Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard - Armchair Anonymous: Foreign Object in Butt

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

Dax and Monica talk to Armcherries! In today's episode, Armcherries tell us a crazy story about finding a foreign object in a patient's butt.Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondery App or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch new content on YouTube or listen to Armchair Expert early and ad-free by joining Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Start your free trial by visiting wondery.com/links/armchair-expert-with-dax-shepard/ now.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts, or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Anonymous. I'm Dak Shepard, I'm joined by Monica Padman. Hi. I'm gonna put this, this is our first time with it

and I'm promising you right now it will not be our last time with it. This delivered on the order of unauthorized evacuation. This was crazy. Tell us a crazy story about finding a foreign object in a patient's butt. Fuck man, these were one after another. I've told every one of these stories five, six times, not everyone will listen. Me too.

Wait, we really should say though. Don't put anything up your butt. No, well yes, cautionary tale, don't put anything up your butt. Also, there is an animal involved in one of the stories. Oh, good, good, good. And it is upsetting. It is upsetting.

So for people who can't hear that. And if you can't do the math at this point with an animal's injured and foreign object, then you've been living under a rock. No, then congratulations to you. What a sweet life you're living. Look at me, hints, not a snake. Okay.

But that could be because they come up the toilet. I know, in your world they come up the toilet. Come right up the toilet. Please enjoy foreign objects and people's butts. We are supported by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all-in-one website platform designed to help you stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or scaling your business,

Squarespace gives you everything you need to claim your domain, showcase your offerings with a professional website, grow your brand, and get paid all in one place. Squarespace has been along for the ride with us as we've you know first just had a website then started selling merch and it's grown with us and has helped us scale. If you're a fellow creator Squarespace makes it easy to monetize your content easily sell access to online courses blogs videos and memberships. Start with a fully customizable website and earn recurring revenue by gating your content behind a paywall.

Simply set the price and choose whether to charge a one-time fee or a subscription for access. Start with a fully customizable website and earn recurring revenue by gating your content behind a paywall. Simply set the price and choose whether to charge a one-time fee or a subscription for access. This is why we love Squarespace. Setting up that kind of tech sounds hard, but they take all the guesswork out of it. You can get your site up and running quicker than you would have thought possible. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code DAX to save 10% off your first purchase

of a website or domain. That's Squarespace.com and promo code DAX to get started today. If you're like me, you're always craving that specific comfort food your grandma makes. And I finally found it. Nana's products just there in the deli section at the grocery store.

Samosas, toasties, and so much more, just like my Nana makes them. And you can tell from how they taste, they're made with love. So good that, you know, I gotta go. I need to go to the store right now. Nana's is proudly Canadian. Don't forget to visit yournanaskitchen.com

for more info. AnusKitchen.com for more info. All times come and go. Good times take them slow. My life, I had them both. Remember one thing you gotta know, I'ma keep on shining. Oh, foreign objects, what a great product. Actually, I don't know if Groot should be here for this.

Groot's just really young to hear about foreign objects up a butt. But he's a tree, so he's like, humans are so funny. We won't give him headphones either, it's fine. Okay. You can't hear us. Kim? Dax and Monica? Hi, where are you?

We're just gonna say that I'm in Vermont, in my closet. Great. By the way, just thanks for joining us for Foreign Objects. I don't think I've been this excited about a prompt in a very long time. This is a big deal. So actually my neighbor and I listen to you guys a lot. She's the best. I had been kind of MIA and she sent me the prompt.

She was like, it's go time. This is your time to shine. And we had two stories that we could have potentially shared. So I sent out a Google poll. This is the one that won. So I'm so excited. Wow, and I'm also jealous to have two that are so good you had to do a poll.

What a life you're living. Are you in the medical industry? I am in the medical industry for about 15 years. I am a nurse practitioner. So I was a nurse for a couple of years and I went on, got a degree and now I'm an NP, which is, we're not supposed to say it, but like a mid-level provider. Meaning somewhere between entry level nurse and doctor?

Yeah. So I can actually write prescriptions, do procedures. I can practice independently. NP is a cool gig. I did the same amount of time as going to med school, but just not as in-depth training as like a doctor. I work alongside them. Yeah.

Okay. So hit us with this foreign object story. I got a call to come down to the emergency room. There was a patient there that was constipated, which is kind of in the wheelhouse of the department I work for. I walk into the room and the guy's kind of pacing, not feeling well.

And so I sit down, I have a colleague with me, and we start doing the basic exam, like tell me about your diet, when was the last time you went? It's been over a week, and then you kind of have to ease into this subject a little bit and be like, so just tell me, could there be something lodged in there

preventing you from going to the bathroom? As you're hearing someone's constipated for a week, do you go through a most likely scenario? So for me, if I heard that, my first thoughts would be you're on opiates. That's on the differential list for that, of course. After working in this field for so long, I'm instantly like, what'd you put up there, bud?

