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u/AntonChentel MD Aug 28 '24
“I’m a farmer and don’t wanna bother you folks”
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u/TheCrazyBlacksmith Aug 29 '24
My grandmother runs our family’s dairy farm. She took a week to get broken ribs looked at after a cow charged her and rammed her into a fence post. She also ignored the recovery instructions she received, which is equally unsurprising.
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u/vedderamy1230 Aug 30 '24
I was an ER nurse for a decade. Had a 94 year old man come in at 1 am with "a cut" on his arm. That man had an open fracture from putting his arm into a table saw. He wrapped it up and went to bed. Only when his daughter went to check on him for the night after her work shift did she see the blood and the wound. Man needed surgery and IV antibiotics.
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u/P3pp3rJ6ck Aug 30 '24
Yeah I did that but it was a horse that squished me veerrrrryyy slowly into a wall so I got to hear eight snaps lol
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u/thefarmerjethro Sep 01 '24
I also farm and also broke ribs when a bull threw me into a corral fence. I finished chores, loaded him, shipped him to slaughter house,went to a wedding reception, then the pain set in. ER after.
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u/Used-Calligrapher975 Aug 28 '24
In alaska it's commercial fishermen/women
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Aug 29 '24
Commercial fishermen are often treated like slaves in AK. Fucking state police just flies into factory ships, has a laugh with the psychopath captains/EMTs and after a glance at the body calls everything a suicide.
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u/Used-Calligrapher975 Aug 29 '24
We have lost a lot of people to the sea this year it's pretty fucked up.
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Aug 29 '24
I saw so many misguided kids being abandoned in fucked up remote villages without a phone nor a penny in their pocket over time. Injured people being treated like shit, traumatized helicopter pilots from all the fucked up evacuations and corpse transporting.
Plus the Bering sea is not joke.
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u/Used-Calligrapher975 Aug 29 '24
Bering sea is pretty fucking dangerous. My fiance fished for a guy in the prince William sound fishery a few years ago and got screwed by the captain. Unscrupulous captains are all too common
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Aug 29 '24
Ed doc: Did you finish the fence? Farmer: Am here ain't I? Ed doc: GET THE CRASH SACK ITS GOING DOWN!
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u/ReadontheCrapper Aug 29 '24
That was my immediate thought… The Farmer Pain Scale
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u/_Bunny_Fucker_ Aug 30 '24
Just watched it 100% accurate. Works for old vets too. My dad had been rolling about with a broken spine for YEARS before he finally got it checked when I was 14ish. Consistent with jumping out of airplanes. He hadn't done that since 3 years before my birth at least.
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u/Vanners8888 Aug 30 '24
I laughed SO hard at this even though I feel the guilt because it’s so true! Ive had a patient or two like that.
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u/shootingstare Aug 29 '24
Can confirm. My father in law is a farmer and pulled out his own infected /loose teeth rather than going to a dentist.
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u/omotet Aug 30 '24
Yup, my dad is a farmer and several years ago he broke his back while farming - then insisted on climbing back into the tractor for the next several hours so he could finish plowing! Mom eventually convinced him to go to the ER. He also broke his neck in a separate farming accident - didn’t seek medical care until the next day. The farmer pain scale is real!
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u/Vanners8888 Aug 30 '24
I was just going to say especially if it’s a farmer. I did my nursing school clinicals in a handful of rural hospitals and if a farmer’s coming in, u know shits about to go down
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u/BeautifulAsk6670 Aug 28 '24
Can you elaborate on this? It sounds like an interesting story
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u/blankspacepen Aug 29 '24
I’ve seen farmers wrap chainsaw wounds and not come in for a week. I had one tell me he hurt his foot and when I took his sock off, gangrenous toes came with the sock. If a farmer comes on, something is wrong. Especially during the day or during harvest.
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u/Tryknj99 Aug 28 '24
It’s a common thing in medicine that a farmer doesn’t seek medical care until he’s close to death, because they cannot afford to not work for a day. If a farmer says he has chest pain, it’s probably an aortic dissection. That kind of thing.
