Fish Tales

During a lull in the action the other night, one of the nurses described an episode of Grey's Anatomy that involved a fish swimming up the stream of a guy's urine and lodging itself in his penis.  While I definitely can't top that, I have had two fish tales lately.

The first occurred earlier this summer, and involved a man who had just returned from vacation.  I walked into his darkened room to find him moaning and shivering, with a temperature of 103˚ and a heart rate in the 130s.  Apparently he had been bitten by a fish (he thought a catfish) while swimming, and subsequently developed a nasty infection.  Not the souvenir he was hoping for, I imagine.

The second story unfolded just a couple days ago, when a man walked up to the triage desk with his hand buried under a bundle of blood-stained rags.  The sound of shrieking drew a crowd out to the desk, where the patient had unwrapped the makeshift bandage to reveal a fishing hook caught in his thumb.  The hook itself wasn't too bad - it didn't look too deep and the bleeding was controlled - but the sight of a nearly-severed fish still attached to the hook, spilling its innards out onto the desk was just a little too much for this particular nurse.

And speaking of TV medical dramas, I read that ER will begin it's 15th and final season tonight (it should have ended years ago, but still, I'll miss it...).