Wow, it's that common. Yeah, diet soda is very common, but this one was out of left field. Oh, diet soda bottles, you mean, or diet soda causes constipation? Diet soda cans. That's like the most common thing. So instantly I'm like,

you probably have a diet soda shovel. Okay, hold on. There's so much here because what a revelation. And why diet? Diet Dr. Pepper. Wait, specifically diet Dr. Pepper? Number one soda up the poop chute. Is it possible?

Not at all. No objects in my prison wallet. Got it, man. We're gonna move forward with the exam. So I'm like, I'm just gonna take a look, make sure there's not like a tumor or anything, blocking anything. We're just gonna do a gentle rectal exam.

So he gets up on the table, puts his feet up, and my partner and I go to do just a rectal exam. And staring back at me are two of the most perfect doll feet ever. Monica, you grew up in like the 80s, 90s. So you know what Barbie's feet look like. Of course, they're so specific. You've seen Barbie feet.

They're just so perfect. So these two little beautiful feet are just staring back at us. Ew, no. I said, are you sure there's not an object shoved up there? He's like, I didn't put it up there. Somebody might have, but I didn't put it up there. Sure, who's the now one who did what, yeah. So I'm like, maybe didn't put it up there. Somebody might have, but I didn't put it up there. Sure. Who's the know what, who did what?

Yeah. So I'm like, maybe I can get him out. So I go to pull just gently on these two little perfect feet. It's tight. It's not coming out of there. The arms are acting as a fish barb. Also a Barbie is tallish to like have all the way up your butt so that's just the tiny feet. Yeah, she's gotta be what, 10 inches tall?

Probably. And she has hair. Of all the things, you don't want the hair in your butt. I kind of relate, yeah. We go to CT scan, and sure enough on CT, you see like the perfect, I wish I could show it to you, it's just like the most perfect image of Barbie. No! What an amazing thing to see on a scan.

Now be honest, did you take a picture of it? No, I didn't, because some people had just gotten in a lot of trouble for the other item that was up somebody's butt. And so I was like, I can't have this on my phone. So anyways, Barbie is now stuck because you hit the nail on the head, Dax. Her little arms are getting stuck because he put her arms down as he shoved her up in head first. And so anytime we try to pull her little arms aren't forgiving or letting her out. Can her arms go all the way up like this? Yeah, they go over her head. They can, but you'd have to put her in like that. He didn't think about it. Well, he didn't put her up there. So, oh, right. We're going to have to go to the OR. This is the only way we're going to

be able to get Barbie out. So we go into the operating room and her little hands have caused a hole because he's obviously been like tugging on her at home. So he gets a colostomy, all these things. But the best, absolute, most perfect moment is we're in the operating room. We take this Barbie out and it's not just Barbie. It's not Barbie in a swimsuit. It's President Barbie. He desecrated the most powerful woman in the free world and put it up his rear end. So then the jokes start flowing.

The misogyny. Oh, you wanna be president? You can be president of my ass. She'll do anything for a vote. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Was she white? Of course she was. We said president.

I know. I mean, a woman president already. Yeah, and then black woman, pretty get real. Although Michelle would have definitely been the shoe in. Okay, let's not bring her into this story. Well, she would have definitely been who could have won. Ugh, my God. Okay, when you came back to him and you said,

so we've done an X-ray, I'm sorry to tell you there's some, like, how does he handle this information? He goes, yeah, there might be an object up there, but never said her name, never admitted that it was President Barbie. I kind of understand his approach, which is you say to yourself, I gotta go get this removed, and I'm not gonna fucking talk to them.

You take it out, I'm not gonna engage at all. I'm just gonna get through this. Why do you think you have that privilege if you are putting... Because you're so humiliated that you know that talking about it is gonna be too much, so you just say to yourself, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna disassociate.

I think you should have to get on a loud speaker and tell the whole hospital what you've done. They shouldn't feel shame for this. Yes, the president lady. Okay, that aspect. That part's bad. He likes women of power. I guess maybe it could be like,

he wants a relationship with the female president. That's like the most generous. He's attracted to a powerful woman. Vermont's pretty progressive. But maybe he was for Bernie and then so he's mad. He's mad at Hillary. It's Hillary, she's representing. Or Kamala, we don't know what year this was.

It was in the Hillary timeframe. Oh! it's Hillary she's representing. Or Kamala, we don't know what year this was. It was in the Hillary timeframe. Oh. I don't think it was politically motivated. I think it was just something that he thought would feel good in his butt. Now was this his daughter? Like where'd he?

So many questions. Now isn't this something? I'm more disturbed about him potentially having gone to the store and buying a Barbie than I am about him putting anything in his butt. Yeah, that part's like pedophilia-y, or if it's his kids, that part's very bad. President Barbie felt pretty intentional.

