Foreign Objects in Body Cavities

[SWFlorida]

This is how they present in triage. You note that they appear anxious, possibly in a bit of pain, sometimes they are very matter of fact. We've all seen em. Retained foreign object in various body cavities. Kids with beans up their noses, beads in their ear canal, men with various household products in their rectum, women with various toys gone horribly bad.

With the adults you try really hard to look concerned and serious. This is a delicate subject and boy do they watch your face for even the slightest hint of a laugh. Now I'm not talking about assaults, that can be awful. I'm talking of grown adults that really should know better. A spray can just does not belong up ones bum.

How do you handle this? How do you write the complaint on the chart? Do you send the object to pathology as you would any other material? What do you put in the discharge instructions?

[pghfoxfan]

We had a boy that put a birthday candle in his member to see how far he could pee it out. The birthday boy spent the day in the OR

[Havin' A Party!, ASN, RN]

We had a boy that put a birthday candle in his member...

Ouch!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mariedoreen]

I worked in a path lab for 10 years and cannot tell you how many objects we received over the years!!! I was 18 when i started working there and was totally appalled, talk about an eye opening experience for a teenager! "He put that... where?" Lol, after awhile everything gets routine, doesn't it? My boss always said that stuff was sent to us simply for documentation and disposal. Seems like you could document that stuff in another way and save the pt the pathology bill, though.

[WickedRedRN, BSN, RN]

I used to work psych as an attendant. One particular incident involved a man who had placed toothbrush, small pencil erasers, paper clips and safety pins in his orifice...wound up as an admission due several tears and one of the safety pins had opened. Coupled with the paper clips, the poor man was in some bad shape by the time he admited what he had done and we were able to take him to the hospital.

Another time, different pt, put an ink cartridge from a ballpoint pen in his member.

Psych was never dull, and I know the ER staff had to let out a groan any time we called with a transfer. Bless the ER staff!

[MOONIELOVE]

My aunt has told me a lot of stories.

The one that comes to mind is a man who came to the hospital with a cuumber in his rectum and his partner who was a woman had a beer bottle in her lady parts. Please tell me how? How do you keep your cool, from laughing :rotfl: or asking how in the H@@@ or why ?

[CHATSDALE]

Discharge Instrucions: Refrain From Placing Cucumbers And Beerbottles In Any Oriface Above Waist

[ang75]

Had a guy present c/o cp X 3 days. Come to find out, he had "gotten high" and placed a child's sippy cup in his butt. It wasn't the hard plastic ones, but more like the ones you can get at the carnival? Like the plastic limes at the grocery store? Only this one was a pumpkin. He had to go to the OR and when the surgeon (very shy and quiet) closed he had one of those plastic halloween pumpkins waiting in dictation for him.

[V. Nightingale]

We had a guy come in with a vibrator of some kind up his rectum, beyond the, uh, point of manual retrieval. When we called the GI doctor, he asked,"So does he want me to take it out or change the batteries?"

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

20 year old male patient presented to our ER some years ago with a long-handled screwdriver in his rectum which had perf'ed the lower bowel. At first he said his girlfriend did it. Then he said HER girlfriend did it. Finally he admitted doing it himself, by which time nobody really cared HOW the damned thing got in there, just how to get it out before the pt. bled to death. Makes you wonder just what people are thinking when they do this sort of thing, doesn't it? What goes through their minds? "Hey, I'm bored......think I'll try sticking a screwdriver in an orifice that's meant as an EXIT, not an entry, and we'll see what happens"?

[teeituptom, BSN, RN]

Had one guys with one of those huge giant squashes completely in himself

boggles the mind that it actually fit

havent eaten any squash since

[reddgott]

Hmmmmmm the lamp or the squash........ I guess the lamp was a bright idea