“Mr. Jones,” I asked after I introduced myself to the old man on the gurney and his two adult children. “I hear you have something stuck up your backside?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so,” he responded a bit sheepishly.
“May I ask what it is?” I inquired curiously.
“A shampoo bottle. One of the travel-size ones,” he responded.
“Oh boy,” I answered. “How did, uh; how did that end up inside your back side?” I asked as I donned a pair of gloves.
“Well, I felt a bit tired after I took a shower and wanted to sit on the toilet seat, and I guess the bottle was right there when I sat down.”
“Uh, huh,” I said as asked him to lay over on to his side. “And it, uh, just went right in? Any pain or bleeding,” I asked and looked at his external cheeks. No trauma here, I remarked to myself.
“Yep, just went right in. No real bleeding; well maybe just a touch of pain,” he said.
I looked up at his two worried adult children in the room that were looking at me intently. “Well,” I said, let’s see if we can see if there is any trauma at your external anus,” I said as I spread apart his buttocks. “Looks good so far,” I said out loud. “No trauma to your anus. Let’s see if we can get this bad boy out,” I said and asked him to relax his anus so I could perform an internal digital rectal exam. “Just a litle bit of pressure on the count of three and you’re going to feel my finger with a bit of jelly inside your anus.”
“Uh, Okay,” he said.
“1, 2, littlepressure 3,” I informed him and inserted my finger into his old anus. I didn’t feel any foreign objects. “Are you sure it went in?” I asked.
“Yep, pretty sure.”
“Then please try to bare down like you’re trying to have a bowel movement,” I instructed him. He groaned a little and I felt a loose and firm object just at the tip of my finger. “Oh good, keep doing that I said.”
“Grrr,” he groaned.
“Okay, I can only just touch it with the tip of my finger. I don’t think I can grab it just with the one. I think I need to stick in another finger.”
“Okay, do what you’ve got to do, son.”
I inserted the second finger and tried to grab the forign body between my two fingers like a pair of scissors. “Keep pushing,” I said, and he obliged as well as he could, but he was clearly groaning in pain.
Fortunately, there was no blood coming from his rectum, meaning it was very unlikely he had major rectal trauma. Therefore, my medical conclusion was that he had miraculously sat down with his full weight on an un-lubricated plastic bottle and did not sustain a single bruise or tear of his buttocks, anus, or rectum. After a minute or two of further attempts, I gave him the bad news, “I don’t think I can reach it. I think we need to call the surgeon to put a scope up into your rectum and grab it with a special device.”
“Oh,” he said. His little secret was about to reach a lot more ears!
–DrMedicineMan
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