This happened a few days ago…
I had a patient who was brought in by her boyfriend. The boyfriend did not stay, did not help her into the ER. Just dropped her off and left. This is always a good sign. She was a 30 year with the complaint of vomiting and pseudoseizures. Yes, she complained of having pseudo-seizures. It is funny that so many people will look up on the web and self diagnosis their cold or stubbed toe as some terminal disease but then you have people who have a diagnosis of pseudo-seizures and are super proud of it. They never look up what it really means.
I went into the room, she was laying there, holding on to 2 stuff animals as if they were her children. It was hard to get a history out of her. But she has been having pseudo-seizures more frequently and vomiting off and on for the past day. Her exam was normal. So I ordered some tests and told her I would be back once I got them back.
Off to the next room, the chief complaint was: I have been off my meds and my privates growing inside me. Going into the room, I have to clear the mandatory stuff on all psych patients. “Do you want to kill yourself or anyone else?” “No”. “Are you hearing any voices or seeing things that aren’t there?” “No more than normal when I get off my meds.” Fair enough, I thought. “Are the voices telling you anything bad?” “No.” The guy was able to tell me his meds that he was supposed to be on. I had no problem refilling them. Now for the other complaint. “So your private parts are growing inside you?” “Yes” he responded with no sign of emotion. “Ok, I need to take a look.” As the patient is starting to pull down his pants so I can do the exam, I am trying to prepare myself for anything. From a completely normal exam to his privates being completely cut off. I did my exam. “Everything looks normal.” I told him. He then responded, “It is supposed to be longer” – pointing at his penis. “I can’t fix that.” I replied and left the room.
While doing his chart, I look up over the counter and see an IV pole moving down the hall. I stand up and see that there is a patient crawling on the floor pushing the pole. The patient can’t crawl real fast because her legs (still has sweat pants on) keep getting caught up in her gown that is dragging the floor. A nurse is already on the way to help her. The patient then proceeds to kick and try to bite the nurse because the patient does not want to get out of the floor. I then notice that it is my pseudo-seizure patient. I quickly looked at her chart and everything was back and normal – surprising!! By that time, they had put the patient back in the bed. I went in and informed everything checks out. I then asked, “Why were you crawling in the floor, pushing the iv pole??” She replied with a straight face, “Because he wanted a ride”. I then looked down the IV pole, and at the bottom was a stuff bear sitting on the base of the IV pole. “So your bear wanted a ride on the IV pole?” “Yep.” Amazing.
house of god - FORECLOSED 