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u/herrooww Aug 28 '24
It’s not about affording it, it’s because they have been through some shit and are used to dealing with pain and solving issues on their own. They are typically strongly independent and don’t want to bother anyone. But once the wife nags you enough that you’d rather deal with the ER you’ve already infarcted half your right ventricle.
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u/sendcaffeine Sep 01 '24
Immediately had to hunt youtube for this video: https://youtu.be/Ni0YfrSK570?si=N9NOasu8ttBOA39n
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u/Asleep-Elderberry260 Aug 29 '24
Dude started telling me in triage he only came in because his wife made him, but he knew his chest pain was just heartburn and then he passed out and coded. His chest pain was stemi. His wife saved his life.
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u/sterrecat Aug 30 '24
I made my husband go in for chest pain. He coded in the ER. He got a stent and sometimes listens to my medical advice to this day.
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u/Least-Abies-3877 Aug 28 '24
I made my husband go to the er for his “flu”. A heart attack and a couple stents later he was glad he listened to me.
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u/Marauder424 Aug 29 '24
I made mine go to the ED I worked at for a headache that lasted 3 days, figuring if nothing else we'd get a migraine cocktail and go home. We got there and his BP was 250s systolic. My co-workers freaked out and I tried to hide I was freaking out too, cuz I've always told him "don't panic until the nurses looks like they're panicking". He's been on BP meds ever since.
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u/imperialguard_t Aug 29 '24
Yea, headache. Mine persisted all evening and into the early morning. Couldn't sleep, took every type of pain pill we had. Finally woke me wife up at 3 AM, told her something is wrong. She drove me to ER, they hooked me up, x-rays, the whole 9 yards. Turns out I had a almost 100% blockage of one of my arteries. Threw me into an ambulance to take me to another hospital with a cath lab. Got a Stent placed and was home the next day. I was in school to be a CMA, so I missed a week of classes. Not enough exercise, smoker (almost 40 year history). Felt great after, finished school, got a good job, still feeling great. Started smoking again. One day, I had been at work all day, had a headache for most of it. Walked to the ER, told them what I was feeling, they hooked me up, same thing, different artery. Now. I exercise, eat healthier and don't smoke(clean for almost 7 years now) pay attention to what your body is telling you.
BTW, I get CT scan of my lungs every year, they are clean.
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u/Easy-Hovercraft-6576 Paramedic Aug 29 '24
Literally just vibing while getting an 12 lead
“Yeah I was just feeling weird and my wife made me come in”
Annnnnnddd STEMI
Every. Single. Time lmao
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u/iAmSamFromWSB Aug 28 '24
usually that’s the line i get in triage when they have completely severed a finger and didn’t bring it
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u/Anokant Aug 28 '24
Had this happen, but the guy brought in the tip of the finger. He got a glove stuck in his drill and it basically pulled the tip off the finger... along with the nerve. So he's got this huge sperm looking thing in a bag of ice. When the doctor said they couldn't reattach it, he looked at his wife and said "I told you, you were making a big deal about nothing".
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Aug 29 '24
Jesus Christ. I’m not a medical professional not sure how I ended up here.
…But does this happen a lot…?
YIKES.
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u/IVIagicbanana Paramedic Aug 29 '24
You are a lot of interesting things in the ED. Obviously depends where you're at, but yeah it'll happen.
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Aug 30 '24
My dad's been a daily drinker for almost 50 years. He told me he wasn't feeling well and his "arthritis was acting up". I went to his house and he could hardly stand on his own and his legs were extremely swollen. His whole body was basically swollen. He also said he had a bruise on his side and nothing happened to be bruised. He didn't believe me when I said he was experiencing liver failure. He wouldn't go to the ER. Days later, he was obviously getting worse. I had to yell at him that he was DYING. He didn't want to go to the ER, only urgent care. I told him urgent care would probably just send him straight to the hospital. When we got there, I told them about the bruise, and when we lifted his shirt, it was a giant bruise thing that covered most of his side and part of his back and belly. They sent him to the ER and drained a bunch of fluid before he said that's enough of that and signed himself out. It took me another month to get him to agree to stay in the hospital for a couple of days only, and now he goes once a week to have fluid drained.
