comic relief

It was a routine Saturday afternoon laparotomy for probable typhoid perforation. He had the typical story... a week of fevers, a few days of severe abdominal pain, diffuse peritonitis, and abdominal distension.  So, we opened him up and found a liter or so of foul-smelling pus and mucus-like stuff in his abdomen and a 1/2 inch hole in his small intestine.  We got to work cleaning the pus and junk out of his belly. Here is where it got weird.  As I was blindly reaching up into the dark recess behind his spleen to scoop out the pus, I felt a tube. What?! I was confused. Did this guy have an old drain tube floating around in his belly? He said he had never had an operation before. Then, I saw the tube, grabbed it with my glove, and as I brought it into the light I saw it for what it truly was. A long, live, squiggly worm. GROSS!!! I gasped, jumped back a bit and quickly dropped it on the drapes. 

Gross, right?!

Of course, the rest of the OR staff found my reaction to be HILARIOUS.  The chuckled and laughed and teased me saying stuff like,  "You're a doctor, why are you afraid?"   To which I replied,  "I'm not afraid...but that was unexpected, gross, and, well, downright, disgusting."  I mean, he had a big worm free-floating around in his belly. I wasn't expecting it to be there.  It was the first time I've pulled a worm out of a human's belly. I'm allowed to be a little surprised and grossed out.

the worm- Ascaris

  
Just goes to show...there are no boring days at this hospital!  After a few rough days, everyone needed a good laugh and the story of the worm that escaped out of the hole in this man's intestine and then hid under the spleen until it could give the white lady doctor a fright...perhaps it was just what God intended to give us a bit of comic relief! 

 

A few fun facts about the Ascaris worm from Wikipedia:

• Ascaris lumbricoides is the largest and most common parasitic worm in humans
• One study indicated that the prevalence of ascariasis in the United States at about 4 million (but I've never seen it in the US...not sure that it is that common nowadays)
• Perhaps as many as one quarter of the world's population are infected, with a prevalence of 45% in Latin America and 95% in parts of Africa.

 Check out more from the National History Museum website.