ali's american adventures

Ali--as a fellow nurse I appreciated your story, and may have even laughed a bit at the horror and fascination of it all! We nurses are a bit messed up in the head indeed

#1 Megan Greer on 2013-03-17 16:59

Oh Ali, I can always count on you to inspire and entertain! Thank you for the image and the laugh. I presume it was Dr. Michael on call today - I am sure you made his day today. He has a wonderful heart - give him my love. Blessings on you all!

#2 Nicky on 2013-03-17 17:37

Ali, I am not a medical professional of any sort but was intrigued enough to click on the link to the picture. Yep, yuck ! What I really want to know though....was it still alive ? I know, I know maybe I am messed up in the head too.

#3 Alison on 2013-03-17 18:07

This one was dead, but there's the possibility of more on the inside still wiggling around. The meds should kill them if indeed they're there, but I'm hoping this was the first and last I'll see of anything like this.

#3.1 Ali C. (Homepage) on 2013-03-17 18:24

That is a bit extreme way to lose weight, Ali.

#4 Fiona on 2013-03-17 18:54

The best blog post. Ever. Thank you for including the picture! Awesome!

#5 Rebekah on 2013-03-17 20:02

I agree -- your mother is awesome.

#6 Allan on 2013-03-17 20:35

Oh.my.goodness. I am howling with laughter in my lonely apartment. I was wondering too if it was still alive, and now that you've answered the other person's question, I'd like to admit I'm also messed up in the head (though I'm not a nurse), and I'm wondering if the other worms (if there are any) will also come out whole and you can give them to the doctor to "conserve"??

#7 Bethany on 2013-03-17 20:50

Impressive. As for TMI, I remember once in PICU rounds a resident was going on and on about a patient's poop and finally the attending barked " black, red or green, that's all I need to know!"

#8 Susan (Homepage) on 2013-03-17 21:39

Wow! I cannot imagine seeing this (yes, I looked at your photo) and knowing it was inside of me. I so enjoy reading your blog! God bless!

#9 Janet Roth (Homepage) on 2013-03-17 23:30

Ali that worm was awesome!! Hopefully no more little critters left in you, even tho if there are im sure you will soon find out!
Well done on passin the intestinal worm test with style

#10 maria on 2013-03-18 00:11

Something similar happened to me a few months after my family had returned to Canada from a summer in Kashmir while my father was serving over there.

In my case, it happened while I was in a hospital bed in my family's livingroom, in a full body cast (down to one knee) recovering from scoliosis surgery. My mother had to give me bedpans, and she was pretty horrified to see a ten-inch-long worm in the bedpan one day. None of my family had taken any anti-parasite medication, although it had definitely been recommended for everyone military returning from Kashmir. My intestinal guest was dead as well, thank goodness.

Sorry you've had to go through that and hopefully there will be no more critters!

#11 Sharon M on 2013-03-18 00:34

Oh, that's priceless! I must admit, when I saw that Zoe was holding a tape measure, I had an inkling of what was coming.

Congratulations?

lovem

Catherine

#12 Catherine (Homepage) on 2013-03-18 19:44

Thanks for sharing Ali! As one of those crazy nurses, I love it! I also love that you attached a picture- so wanted to see it.

#13 Melissa Clifton on 2013-03-19 13:54

Thank you for the tapeworm story. When I was doing my midwifery diploma I was doing rounds with the medical team and we were at a bedside discussing the platelets, blood pressure and albuminuria results of a patient from a country in Africa. The patient was unable to understand any of our discussion so I stood next to her, held her hand, and smiled reassuringly at her. I'm that kind of softie

She looked at me, alarmed, sneezed ... and ... the tail end of a tape worm appeared at her nostril. Vomiting and coughing ensued. The tape worm landed in her bedclothes. The doctors rescued the tapeworm, the nurses changed the bedclothes and I held on to the patient who by now was jabbering hysterically and crying.

#14 Dee on 2013-03-30 11:22

Thanks for an awesome dinner time story. I read it out to my medical student housemates as I ate a bowl of noodles and enjoyed every slurpy bit of noodle and worm story!

I would have been quite excited in the lab to receive that for identification!

#15 Sarah Louden on 2013-04-02 06:17

I just read this to OJ, but had to wait until AFTER we dropped our houseguest off at the airport. I wanted to read it to both of them before we left, but I got a lot of EWE and ICK from our guest and figured that she needed to have some semblance of a settled stomach to take the tiny plane (picture the Oscar Meyer Weiner Mobile with props) out of Chico to San Fran on an incredibly windy day. OJ listened and laughed, but I couldn't get him to look at the picture, which I found absolutely fascinating. Maybe I should have been a nurse. Just so glad that you didn't have any symptoms...

#16 Sher Sutherland (Homepage) on 2013-04-08 16:31