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Wouldn't give up orange juice.
Passed away one weekend from sudden cardiac arrest (heart stopped beating) due to high potassium.
#3
We had to pass a hospital and 2 urgent care facilities to get home. I encouraged him each time to stop in and get it professionally cleaned and bandaged. But noOoOOooOo. He flat refused.
Went home, said he washed it with soap and water when he was in the shower.
The result was cellulitis so severe it took 3 rounds of antibiotics, 2 urgent care visits, 1 hospital visit for surgical debridement, and multiple gp follow ups. He could have lost his leg.
It finally did heal but it took a very long time. And now, 3 years later, the skin is so delicate that a casual bump against it opens the skin right back up.
So next time your wife says “hey, you should get that looked at” save yourself a little agony and take the suggestion.
It is funny how the things we barely think about can end up mattering the most. You buckle your seatbelt, take a sip of water, pop a pill, step into the pool, and carry on with your day. Most of those moments are so ordinary that you would never expect them to become part of a medical emergency.
Then you hear a story from someone who works in healthcare and think, “Wait, that’s how it happened?” Now you are reconsidering a few of the things you do on autopilot every day.
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A short drive can make people feel like safety rules are optional, especially when the destination is just around the corner. World Health Organization says wearing a seatbelt can reduce the risk of fatal injury among vehicle occupants by up to 50%.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also estimates that seatbelts saved nearly 15,000 lives in the U.S. in 2017 alone. Putting on your seatbelt before you pull out of the driveway really can make a huge difference when a routine drive takes an unexpected turn.
#7
The cut got infected and started slowly eating away his finger. By the time he finally came to the hospital (he lives in the middle of nowhere) the bone was poking out and the surgeons had to take off most of the finger to make sure it didn’t progress. So now he’s down a right index finger because he tapped his phone screen too hard.
#8
ETA Details: I needed to replace my toilet seat. On a whim, got a padded one. Terrible mistake. Because I always flush with the lid down, and the padding provided a moisture-resistant seal, I ended up with a bunch of bacteria growing on the underside of the lid. This led to me getting a persistent UTI that I couldn't shake. By the time I considered the toilet seat as the cause and started wiping it each day with antibacterial wipes, it was too late.
I went to a urologist, who tested for cancer, said I didn't have it, and didn't seem concerned, so I just lived with it. I ate crasins and cranberry juice to reduce symptoms and dealt with the pain.
After at least a year a routine urine test from my regular doctor showed I had blood in my urine. She was worried I might have kidney stones, and ordered an ultrasound and CAT scan. Boy was she right. My kidney was at least 1/4 stones. They weren't passing, just hiding out quietly in my kidneys, growing.
Staghorn kidney stones will hold bacteria safely tucked away from antibiotics, so no matter what I took to clear up the infection they came back. And the bacteria made the kidney stones grow.
It took 2 surgeries where they cut into my back and inserted a laser to blast away the stones. Then 2 more using sound waves to clean up the residuals. One more to take out the stent because it had gotten cemented to the walls of my bladder by flakes of kidney stone.
Because one of the surgeries went through my diaphragm, it hurt to breath for 6 weeks, and to take a deep breath like a yawn or sneeze for 6 months.
All because I wanted a comphy toilet seat.
#9
Medication is another everyday thing that can go wrong in ways you might never see coming. You take the wrong dose, grab the wrong bottle, or misread an instruction, and a routine part of your day can turn into a medical problem.
The World Health Organization estimates that medication-related harm accounts for nearly half of preventable incidents in medical care. And it does not always come down to someone being careless. Being tired, distracted, in a hurry, or confused by similar-looking medicines can be enough to cause a mix-up.
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Don’t ignore changing skin spots.
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Now has end stage metastatic cancer that likely could have been completely prevented with a simple outpatient procedure.
Feeling hot is such a normal part of a warm day that most of us barely give it a second thought. You sweat, feel a little tired, grab some water, and carry on with whatever you were doing. But prolonged heat can put real stress on the body.
According to Dr. Raukar, heat exhaustion happens when the body struggles to cool itself properly. And if it progresses to heatstroke, it can potentially cause damage to the brain and other organs.
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An ordinary meal can become a medical emergency for someone with a severe food allergy. Expert guidelines on anaphylaxis warn that allergic reactions can become fatal, which is why epinephrine is recommended as the first-line treatment to help control the reaction.
Sadly, many people have lost their lives because the right treatment was not available when they needed it.
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He came back a few days later with really bad pain in his foot, and was booked for a diagnostic arthroscopy and washout of the foot.
Long story short turned out this patient had Strep A in their throat. (When it is confined to the places it is usually found for the most part you'll have a sore throat possible swelling etc. but nothing too serious 9/10)
The strep A has tracked down his body into his foot causing sepsis and then began to track back up his leg, while they were completing the arthroscopy they noticed necrotising fascitis had begun to take hold of the tissues (flesh eating bacteria)
He ended up with a below knee amputation and the rest of his leg up to his hind quarter being degloved to save his life. Spent atleast 3weeks intubated on ITU.
Poor guy was supposed to be getting married 3weeks later. Went to sleep thinking he was just having a washout of hit foot to wake up without one.
TLDR: guy came in with sore throat, ended up loosing his lower leg and all the skin up to his buttocks.
#18
I almost lost my finger and hand because I left a cat bite fester too long. If I ignored it for maybe..2 more days it would of been bad.
They had to slice a hole from my finger to my palm to flush out the infection.
Some things can have serious consequences without looking or even smelling unusual. For example, carbon monoxide has no color or smell, so you can be breathing it in without even realizing it. It can come from something as ordinary as generator fumes or a running car in an enclosed space.
Experts explain that carbon monoxide poisoning can cause lasting brain damage, with children and older adults being particularly vulnerable. In some cases, it can also be fatal.
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