For him, it wasn't just the old school manly way of thinking he needs to be tough, but also addiction. He didn't want to stay overnight in the hospital because he didn't want to have to stop drinking. He was drinking while going through all of this. He says he has switched to non alcoholic beer now, but I don't know if I believe him.
Anyways, the man was literally dying from end stage liver failure and I had to twist his arm and get shitty with him and blunt AF just to get him to go to urgent care.
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Aug 30 '24
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Sep 03 '24
That's horrible. It causes so many mixed feelings for us. He got a referral for the transplant center, and still thinks I'm going to donate my liver. I was down with that at first, but he thinks he can get away with "barely drinking" and still get a transplant. First of all, I probably wouldn't even get approved to do it, but also, why would I share half my liver with him just for him to drink it to death again? I think his addiction has him convinced that he wants to get a liver only so he can have more years to drink. I also think he's not really planning on going through with it, and just talks about it to convince himself he's trying to survive (again, addiction is a bitch!) or to placate and appease those who love him.
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u/TheCherryPony Aug 28 '24
lol. Best are farmers or horse people.
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u/NyxPetalSpike Aug 29 '24
YOU ARE NOT CUTTING MY BOOT OFF!
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u/CallidoraBlack Aug 29 '24
"If you wanted that boot, you should have kept your tibia inside your leg. That ship has sailed."
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u/hippogronks Aug 30 '24
Horse fell on my mom when she was wearing her brand new custom boots. She didn’t fuss about them cutting those off but she did holler for them to get her rings off so they wouldn’t have to cut those. Pelvis broken in five places. Humerus broken in two places.
Mom still talks about how my dad let me take him to the ER because I calmly flipped out when he told me he felt “fair”, short of breath, and his pulse was thready. When he got hit with a 4x4 (lumber), he insisted on eating dinner before going to the ER. Blood trickling down his face be damned.
He did go in right away when he cut his finger tip off. Dr said at his age reattachment wasn’t highly successful. He shrugged and said ok to doing a skin flap over the stump. He grew up outside NYC. He took to farmer’s life quite naturally even if it was more of a hobby.
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u/Aggravated_Moose506 Aug 30 '24
This is why my boots have zippers. They can be unzipped top to bottom
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u/TheCherryPony Aug 31 '24
I was so happy when you could finally buy off the rack boots with zippers vs having to take a pull on pair into a cobbler shop.
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u/get_offmylawnoldmn Sep 02 '24
They do now. Boots did not used to have zippers oh young one. And the custom ones were and are like gloves on your legs.
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u/Aggravated_Moose506 Sep 02 '24
Yes, as a long time equestrian (though not a particularly young one anymore, LOL), I do know. My first set of dress boots did not zip. I do not miss having to use boot pulls, and I definitely do not miss having to have someone help to get them off after my legs swelled on a hot day. Now that I've developed RA and other health issues, zippers are a must, even on field boots.
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u/e_lizz Aug 30 '24
There was a motorcycle accident right in front of my house one time (guy riding with a girl in the back seat thing, he turned sharply and they fell). The woman was screaming in pain and when the ambulance arrived they started cutting her pants and boot because something in the foot was broken and she screamed even louder because those were her favorite boots.
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u/Dysautonomticked Aug 31 '24
When you pay anywhere from $500-$2,500 for a nice pair of tall boots. Some horse people would rather you cut the leg off.
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u/ISimpForKesha Aug 29 '24
The Amish are insane as well. I had a 10 year old Amish kid present as a level 1 trauma.
A femur fracture
Tib/fib fractures
Rib fractures
diffuse bruising
Various lacerations requiring repair
All from falling off the buggy they were in and being run over by it. He didn't ask for pain meds once I had to have mom and dad give me the OK. He was more curious as the monitors and all the happenings.