That feels like I went to the store, I went on Amazon, I ordered her up. Let me ask you this, so the clothes were on her? You only know she's the president by her outfit. Pink power suit. And then later, the vote for Barbie pin came out of the ostomy. Wait, wait, wait. Back up. Tell me what the ostomy is. Ostomy is this little blip of your intestinal tract that we pull outside of your body to

rest your intestine. All your poop comes out into a bag out this little, what we call, stoma. You have to wait when you have an ostomy for poop to start back up before you to get released from the hospital. And so the nurse, I show up to discharge him and she's like, Kim, the vote for Barbie pin came out in the bag. Oh my God. So there was no denying it was President Barbie. She was in power. She was going for the campaign. It was there. Yeah. What is the procedure to remove it? Do you put in like a speculum and spread his intestine apart to pull it out? What happens? There's like a little rerouting

and then it's kind of like squishing sausage casing. Wow. I'm really mad at that. Why are you so mad? Dax, this is an act of violence against women. I think it was just there. He was probably inebriated. It was not just there. You think this was a political statement?

Well, he picked this Barbie. And the question is, did he pick it because it was close or this premeditated, I'm gonna get a president Barbie and humiliate her. Either way, it's that or if it was just there, we assume he used his kid's toy. They could have been long out of the house though. How old is this guy-ish?

He was 50s. The last kicker is, this is where you can kind of evaluate where you're headed with your hypotheses. So he's healthy, he's fine, he's going home. I'm discharging him, right? I'm going, okay, we're gonna see you back in clinic this day. We'll talk about reversing the ostomy this day. And he's like, I just have one more question.

Can I have the object you took out of me back? Because he had to return it. No. Nope. Ew, can you imagine? Oh my god. What a story. Bro, how a Barbie.

I mean, honestly, there's very few objects I can think of being more uncomfortable in your butt than the plastic Barbie with all the appendages. I know. What happened to her shoes? She was probably wearing high heels. He probably threw those right off of her. Shouldn't deserve them.

The heels were the first to go probably because you know it completed the power suit. Wow. This is great. This is a great story. It is great. It's really interesting to hear how you guys are taking it. I'm nervous we're shaming him. I think it's fine, you know, if you do this.

I always was like, oh, he really likes women of power, but you're saying this is a misogynistic thing. He likes to desecrate powerful women. And now all of a sudden I am getting angry. No, don't let her persuade you. There's no misogyny happening in here. Hey, hey, hey, you can't say that definitively. You're right, I can't.

I don't like that the doctors and the nurses have to deal with it. I don't mind, because you're like, this is what I want to do. Oh yeah, I've done it for 15 years. I don't feel bad for firefighters when a house catches on fire. It's like, that's what they do.

I get actually more mad when it's like, die at Dr. Pepper. And I'm like, man, come on, show some creativity. Well, lovely meeting you. Yeah, so nice to meet you. You too, it was so good meeting you. Shout out to brother Luke and Kent and Susan, the neighbor who put me up to this.

Wonderful, take care. Oh, hello. We're going by Toby. Yeah. Are you in the medical profession? Yeah, I'm an emerged doc. I've been an emerged doc for over 20 years. Did you watch the pit?

I watched one episode. Okay, and you didn't like it. No, it was good. It's just that we watched it with the family and then the kids didn't want to continue watching it. It was going to be something I was going to kind of pursue on my own. Okay, because it's like dad's work.

We don't want to watch that. It was pretty realistic though. Okay, so Toby, please tell us about your foreign object story. This was a few years ago. I was working in our kind of low acuity area as like minor injuries and my next patient to be seen on the tracker, it says, no chief complaint.

That means that they weren't really upfront with the nurses at triage, and you know something is weird. What percentage of people who come in under that description do have something in them? 100%. Maybe not 100%, but I definitely walked into the room knowing there was a significant chance that this dude had something in one of his holes.

Middle-aged guy, he looks healthy, definitely a bit haggard from the night before, but he's this intense dude and he's just really locked in on me. He went all out. Whole lot of cocaine and then in his words, a bunch of hookers. Oh wow. Okay. A bunch, boy. That's definitely more than three. I didn't pin him down on the numbers. He said, at some point in the night, things got carried away and I ended up with something in my ass. He's not sure exactly

what it was or he wasn't willing to divulge, but he knows there's something there and he can't get it out and he wants it out. We are supported by Airbnb. Oh, I love Airbnb. We love Airbnb. We use it nonstop. Most memorable. Exactly. We've traveled the whole country and the world. Yes. We've been on tours and stayed exclusively at them. It's so fun. So much cozier.

