Nurse here. Had parents bring their three-year-old son to the emergency department for one month of abdominal pain that kept getting worse. I ask all the routine questions for this complaint, lots of questions about his poop-is it bloody? diarrhea? mucus? when was his last bowel movement, any changes in the stool? They deny any other concerning symptoms but abdominal pain. We do blood work, ultrasound, x-ray-everything comes back completely normal, but the kid is intermittently screaming in pain, curled in a ball.
Over the next 5 hours, I continue to repeat the same questions. I ask repeatedly if there is anything else going on that they can think of. Nope. The kid just doesn't seem well, but we have no reason to keep him, so we decide to send them home. I bring in the discharge paperwork and am about to start going over instructions, and the dad goes, "You know, for the past 3 months, he had a lot of worms in his poop."
Worms. You spent six-plus hours denying worms. I literally just turned around and walked out of the room without saying a word. I was laughing almost to the point of tears.
25 авг 2024