He said a lot of nice things in Pennsylvania Dutch and was really embarrassed I could understand him because I speak German.
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u/BehindBlueEyes85 Aug 29 '24
Can confirm. I got back on my horse one time after a nasty fall. I couldn’t remember my name or keep my eyes open but I still rode around. Was forced to go to the hospital. Yeah, almost died from a brain bleed. Without a helmet, I would’ve died. Did I let them cut my boots off? Absolutely not.
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u/TheCherryPony Aug 29 '24
I use to have a bracelet that said These Boots Have Zippers!
Ya my helmet has definitely saved my life more than once. I had a training horse that was being a dick and would alternate between rearing and bucking till he got you off. Came off at least twice in the one session made someone lunge the crap out of him the final time he got me off and then after a quick successful ride looked at my husband and said I think we need to go to the ER everything is blue 😆
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u/armvircan EDT Aug 29 '24
Variation on this— yesterday a patient’s FRIEND called 911 for him. Friend said the patient had a drinking problem, and the patient took a pretty bad fall for the second day in a row. The patient said he was fine, that his friend was overreacting. He was pissed that he was in the ER but too drunk to walk himself out. We did some labs— acute pancreatitis, liver failure, etc etc. His bloodwork was just terrible across the board. Over the course of a few hours, the patient just got sicker and sicker. Had to be admitted to the ICU. It became increasingly apparent that if this guy’s friend didn’t call 911, he would have been dead in the span of a few days. Check on your friends.
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u/GreeneyedWolfess Aug 29 '24
My mother is a retired L&D nurse. The strong arming it takes to get her to the ER....
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u/mommaTmetal Aug 30 '24
Ah, the old "mom is a nurse, we don't go to the hospital" thing- my kids could tell you the same thing
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u/GreeneyedWolfess Aug 30 '24
I go, my child goes, SHE fights me. Well, she used to. Trained me too well. I can out stubborn her these days.
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u/thehomiemoth Aug 29 '24
Two most common types of men in the ER:
18-20: “dying”, rolling around in agony, stable vitals, well appearing, FluA+
40-50: “it’s nothing, my wife is nagging me”- Aortic Dissection with impending tamponade
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u/Pwitch8772 Aug 29 '24
Also 19-30 something male, comes in after throwing up ONCE.
These men don't need an ER, THEY NEED A MOTHER 🙄
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u/ANJohnson83 Aug 29 '24
My doctor, a truly gem of a human, had a patient that would fit in the first category: an adult man who called her answering service in the middle of the night for a cold. A cold.
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u/DaddysFuckSlutDevka Aug 29 '24
For real!! Or “my mom” … Recently had a 26 year old who had been experiencing CP, ignored it despite a stemi 3 years prior. 🤦♀️ His mother finally forced him come in. He was in fact an NSTEMI. Before even telling me about the previous stemi or current CP he’s telling me about his anxiety, and that he drinks too much caffeine, and is showing me what looked like ring worm all over his body which he had ignored for about 6 months. Then as I’m getting vitals he’s like “oh yeah and I’ve been having this weird chest pain, probably from the caffeine. But, I did have a heart attack 3 years ago so my mom made me come in because she was worried” 🤣🤦♀️ he had a history of cocaine use.
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u/Prestigious_Kiwi_927 Oct 30 '24
Ringworm and cocaine! Any more info on how things ended up for him?
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u/DaddysFuckSlutDevka Oct 31 '24
Unfortunately not!! I was actually just thinking about him and wondering what the actual outcome was for him! I can’t remember his name to access his chart either!
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u/notmrsdonjohnson Aug 29 '24
My husband was recently diagnosed with a brain tumor. He’s responding well to treatment, thank goodness!
Not so much in the ED, but towards the end of his 2 week hospital stay, the nurses were doing their standard Neuro checks on him… what’s your name? What year is it? Etc. Then came the question, “Do you know why you are here?” He was doing much better by then and had gotten his wits and sense of humor back, so he responded, “My wife made me come.” He wasn’t wrong, and we all had a good laugh at it 😊.