Yeah. You really feel like you're kind of a resident. Yeah. Of wherever you're visiting. Because some trips are better in an Airbnb. Today is the worst day of Abby's life. The 17-year-old cradles her newborn son in her arms. They all saw how much I loved him. They didn't have to take him from me. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families ship their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity

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or wherever you get your podcasts. And you can listen early and ad-free idea yet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts and you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus. And if this podcast lasts longer than 45 minutes, call your doc. So when you're not sure exactly what's going on, you need to get some imaging first. You don't want to just do an internal exam without knowing what's going on. Sometimes you'll find things like broken glass, needles, even things like razor blades. So we do an x-ray and it shows a 12 ounce beverage can in his rectum. No perforation, no obstruction. So bring him back and then we start talking to him

about removing it. How difficult or how hard do you think it is to remove something from someone's ass? You're the second person we've spoken to and my first question was like what do you use like a speculum? Do you use what you would use in a pap smear? Do you open then you put tongs in and pull it out? What do you do? It's a tough procedure. You've got this like ergonomic challenge in the sense that you've got this really small space that you're working in and then access to out. What do you do? It's a tough procedure. You've got this like ergonomic challenge in the sense that you've got this really small space that you're working in. And then access to that space is by even a smaller, tighter hole that's super innervated

and goes into spasm really easily. And then the actual object itself is big and slippery. And it's like when you drop your cell phone down the side of your car seat, you can jam your hand like deep down there and you can actually touch it, but you can't pick it up. And it's just super frustrating. Okay, really quick, Toby, I just had what my idea would be, and I don't even know if it

would be possible. But I think the move would be to somehow sink a wood screw into the bottom of the can and then pull that out. There are some case reports of people doing things with that with bottles and stuff. They have a bottle with the open end facing down, and then they'll put like a catheter into the bottle and then fill the bottle with cement and then like let it harden and then pull it out.

That's kind of the extreme stuff. But essentially the first step is something called anal dilation. What you need to do is you need to gradually stretch out the anus so you can get as much of your hand in there as possible to remove the object. Essentially we're medically fisting them. So you go one finger, two finger, three finger, and then full KitKat and then thumb and then

and then fist and then pass to your wrist. Once you have gotten the fist past the sphincter, when you're actually in the intestine is it then easy to open your hand? Is that really really elastic? Just with the object there you're actually in the intestine, is it then easy to open your hand? Is that really, really elastic? Just with the object there, you're definitely working in a confined space. It's not this infinite space that you can just act freely in there. When you do each finger individually, your anus is getting used to it, basically.

Yeah, just slowly stretching it out. The vast majority of these people, though, they need to be deeply sedated. It's super innervated and it just hurts too much. Anybody with something big, like a first timer, they be deeply sedated. It's super innervated and it just hurts too much. Anybody with something big like a first timer, they're getting sedated. Oh my God, how many people are not first timers? Well, look, if you like things in your butt, you like things in your butt.

It's not like one trip to the emergency rooms shuts that down. I work at an academic center, a teaching center. We have emergency medicine residents. So the person doing the procedure was my resident and she was perfect for it. Right. She's eager, competent, and then most importantly, she's got thin wrists and strong hands because I work with some old dudes that have like big meat hooks. Oh, they'd wreck his O-ring.

So we do the sedation and she's able to get her whole fist in there. And then she gets her hand on the can and starts pulling and she can't get it out. It's too stuck. You can get a suction that develops because the walls of the rectum just are completely covering the outside of the can and then the proximal colon just collapses and it's like a finger trap. Oh my god. Right?

When you pull on this thing. Yeah, yeah. You need to inflate it? We considered the other options we have. Like we can use instruments like you talked about. so there's obstetrical instruments, vacuum extractors. You can sometimes try to pass a catheter to the level of the object or past it, and then inflate air, pass it to try to break the suction. I've seen that once and it's super gross and it didn't work.

Just like constant shit mist coming out of the guy's ass. Oh wow. Oh my. It's just a continuous ass. Oh wow. Wow, wow, wow. It's just a continuous fart. Oh my God. You were on the front line, my friend. You can also try to push down on the,

like the interior of their lower abdomen to get it down to where the other person can kind of grab it better. So we considered the options and then I was just talking to the resident and I said, which way is the can facing? And she said, the top of the can is facing down. I said, can you feel the facing? And she said, top of the can is facing down. I said, can you feel the tab?

And she's, yeah, I can feel the tab. So I said, I think we should open it in his ass. So she goes in there, we open it up and it's just this river of coliform blood and micro turds. That's a medical term by the way, micro turds. You truly can't see them, but it lasted forever. And so we're just sitting there waiting and just pouring onto the bed and the floor. Finally stops, she goes in there, crush the can, and with crushing the can, she broke

the suction and she's able to get really good mechanical purchase on it. Pull it down to the level of the anus. Once you're at the anus, you gotta get the rim over the can. And once you pop that out, it's out. So it pops out and it's a can of Coke Zero. Oh, okay. This is consistent. We've heard it's always diet soda.

I love that detail. I love the idea of the guy party planning the day before going like, yeah, I got the cocaine. Get the hookers. And then like his idea of harm reduction was getting diet soda. Exactly. Like let's keep it healthy. Keep it in homeostasis.

