I was at one of the hospitals getting geared up to see someone when one of the doctors approached me and said: Curious doc: Can you guys do anything for a girl who swallows nails?
Me: What?! Are you serious?
Curious doc: Yes, I am. She says she doesn't remember doing it and she says she's not suicidal, but she swallowed a nail.
Me: What do the x-rays show?
Him: I don't know, I haven't looked at them yet.
We went around a bit on the matter. I had actually been called in to see someone else, but essentially what I told him is that I would see her if he needed or wanted me to. What we both realized, however, is that there wouldn't be a psychiatrist in the western hemisphere who would be willing to accept a patient with nails in her belly, even if she DID meet criteria for admission. The psychiatrists don't take people until their blood alcohol is below .150, I can't imagine what they would say to foreign bodies in the person. If, indeed they were actually there.
When I inquired about her after my first assessment, I found out the doctor had sent her home. I really didn't give the matter much more thought.
The following day, I'm in a different town, at a different hosptial to evaluate someone and the doctor there comes up to me and says:
Curious doc 2: Can you guys do anything for a girl who swallows nails?
Me, incredulous: I got this exact question not 24 hours ago at Theirtown Memorial.
Curious doc 2: I'm sure it's the same girl. We've seen her before.
Me: Did she really swallow a nail?
Curious doc 2: Oh, yeah. Two of them. Here, come see.
Sure enough. Even I, the social worker, could see there were not one, but TWO nails in this woman's lower abdomen.
I was dumbfounded.
Who swallows nails? I mean, really! Who??? Oh, I know it happens, but this is my first encounter with it outside the theoretical setting.
What amazed me even further was that after talking to the doctor, I realized there was nothing medically he could do for her. He told me if the nails were further up, still in her abdomen, for instance, they could go in with a scope and retrieve them. But both of them had migrated down to her lower bowels. They were unreachable.
In other words, she was going to have to pass them the old-fashioned way and hope to God they didn't puncture anything on their journey to the other side.
Come to find out, this was the same woman. She's been in both hospitals multiple times (a nurse, who worked at both places, remembered her vividly.) And nails aren't the only things she swallows, either. Apparently, any sharp object will do.
I called my supervisor and we deliberated on the matter for some time. No, the woman wasn't suicidal but she was, you know, swallowing nails. In the end, we figured I should at least go in there and talk to her, even if the hospital didn't feel the need for a full consult.
But first I had to finish my initial assessment.
In the interium, the doctor let her go.
Call me silly. Call me a worry wort. Call me hysterical or histrionic. But I find it a bit disturbing that there's a young woman walking around with nails in her belly and no psychiatric treatment in place (although apparently she's been referred by her general practitioner.) ->
Read the complete post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/tXCM/~3/Eq4WPQD4ZXM/deja-vu.html
Posted
15 Jun 2009 3:54 PM
by
Trench Warfare
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