Rich E. Dreben - Stuck Up! 100 Objects Inserted and Ingested in Places They Shouldnt Be

To Sujatha: Who, in the night of darkness, is the light that always guides me. To Einstein the Dog: Who has taught me more about humanity than any human being.

MARTY

To Laura Knight: Who through the years has always believed that with hard work and perseverance one day he might write a book about objects found in peoples rear ends.

MURDOC

To Bossy McBossy, with love: There is no one else I would rather have boss me around, and no one else I would rather be around.

RICH

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

First and foremost, the authors want to thank their significant others, who put up with a great deal throughout this process. Each has contributed in her own special way, although, for the record, none of them served as a source for any of these images. To our patients: a HUGE thank-you for giving us the privilege to work with you and learn from you each day. We extend our heartfelt appreciation to our agent, Neil, who got stuck with us but handled everything we threw at him with much grace and expertise. We also give our profound thanks to our editor, Daniela, who diligently and patiently guided us to transform the ideas in our heads into the actual book you see before you.

We express infinite gratitude to our graphic artist, Jennifer Hale, who must be part superhero given the epic amount of work that she put into this project under strict deadlines. Thanks to her amazing talent and creativity, we are able to show our readers the kind of X-ray images doctors get to see only after both studying for years and often having a medical school debt of six figures. (In fact, with all the money we just saved you, you can definitely afford to buy a few extra copies of the book for your friends and family.) A million thank-yous and our eternal indebtedness to the anonymous eyes of all those who helped behind the scenes of Stuck Up!, including one pro-Pirate-Day radiologist (may your eyesight never fail) and the surgically gifted canine Sasha Wang (a big bone is on the way), among other people/dogs.

There are not enough words for Marty to adequately thank his parents, sister, brother-in-law, and nieces. It is said, You can pick your friends but not your family. But even if he had a choice, Marty feels there is no way he could have done better. It must be his good karma that he ended up with such great people, although they may not say the same about him after theyve read the book ( just to be on the safe side, he is not going to ask them).

Murdoc would like to thank his parents, who, upon hearing about this book, did not say, You went to medical school for this? Hed also like to thank big PJ and little Andy and Alyssa, for letting him work on this book from time to time. Hed especially like to thank the little ones for not asking him what the book was about. Hell tell them in a few years.

Rich offers one final thank-you to his father, who said, Son, I have certainly never stuck anything in my rectum. True, Dad, but you have certainly pulled many statements out of there over the years. Thanks for everything. (I know you wanted no part of this, Mom.)

PREFACE

It all started in medical school. Rich and Murdoc were close friends who partnered on everything from anatomy to basic physical exams. They were very impressed by some unique X-rays and patient stories to which they were exposed. These stories often began with patients saying something like, I was vacuuming in the nude, when I suddenly fell and or I was walking around the house naked, and I jumped into bed when suddenly Rich realized that the lessons he learned from these stories stuck with him more than some of the minutiae of his medical education. Because of the great learning potential inherent in these stories, Rich said to Murdoc one day, We should remember these X-rays. I learned a ton from them, which Murdoc thought was a great idea.

Many years and X-rays later, Rich and Murdoc had still not figured out how to use this material to create an educational book that was reader-friendly and did not require the pain of going through medical school to understand it. They never quite knew when the time was right to transform their collection of memories of images and stories into something that one could proudly display on the coffee table as an instructive work. Then, during his residency, Rich met Marty, who loved the idea and provided the much-needed direction for Stuck Up! to become a reality.

We shared the idea with many agents and publishers, and we got some rather interesting responses (reprinting most of which is likely a violation of the majority of the fifty states decency laws). Eventually, we found the perfect people to work with us. We quickly learned that creating the book was about as easy and straightforward as removing a coat hanger from ones rectum. (See inside the book to learn how its done, but do not try this at home.)

For the sake of protecting patients confidentiality while maximizing the educational value of the X-rays, we paired with an excellent graphic artist who made minor enhancements so that the objects would be more easily recognizable for our readers. On occasion we have taken creative license to add humor or flare to the situation to facilitate learning. Therefore, we present to you the standard Law & Order style intro: Although based mostly on true incidents, the following stories are technically fictional and do not depict any actual person, event, or rectum.

Often people dont know how to react when looking at these X-rays. Well, in some cases the truth is astonishing and truly hard to believe. So, our advicejust sit back, enjoy the book, and learn how to avoid doing anything that would ever end up with your end up in our next book!

Rich, Murdoc, and Marty

INTRODUCTION

Did you know that getting objects trapped in the body is the single greatest reason for visits to the doctor? Okay, thats not really true, but it sure would make colonoscopies seem more like action films.

Truth be told, objects becoming trapped inside the body are quite common. In men, the prevalence of rectal foreign bodies is actually twenty-eight times higher than in women. As most women already know, men are always losing things!

Certainly ERs are full of people of all ages with objects inside their bodies due to various reasons. However, statistically speaking, foreign objects in the body are most likely found in someone who is either in his twenties, when one will try anything for stimulation or to relax, or in his sixties, when one will try anything just to stimulate or relax the prostate. Of course, were not implying that men dont do stupid stuff in their thirties, forties, or fifties.

Truly, though, rectal foreign bodies are so common that they have their own section on the emedicine.medscape.com Web site. The emedicine entry mentions that controlled studies of rectal foreign bodies have yet to be done, though. Perhaps the dearth of scientific experiments regarding this practice is due to lack of volunteer enrollment?

In reality, ingested foreign bodies are overall more common than stuck, inserted objects. However, we have featured swallowed sundries less frequently in this book due to their perceived lower educational value for our readers. The teaching point here is that swallowed objects tend to be more common in younger children, a group with poor decision-making capacity due to factors beyond their control (unlike the fans of The Jerry Springer Show, who have no good excuse for their poor decision making).

No matter what you see and read here, we recommend that you do not try any of these scenarios at home, as you might end up requiring an X-ray, a surgical procedure, or face a significant risk of death or disability. For the record, we will not accept any X-rays submitted to us that were produced in an effort to re-create the vignettes and scenarios detailed in this book. So, again, please do not try this at home! Now, on the other hand, its a different story if you just happen to have an old X-ray lying around from back when you were vacuuming in the nude or walking around naked at home when suddenly