9. One, brown stains on the sheet. Two, blood on the sheet. And three, some sort of black bug ran out from under him.
“I’m not a doctor or nurse, but I am a vascular ultrasound tech. And it’s finally time to share my story.
I had just gotten to work in the morning, and I wasn’t feeling my best. Just kind of nauseous. I was waiting for my patient to arrive, but he was late. I was hoping that he would not show up, since I felt shitty and this particular exam was two hours long. It was about 40 minutes past his exam time and I thought to myself, ‘He’s not coming. The gods are smiling down on me today.’ And then I got the call that he had arrived.
I walk into the waiting room to bring him back to my office. There are three men waiting. Two average-sized, clean-looking men, and one morbidly obese, filthy man in a wheelchair. Guess which one was my patient?
I wheel him back to my room. I can already smell the filth on the way back. Nausea increasing. When we get back to the room, I tell him to remove his shirt (I was scanning his arms and hands). He hands me his shirt. The shirt was supposed to be white, and I can safely say that white was only showing on 25% of it. The rest was covered in stains of all colors. It looked and felt like he had been wearing it for a month. I placed it on the coat hook, and it literally went through the shirt because it was also full of holes. Convenient.
As I begin the exam, he says loudly, ‘I had horrible diarrhea last night!’ Not sure why he told me, but I took it as a warning. I began his exam, trying not to pay attention to the smells violating my nose. When I was halfway done, he asks me if there is a bathroom nearby. Now, there is a bathroom in my office that patients sometimes use and that I use as well. I didn’t want him to use it, but I more so didn’t want him to shit all over himself. So I told him where it was. He sits up on the bed, and I look down and see three things. One, brown stains on the sheet. Two, blood on the sheet. From an unknown source. And three, some sort of black bug ran out from under him. I just stared for a minute and wondered if this was my life. I smashed the bug into the sheet, the patient didn’t even notice. Or if he did, he was unfazed.
He gets up to use the bathroom (he could walk, just very slowly). As he’s walking, I noticed brown flakes falling all over the floor. Shit flakes, I guessed. Cool. So he’s in the bathroom for 10 or 15 minutes and I’m waiting. Waiting. Finally I hear the toilet flush twice. Then, for less than a millisecond, the sink turns on and off. He may have gotten one drop of water on his hands, if he was lucky.
So he comes back out with his dirty hands for me to scan, and I finish the exam. Afterwards, as I’m sterilizing the entire room, one of my coworkers goes to use the bathroom. I hadn’t got to the bathroom yet.
He peeks his head out and asks if the patient used this bathroom. I said yes, and I was already reaching for the sanitizing wipes before he asked for some. I don’t know the full horror of what was there, but I do know the horrors that my coworker failed to clean up. Shit flakes on the floor (obviously) and my personal favorite, smeared shit across the door. Yep.
It was a great day to be sick at work.”
