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First off, let’s all give a HUGE round of applause to all the healthcare workers. They’ve been through hell this year and they really are heroes.
And…they have a lot of stories to tell!
Here are some good ones they discussed about people who should have sought medical care way earlier than they did.
AskReddit users shared their hair-raising stories. Let’s take a look!
1. Take care of your feet!
“Had a guy whose foot was completely broken sideways at the ankle. He had it still wrapped from when he left the hospital. He would use the stumpy part to move around on his wheelchair and leave little blood sponge prints on the floor.
Another guy with bad ankle and foot wounds decided to stop going to wound care, and was afraid to take the wraps off even after his foot started to stink. By the time I saw him his skin had kinda liquified.
Earlier on in my career I saw a guy with necrotizing wounds to both legs that had eaten to muscle in multiple places below the knee. I asked him how long they looked like that and he said about two years. Next time I saw him he was bilateral above knee amp.
Stump wounds. Just… Stump wounds.
Take care of your feet people. If you’re diabetic and can’t feel the bumps and scrapes please check your feet regularly.”
2. Dead leg.
“Guy came in with a dead leg.
Waited until it turned black and then decided to head to the ER. They tried an angiogram to open up blood flow but it was way late for that. Guy had several clots in his lungs and legs.
Undiagnosed atrial fibrillation. He couldn’t believe we were going to amputate, kept asking me what else I could do.
Go back in time a week ago and come in. Kinda around when it turned blue.”
3. All the problems
“Years ago as a nursing assistant on an oncology floor we had a guy admitted because he had had an erection for several days and had lost the ability to pee. His bladder was close to bursting and his poor junk was… think microwaved hotdog. Really bad.
But NONE of that was as interesting as the fact that this guy had untreated skin cancer on his nose for several years that had over time become infected, developed MRSA, and spread across his face. He had no nose, no cheek, and no eye on one side of his face, and was starting to lose his other eye.
You could see part of his skull. I dont know why he chose to leave it untreated and I have no idea how long it took to get that bad, but I will never ever forget the smell and texture of his rotting face.
On the upside, we were eventually able to convince him to have reconstructive surgery. He ended up getting a skin graft that covered up his eye, nose and cheek.
So, if you ever meet a very grumpy dude with nothing but a mouth and one eye, know that this is way better than the alternative.”
4. Dead three weeks later.
“Had a 65 year old dude who was diagnosed with lymphoma 8 months before we saw him.
He lived an hour out of the city and didn’t want to drive in for treatment so decided he wouldn’t get treated at all and stayed on his little remote place in the country by himself.
Essentially, because it didn’t get treated, it spread along his skin and his neighbors called an ambulance when popping in on him. It had spread so far that it essentially went from his head to his knees. It had started to invade his eyes and mouth membranes.
He couldn’t drink and could barely see. His skin had started to slough off and he was so severely dehydrated because he was losing so much excess fluid from his open skin that we had to treat him like a severe burns patient and had plastics involvement.
The consultant said if he had received treatment, there was a chance he could have recovered. Instead he died 3 weeks later.”
5. Not shingles.
“Once had an older lady call in wanting a prescription for pain meds because she was sure she had shingles. Said her neighbor had them and she was sure that’s what it was.
She hadn’t been in for an exam in almost 2 years, so the doctor asked that she come in to be evaluated before a prescription could be given. She refused and called again the next day asking for a prescription. This went on all week. Her calling for pain meds, the doctor asking her to come in to be seen.
She finally agreed to make an appointment. It wasn’t shingles. It was a skin ulceration from advanced breast cancer.”
6. Horrible.
“Former medic here. Called to a patient who had cut their leg while chopping wood about a week prior and now it was really itchy.
Old gentleman, didn’t drive, lived alone. Got to his house, unwrapped the ungodly swollen leg to find that he’d tried to superglue the wound closed and maggots were inside.
The itching he was feeling was the writhing maggots under his skin.”
7. Happened more than once.
“This has happened a few times, actually…
But I had a gal come in on Monday after being discharged from the hospital Friday after giving birth.
So basically, we tell ladies to avoid intercourse until a doctor clears you, and well, her spouse kept insisting and insisting and insisting that Friday night she caved and let him go to town. He wound up tearing some stitches that were placed and bleeding like a stuck hog all weekend long.
Came into our clinic, blue in the lips and fingers, and her hemoglobin was 4 (normal should be 12 – 15).
She didn’t wanna be a bother, so she waited until she started feeling dizzy all the time. She got another trip to the hospital for transfusion and repair for that.
But…like I said, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen that, so for the love of God…if homeboy is begging for it after you just had a baby, maybe he needs a lesson in self control and a bottle of moisturizer.”
8. Yikes.
“As a medical student I remember an older lady that had a breast that was necrotic and falling off. It had been progressing over the last several years.
But, if she didn’t get diagnosed with breast cancer, then she couldn’t have it.
In the other category I’ve seen a few cases of Fournier’s Gangrene. Pretty much obese, male diabetics that had a pimple/sore that started in the pubic region.
By the time they come to the hospital it’s a raging infection where the treatment is basically to cut away everything in the pubic/ groin region down to the muscle layer. That little sore didn’t seem like much at first.”
9. Sad.
“We once had a patient who went to Emergency for abdominal pain and they discovered a fungating breast wound (don’t image search that) that she’d had for two years and hadn’t gotten medical attention for.
A biopsy and a PET scan later she was diagnosed with breast cancer with extensive liver, lung and bone mets.
This was also in Australia so it wasn’t a money issue.
Just sad.”
10. Not a good outcome.
“I am a doctor and while working in A&E we had an older chap, possibly in his 70s, who several days prior to presentation had a sudden onset severe chest pain and vomiting while loading the car with shopping.
He ignored it and struggled home. The next day he started to lose the use of both legs and by the time he came to hospital had been CRAWLING around his house for SEVERAL DAYS because he thought it would get better.
He had had a major cardiac event, developed a clot which his heart had pumped out, it went down his body, broke in half and blocked off the blood supply to both legs. He literally had dead legs.
I don’t know what ended up happening to him, but there was no way to save the legs and I reckon the outcome was very poor, if not fatal.”
11. That’s bad.
“Children’s nurse here, my first week in pediatric ED we had a young girl (6/7) come in with a really swollen jaw/face.
Poor girl was unable to move her jaw without intense pain and hadn’t been able to eat for several days. Turns out she had only just started cleaning her teeth for the first time ever and managed to develop several abscesses and rotten teeth in the process.
To make it worse her mum told us she was recovering from the same procedures to remove most of her teeth because of almost the same thing… they didn’t want to bother as they thought she was just messing about to get out of school.”
12. Grandpa.
“My grandpa ended up passing away because he waited too long before going to the hospital. This was about 17 years ago, he was tending to one his mules when something spooked it and he got kicked in the gut.
He was in a lot of pain, could barely move due to the abdominal pain so decided to take it easy and lounge on the couch for a week, he refused to go to be taken to the hospital.
Unfortunately, that mule kick ruptured an unknown tumor in his intestines. The doc said it was huge, like volleyball size huge, and he may have survived if he came in sooner. By the time we got him to the hospital he had a severe case of gangrene.
His leg needed to be amputated within a day of him being there, he passed away a week later.”
Now we want to hear from you.
What’s a time you or someone you know should have gone to the hospital way earlier?
Share your stories with us in the comments.