Wow. He wakes up and he's feeling fine. I offer him some follow-up, see a surgeon just to make sure there's no kind of long lasting injury. He declines it, thanks us, just head held high, turns on his heel and just leaves the department. These are obviously embarrassing things, but at the same time, I really respected the dude, right? Cause he partied with true commitment, left everything on the field, accepted the consequences, and then was grateful. All the respect to you. Yes. That's what I was going to say. So our previous guest, I have like a weird feeling

about that person, but I don't actually about this guy. I think cause he came in, he was like, look, I did all this. I'm naughty. I partied. Yeah, yeah. And this is what happened. It's like a full acknowledgment. That makes it better.

100%. He didn't hurt anybody. He didn't put anybody else at risk. He was just pushing the edge of the envelope. I just want to say how stimulating and gratifying it is to hear you speak. You have such a great vocabulary. There's such precision in the way you speak.

And also, you're talking about shit and coke spraying out. Yeah, it's real mixed messages in our favorite way. That's really kind of you. It's OK if I give two shout outs? Of course. So number one, it's to Heather. She's a doc I work with. She's a huge fan of Armchair Expert,

and she's the one that forwarded me this prompt. Thank her on our behalf. Probably one of the best colleagues you could ever imagine. The other big shout outs to my actually Emerge group, all the people I work with. It's a really challenging environment, and where we work, it's extra challenging right now.

All the people I work with are just so committed to each other, the community, our department. I'm just so grateful to be able to work with such a committed, selfless group of people. That's awesome. That was a great shout out. Yeah. Well, Toby, it's a delight to meet you.

Have a great day. Take care, enjoy your summer. Now do you think the first guy's weird? I don't, but that's okay, I understand. It's funny, because your fear is that the first guy was misogynistic. No, creepy. Oh, okay.

There's a creepiness to that story that this one doesn't have. Right, right, right. Even though technically it's the same thing, it's not. The second guy sounds really fun, I'll tell you that. I don't know if I'll be able to unhear micro turds. Hi, is this Danielle? Yes, it is.

Oh, wonderful. Nice to meet you. You have a very soft plush blanket behind you. That's gonna dampen the sound beautifully. I did, I did all the things that I hear people do. And it's perfect. Where are you? I'm in Massachusetts. And it's perfect. Where are you? I'm in Massachusetts. You're in the medical profession

or you yourself had something lodged? I'm in the medical profession, I'm a resident physician. And do you know what your specialty will be or you don't know yet? You know, when you graduate medical school, you become a doctor and then you do a residency in your chosen field, so I'm family medicine. Okay, wonderful.

I gotta ask, have you watched The Pit? Not yet. Oh man. A lot of my colleagues have watched it and said it's phenomenal. I just came off a very heavy inpatient block, so it's hard to come home from a heavy block and also watch that on TV.

I come home and I wanna see something light and funny. Yes. Okay, so you have a foreign object story. This took place in 2019. I was a first year medical student. We get paired up with a doc and the ED just to get a really early clinical experience. Is the ED an emergency department? Yes. It didn't have any particular interest in the emergency department. It's just that's where

they stuck me. It was in the fall. I'd been a medical student for maybe two or three months at this point. Really quick. You said it's in the fall and I immediately hope it's an apple, but continue. I always wish it was an apple. I'm the only one for a couple of hours. It's somewhere between eight and 10 PM. We have a gentleman in his late 20s. His main concern is rectal pain. I'm working with an attending and a resident and the attending doctor sends me in to go talk to him because at this point, my only skill is that I can ask

patients basic questions and like listen to their heart. If I have something stuck in my butt, the last person I want to talk to is a 21 year old girl. I want them to send in my butt, the last person I want to talk to is a 21 year old girl. I want them to send in like an old truck driver. Yeah. Well, in hindsight, when I retell the story, I feel bad for this guy that he got me. And I walk in and I'm like, hi. Hi.

And trying to use all my tricks to get him to tell me what's going on because he's being kind of evasive, not weird or anything like that, but answering my questions with just yes or no and not giving me additional information. So eventually we get there. He proceeds to tell me how he took a one and a half inch PVC pipe, lubed up the end of it and inserted into the rectum. So at this point, I'm thinking like he has pain after that or maybe something happened and he's bleeding a little bit. He proceeds to tell me that he proceeds to put a hamster in the other

end of the PVC pipe and give it a little tilt. This is not real. This is a urban legend we thought. But I've read this in the newspaper because you know the famous one where the guy's butt exploded because they used the inside of a paper towel. The hamster got stuck, then they tried to see it with a lighter and they filled the rectum with butane

and when it finally lit, it exploded. That was in the newspaper. That is real? I really believe so. I really thought this hamster up the butt was urban legend and now we've found. Wow. Well, you know what?