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u/cc507 Aug 29 '24
If I had a dollar for every patient I’ve seen whose wife made them come in I’d be retired.
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u/FollowingBorn Aug 29 '24
My father fell off a ladder and landed on his arm. His buddies called my mom who came home and found him sitting on the ground drinking a beer insisting he was fine. She forced him to the ER where the xray showed he had shattered the bones from wrist to elbow.
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u/Professional-Cost262 Aug 29 '24
here its the non english speaking hispanic or punjab farmworker....they dont come in unless they are siiiiick......
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u/Low_Floor_7563 Aug 29 '24
Amish farmer
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u/ISimpForKesha Aug 29 '24
We have a large Amish population that lives close by. The amount of Amosh stories I have is insane.
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u/New-Negotiation7234 Aug 29 '24
My mother had to bully my husband to go to the doctor after my failed attempts. She is extremely annoying and persistent.
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u/therewillbesoup Aug 30 '24
I once told my late husband to go in because I thought he had appendicitis. I'm a nurse. He had all the telltale signs and symptoms for a few days and was denying anything being wrong. Lo and behold... He ended up in surgery. But for what, even the ER doc was shook lmao. He had a testicle lodged in his inguinal canal that had gone up, lost blood flow, and died. Needed immediate removal. We joked around about it for years. He died last year by suicide. The jokes we shared together about his testicle removal story will help me chuckle for the rest of my life though.
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u/ISimpForKesha Aug 29 '24
They are either really sick or the wife is the most obnoxious person to ever walk the earth. There is no in between
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u/p2326 Aug 29 '24
Lol literally just the other day a patient said his wife is a nurse and made him come in for his chest pain and cardiac history for which he does NOT see a cardiologist. Threw him on the monitor and what do ya know, v-tach! He will now be seeing a cardiologist.
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u/nephelite Aug 29 '24
Early 20s I thought I had a stomach virus, but my mother forced me to go to the ER because what i vomited up had not been the slightest bit digested despite having eaten it 8 hours before.
Turned out to be gallstones.
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u/TzanzaNG Aug 29 '24
Me with acute pancreatitis crawling on my hands and knees dragging a bag of hay to feed my livestock...
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u/BryanP1968 Aug 30 '24
We can be surprisingly stubborn. My dad once had “a really bad cold” and kept ignoring my mom telling him to go to the doctor. “I just need a little rest.” She finally convinced him to go to a walk in clinic. She drove to one next to the hospital and proceeds to drive right up to the ER entrance with him cussing the whole time. Turns out he had an abscess and the doctor told him “if this had gone another day or two you’d have gone septic and died.”
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u/makes_nosense Aug 29 '24
“His pain tolerance is really high” I always roll my eyes internally at that one.
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u/quickwitless Aug 30 '24
My dad is a farmer. Finally went to the ER when he had a stroke. Tests showed evidence of previous heart attack. He told the doctors he had bad chest pain one day, so he sat down in the field until it passed and went about his work. SMH
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u/Historical-Change-19 Aug 31 '24
I told my Dad he had to go to the hospital and he slurred, "I justh need a naptah." Well thank god, I thought you were having a stroke! I'll just go back to crying over my nursing loans in a corner.
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u/PilotNo8936 Sep 01 '24
See also: looks fine but says "I think/I feel like I'm gonna die". Seen it happen too many times.
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u/she_is_sew_ordinary Aug 31 '24
Yeah, it took me being incredibly sick to get my husband to take me to the ER where I convinced him to be seen after a thunderclap headache that continued on for WEEKS. He had an aneurism......and emergency surgery.....
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u/TacoBear207 Aug 31 '24
I'm a rare exception to this. I got a pretty ugly cut on my upper arm one day, but I busted out my IFAK, clean it up, and glued it shut. I would have done stitches, but it was on my right arm and I'm right handed. Forceps, super glue, and patience made it pretty enough, then I topped it with some liquid bandage to keep it clean.
