn going 50mph and subsequently rear-end a parked car containing two undercover cops. The oldest one is 17 and appears to have made an underwhelming attempt at growing a mustache. He is scowling at the 15-year old who is currently trying to exonerate himself by sobbing at a city PD officer and begging everyone not to tell his parents. The two backseat passengers, a 16-year old girl and her 14-year old sister, both look completely unfazed, almost to the point of boredom. The younger one stops filing her nails long enough to ask me if I can go get her a cheeseburger. I’m unable to summon the energy to even roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of the comment and I walk out of the room just in time to see the cop chasing the still-handcuffed 15-year old boy down the street. Hopefully his long-term game plan includes handcuff keys. My thought is interrupted by my third patient, who has been placed on a hallway stretcher for increased supervision. She’s a large, black woman in her early twenties who is extremely high on PCP. She’s wearing a “Champion” headband upside down and is actively strangling a pair of yoga pants. Her camel toe has a camel toe. As I walk outside to call for backup security for my small gang of juvies, she decides that right now is the moment she is going to execute a flawless HANDSTAND in the middle of the hallway. I roll my eyes and silently judge her gymnastics move as a solid “8.5”, rounded up for excellent showmanship (she stuck the landing). I corral her back into her stretcher as she threatens to do a split. I beg her to lay quietly and bribe her with a turkey sandwich and the promise of discharge paperwork if she can go another 30 minutes without any acrobatics. I move on to my next patient, a gentleman in his late 40’s who has self-presented to our every-classy Emergency Department with the chief complaint of “wedding ring stuck on penis”. Per the patient, during a verbal altercation, his wife had exclaimed “if you love your penis so much, then why don’t you just marry it?” Ever the literalist, this man shoved his dong through a small piece of jewelry representative of the everlasting bond between man and wife. After several wildly unsuccessful attempts at undoing his efforts, he was forced to come to the hospital where a pair of ring cutters, traditionally used to excise wedding rings from fingers that have swelled from trauma, was utilized to cut the ring in half, freeing his swollen member from the strangling of his wedding ring and also likely from his marriage itself. He is served his discharge paperwork with the phone number for a popular local marriage counselor, as well as education on how to properly fit and utilize a cock ring, and he walks out of the front door to the faint murmur of laughter and nurses commenting “he should have gone to Jared”. Exhausted from all of the shenanigans, I enter my last patient’s room hoping to achieve my first encounter of the day with a normal human being. My dreams are immediately dashed as I walk in to find a very intoxicated gentleman who is theatrically attempting to smoke a thermometer probe. My look of disbelief appears to have done nothing to deter him from this behavior and he looks at me and winks. Shortly thereafter, I notice the collection of blood pressure cuffs he has somehow accumulated. Another nurse informs me that he has been wandering into various patient rooms, stealing the blood pressure cuffs, and hoarding them on his stretcher. I decide to have him searched by the constables in case his kleptomania extends farther than a fixation with obtaining vital signs. Five minutes later, an overweight, curmudgeonly lady-constable waves her wand over his body and searches his belongings while he rambles incessantly about half-priced apps at Applebee’s. As she walks out of the room and says “all clear” into her walkie-talkie, I hear him yell “happy Valentine’s Day in case no one has ever told you that”. It’s mid-January. I shake my head in utter defeat and as I prepare to clock out from yet another Friday night shift, I silently thank whatever higher power exists for the currently un-crumbled state of my cookie.