Even if it started as urban legend, you might have heard it so much that you're like, I don't know, maybe that's great. We'll circle back to that. So he tells me that he did this. Now I'm still thinking like, oh, he got scratched or something. And then he proceeds to tell me that when the hamster

hit the inside of the rectum, it hurt. So he clenched and the PVC pipe came out because it was all lubed up. These things go sideways in a hurry. And he goes, and I couldn't find the hamster. After the PVC pipe came out, he tried to reinsert the PVC pipe thinking that maybe the hamster would, I don't know, wiggle its way out. And he was like, I actually think I shoved it further. He could feel it moving a little bit and the pressure because it is a whole hamster in

his butt. So it had been at that point, I think like two hours. Oh no. Oh, okay. I need to acknowledge this right now, which is I don't think anyone should feel shame for any of these stories. I don't care if people put things in their butt. But I gotta say, whenever I've heard the hamster one, I'm like, I don't like it because it's animal cruelty. It is animal cruelty I've heard the hamster, when I'm like, I don't like it because it's animal cruelty.

It is animal cruelty. This poor little hamster. Yeah, you're just a little hamster and then you're in someone's hairy butt. I imagine dies immediately out of suffocation. The bowel is pretty flexible, so I imagine it kinda- Squished him.

Yeah. So I get this information, and he's not creepy at all at any point. He's like just so embarrassed. So I go out and tell my attending physician and the resident this, and they're just floored floored and all apologetic about sending me in there by myself. And I was like, no, no, he was looking nice. You wouldn't have had a toll as you're from Massachusetts.

Exactly. We would have figured it out. My shift was supposed to end about then, but I hung around to wait for them to call the gastroenterologist or the general surgeon's because now we have to get This hamster out we took a pelvic x-ray and on the x-ray you could see a little skeleton of this hamster This is upsetting. Yeah. Yeah, this is morbid Until your point about this being an urban legend So my attending was a little less fazed by this because turns out he had already seen this twice before in his career

No, wow. This was the third time apparently it's something called juggling I don't know if it started out as inner brim legend But if you look it up, it's all over the internet with how to's on reddit Oh my god, and I said we had a ton of gerbil. No. Oh my god. Yeah. Oh wow This is a terrible revelation if you are in the business of selling gerbils and hamsters, you cannot sell a single dude in his twenties and above. That pet only exists for children. You cannot trust a man coming in and just buying it.

It's America, bro. You can do whatever you want. Okay, so he's up there. Essentially, they went in and extracted the hamster. With tongs or a vacuum? I'm actually not positive. What I wish I had done is taken a photo. I'm new here, I don't know if this is okay to do and HIPAA. We heard somebody got in trouble

for taking a photo of one of these things. I would, I hate to tell you. I would too. I think the ethical thing is if you told people who it was, but a random picture of a skeleton in a human's butt, I think that's funny. It's a party favor. You deserve it. You deserve it random picture of a skeleton in a human's butt. I think that's funny. It's a party favor, you deserve.

You deserve it. If you're dealing with this. Great point, you should be able to walk with something. If it was me now, without the patient information, I absolutely would take a photo. Good. It's okay, good, we condone that. Glad to hear that. We don't condone selling hamsters

to 20 year old and above men, and we do condone taking pictures. Wow. So they use some sort of tube and then they get that hamster up there. What do they think? It's gonna feel good? Yeah, I think they think it's gonna feel like

a bunch of vibration and movement next to their prostate. Yeah, exactly. They don't wanna just use a vibrator? Just use a vibrator, yeah. Now we have another public service announcement. If you're an entrepreneur, come up with a product called the hamster. And it's a little egg and it has a long string on it. And you turn it on and you bury it in your butt

and then let it all go around in there. And then you can pull it out with this string. Are you so glad you chose this path? I do love my job. I work a lot, but I think I have the best job in the world. I'm so happy for you. Thank you for getting involved in medicine. We need more.

We need more primary care doctors specifically, desperately. Yeah. Well, Danielle, thank you so much. That was lovely. My partner, Claire, who got me in to listen to your guys' podcast is actually right here and she's a huge arm sharer. Is it okay if she says hi really quick?

Yeah, give her one of your earbuds. Hello, hi. Hi. You hit the jackpot because your partner must come home with so many stories. Oh yeah, for sure. She like forgets about them, but hi. Hi. You hit the jackpot, cause your partner must come home with so many stories. Oh yeah, for sure. She like forgets about them, but I have to ask if weird things happen,

cause they always do, but she thinks they're normal. You should have a little diary of things that she tells you. Yeah. I do. And that's actually the only way I recently remembered the story. And we were joking after I remembered it,

I was like, oh, I hope that they have a foreign object prompt soon. And literally the next week you posted it on the Instagram story. Yeah. Oh wow. Well, it's great meeting you both. I'm so delighted you listened and that you shared that story with us.