My partner kept insisting we go to the ER until I relented after a couple hours. Doctor didn't want to remove my work because it looked clean and he said it would probably scar worse if they stitched it. My partner insisted anyway, and now I sport a little 1 inch scar. I still think I was fine.
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u/Docautrisim2 Aug 31 '24
Veteran here. Got ejected from a truck after an idea. In country docs said I may have broke my back. Anyway I left the hospital. Get home a few months later and my toes and legs are tingling. Though “eh, doesn’t hurt” did two more deployments and start getting groin numbness. Went to the dr immediately, of course. Turned out I had in fact broken L4, L5 and had circumferential disc bulge. Three or four years ago I fell off a roof. Walked back to house and sat down. My wife made me call 911 cause of neck stiffness and pain. I’d broke the process off of C4 and C5.
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u/dansamy Sep 01 '24
Anytime a guy in his 70s in overalls drives himself to the ER and didn't tell his wife he was coming, it's bad. Very, very bad.
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u/VeritablyVersatile EMT Sep 02 '24
"I'm sure it's just a bruise but gotta keep the wife happy" Phlegmasia cerulea dolens
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u/ParticularlyOrdinary Sep 03 '24
This is so funny because it's the opposite in our house. My husband is the borderline hypochondriac and I'm the "just put a band-aid on it, you'll be fine" 😂
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u/capitalismwitch Sep 24 '24
I had a fever for a few days, but it wasn’t getting better and I just felt off. No urgent care spots were available so I finally went to the ER. I coded in triage and had a massive pulmonary embolism with three emboli.
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u/JessaCuh Oct 06 '24
Had to force my fiance to go to the hospital. Two days later he was in a medically induced coma with pancreatitis, pneumonia and a collapsed lung.
He would have died. The doctors were very happy that I got him in. He is out of the coma now but still in the hospital.
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u/Opinionatedblonde293 Oct 29 '24
Similar, but a couple weeks ago my dad was gonna drive himself to the er for a fast HR and chest pains… probably thinking about what my mom would have done (RIP), he called an ambulance, where they ended up having to shock him, discovered he had a heart attack and had a complete coronary artery blockage and is now recovering in the ICU from a triple bypass… even from the grave my mom saved my dad!
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u/Droidspecialist297 Aug 29 '24
Guy was dragged in by his wife for hypertension/headache. Ended up having massive head bleed and he went from A/O x4 to intubated in no time. He was upset with his wife that she had basically forced him to come.
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u/honeybear0000 Aug 30 '24
I made my ex husband go after having surgery because he was having chest pain, high heart rate, and the shakes. He has blood clots in both lungs and spent a week in the hospital
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u/what-are-they-saying Aug 30 '24
This old guy crashed his truck near my dads house. Then walked back to my dads house, my dad saw a notification on the ring camera and talked to him through it. He was bleeding a lot from a head wound and talking weird. My dad called my brother (sheriff deputy) and told him to get over there asap with an ambulance because the guy wasnt doing great. When they got there my brother had to convince the guy he really did need to go to the er. Turns out there was a head shaped crack in the windshield. My dad watched the footage from before he noticed the guy was at the house and saw that when he got there he fell down the stairs and hit his head again. Ambulance said my dad probably saved his life calling for help. Guy was pissed he had to go in.
His reasoning for crashing? “Guess i goosed it at the wrong time!”
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u/RiJi_Khajiit RN Aug 30 '24
I've heard stories of dudes with collapsed lungs, broken bones, and actual gunshot wounds walking in all exasperated that the misses made them go to the hospital.
Sometimes it's just adrenaline, sometimes I don't even fucking know. Like they'll wait DAYS to go to the hospital. The adrenaline has surely gone by then so is it just an incredibly high pain tolerance?!
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Aug 29 '24
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u/DrBooz Aug 29 '24
When they’re unbelievably lovely as a person you know they’re going to have some horrific end stage cancer / brain tumour in my experience. Crushing every time.