Yes, we love listening to you guys. Thank you so much for everything you do. Our pleasure. Have a great day. One thing, I still think the first person's the worst, okay? What, you think it's worse than killing a hamster? No, I think it's really bad to kill a hamster, but the thing is, I don't think that person

thought it was gonna happen that way. I don't think their intention was creepy. I don't know what to say, that first one has a creepiness. It shook you. Yeah, now also when you said the apple thing, what if someone put an apple there, it didn't go very far, so it's kind of at the edge. The only way they could get it out is they had to take a bite out of it.

Oh, that sounds great. I'd love to eat an apple out of a lover's butt, to be honest with everyone. That sounds wonderful. Don't try that at home, guys. Caramel apple even better. No, too sticky. You're right.

Hi. Hi, what name should we use for you? Do you guys wanna go ahead and pick one? You look like this girl Danielle Fox I was in love with as a kid that lived next to my grandpa. So I'm gonna go with Danielle, is that okay? But we, yeah. Why does that matter?

Okay. Pick another one, go ahead. No, actually, you know what's weird is I thought also Danielle, is that okay? But we, yeah. Why does that matter? Okay. Pick another one, go ahead. No, actually, you know what's weird is I thought also, Danielle, that's really weird. That is weird, let's go with Danielle. But then I was like, oh, maybe it's because we just heard one, but maybe it's just cause that's your aura. I'll take it, Danielle aura.

Danielle, are you in the medical profession or did you have an object lodged? I was in the medical profession. I did not have the object lodged. Okay, okay, great. In what capacity? Years ago, I was in the medical profession. I did not have the object lodged. Okay, okay, great. In what capacity? Years ago, I was in ER tech, which is basically an EMT that works

in the emergency department instead of on the ambulance. Okay, and your job is to what, stabilize people? I had my hands in and on everything, just helping out. Mm-hmm. Do you watch the pit? I did watch the pit. It was so good. Yes! Okay, you loved it.

She got one. Okay, great, you're one out of four. Seriously? Yeah, I know, they're missing out. I'm glad you loved it. Okay, so you have a front row seat to a lot of action if you're an emergency room tech. All right, let's hear it. Yeah, walk us through this scenario.

This was years ago, it was a holiday. A gentleman came in and when you first come into the ER, you get triaged. So in triage, she was saying, yeah, my knee hurts. I go out to get the patient. We're walking from the lobby back to the room and I'm noticing he's limping. He is walking weird. Get him back to the room.

We're talking and the story completely changes. I would want an old grizzly truck driver that I had to tell this to. You would be the last. You're a hard person to tell this story to. I would be like, isn't there someone else I can tell this to? Yeah, I think even I wouldn't wanna tell you. Right.

Like, get me a war vet who's seen it all. This person is so put together. She watches the pit. I can't tell her this story. And I'm a scumbag who puts things in my butt. Exactly. Thankfully, he was very forthcoming with all of his information.

Get him in the room, he starts talking. He said, yeah, I said I had knee pain out there because I was embarrassed. I actually have something up my butt. And I said, oh, okay. Like I've heard this so many times before. After doing this prompt, I'm inclined to think 20% of all emergency room visits are like this.

I think potentially 70% of people have done this. I feel behind, pun intended. I think I'm gonna put- Don't do it. I'm gonna put something enormous in my pot tonight. You have children. I think of your children. Okay.

He says, I'm a little bit embarrassed. I said, what did you put? And he said, well, I was in the garage and it's a can of butane. Oh no. Okay. Explosive. Yeah. In the past, I've had a beer bottle, which isn't great glass, a shampoo bottle, those

kinds of things, but I'd never had a combustible compressed gas. Go out, talk to the doctor, we get imaging and it is in fact a very large can of butane. Could you make it relative to something like, how large are we talking? Is it like a bottle of hairspray size? Oh, you're looking at a picture. Oh. You got a picture.

Oh, we get to see it. Oh my God. We gotta get a focus. You might need to put your hand behind it like they do in makeup videos. Oh my fucking God. Okay, it's gotta be 14 inches. It's enormous.

Oh no. Wow. It's almost like a rolling pin. How did he even get that up there? With gumption and stick to it. And see Monica, that's the question I have as well. How? And how do you lose your grip on it?

The circumference is big. Maybe you've already demonstrated you're reckless because you've put something that big in there, but what I never understand about these stories is like, how do you play with fire and go in so deep? Keep a third of the bottle out so you can keep a good grip on it. Well, I think part of the fun for them

is like how far can it go? Okay, well, that's sexy I guess. Oh God, see? Now I get it, you're right. So that's a huge cannon there. Oh, God, see? Now I get it. You're right. So that's a huge can in there. Oh, I mean enormous. Whoa. Huge can.

So for this, it's not something that we can remove in the emergency department. We'll have to do a general surgery consult. They'll have to take them to the operating room. This is a holiday. The OR staff isn't there. It's the call team that has to come in. So any other semi-emergent cases are going to get bumped.

The surgeon comes down and is like, OK, I haven't dumped a can of butane, but we're doing it. The key piece of all this is we use what's called a bovie in the operating room, which is an electro-caudery device for dissection, cauderization, anything like that. But when you have a can of butane in your butt, you cannot use that. So the surgery takes much longer and it's way more complicated. What are they doing? Are they cutting open the abdomen? They go from the front.

That's my understanding. I haven't been on any laparotomy. And then they're just pushing everything around. They're moving all your organs out of the way and then they're going to slice your intestine, which is so dicey, man, because then you gotta suture it, and then you gotta pass stool through there. This is very Grey's Anatomy, like when the bomb was in the person,

and the hand was stuck. This is very that, because everything could explode. It's such a good episode, and it has this Coldplay and REM song. Okay, back to this. So the staff comes in. Says, okay, I guess we're doing this. Takes him to the OR and they successfully removed it.

Wow. And I shortly after stopped working in that emergency room. So I don't know if he came back later with the same thing going on, but that was a semi-regular occurrence where someone would do this and then six or eight months later, they'd come back having done the same thing again. Here's what I can guarantee. Fucking T happened after that surgery.

They took that bottle and they walked up to every floor of the hospital and they told everybody they knew this is what we just pulled out. There's no fucking way they didn't parade that thing around the whole hospital. Anything you take out, you're supposed to send a pathology. But I'm wondering what the pathologist's face was when a can of butane came. That is so risky. A rolling pin size. He really could have blown up.

This is why I think there's something more to the psychology. You wanna play with danger a little bit. Because the fact that they're doing it again and again means something. They get off on Yeah, because the fact that they're doing it again and again means something. They get off on this, on the danger element. Also, I'm not even a germaphobe, but if I'm gonna put an enormous object in myself,

I'm not doing it in the garage. It might be a cousin to exhibitionists. Really what they're getting off on is seeing the reaction. Oh. It might have something to do with that. Maybe in some small percentage of them, yeah. Yeah, I didn't think about that. Yeah, like they're praying they get the 23 year old.

We think it's like, we're sorry for them, but really they got what they wanted. Yeah, I was naughty. Uh oh, Danielle. Sorry, Daniel. I'm back. It's really bad this time. It could blow up this whole hospital. Oh my God.

Like that's one stop short of coming in and saying I have a stick of TMT in my hand. Yes, the bomb. I put a piece of dynamite on my ass. It's wild. Oh, well that's just delightful. And the fact that you had a photo is incredible. Yeah, I'm glad you got one.

Some of these other people didn't get their picture and they've missed out. Or they did and they didn't show us. You got to. You've earned minimally that. Thank you, I agree. We'll probably have this prompt again. We may talk to you a second time. We are definitely doing this again.

Yeah, yeah. That's fabulous. I've got kind of a laundry list of random ER things. Sure, sure. Wow. Okay, well, lovely meeting you. It was nice to meet you guys too. Thanks so much.

Bye. All right, take care. Here's my conclusion. We live in a wild world. Okay, well, lovely meeting you. It was nice to meet you guys too. Thanks so much. All right, take care. Here's my conclusion. We live in a wild world and the monkeys are wild. The monkeys are so wild. The Barbie's the creepiest one. That's still for you.

That one really got you. You'll probably be thinking about that throughout the weekend. Yeah, you know what it reminds me of you, not you. I don't like that you like this show because we're in the same Laura Ingraham situation all the time. You've now brought up this show like, I don't know, nine times. It's a great show.

And you said it to a guest yesterday and I could feel his confusion, but you're good at going the show on Netflix. You are good at that part. Yeah, I'm really good at stuff. But I saw it on you on this topic. It's like, okay, continue. I kind of like it.

Anyway, I finished it. I finished the show. Oh, I'm sorry. But he's so fucked up, but I feel like he's real. Right. And this is confirming that. I agree with that theory. I have always said anything you can think of,

someone's done. It's happening. Yeah. Wow, what a prompt. What a blessing. Thanks everybody for participating. Yeah. And guys, keep some of the object out of your butt for crying out loud or tie a string to it.

Have some fucking contingency plan. Also, if you're gonna do it, maybe don't do it on a holiday because now these doctors have to come in on their day off. That's fair. That's not nice. Look up in your local area when the slowest times are at the ER

and then plan your anal exploration for that time. And everybody watch the pit if you have it. If you're not positive, Monica does recommend The Pit. Love you. Love you. Do you wanna sing a tune or something? We know a theme song. Oh, okay, great.

We don't have a theme song for this new show So here I go, go, go We're gonna ask some random questions And with the help of ourchairs we'll get some suggestions on the flyer-rind-ish, on the flyer-rind-ish. Enjoy! Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus

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