Nurses are truly superheroes.
They work long shifts, respond at a moment’s notice, and see to the care of hundreds of patients in their hospital. We rarely take time to appreciate them for all of their hard work, and many of us don’t realize how much they do day in and day out.
Sure, caring for sick children, delivering babies, or caring for post-op patients all come to mind when we think of what it is that nurses do for us. But what about the not-so-pleasant things? The nitty gritty that we don’t even want to let our minds wander to.
Fortunately, thanks to Andreas Polychronis on TikTok, we don’t even have to let our minds go there. He’s doing that for us.
Andreas posted a TikTok of a nurse analyzing an X-ray which appeared to be showing a cassette tape lodged in a patient’s rectum.
Andreas joked that the nurse thought he was going to go home in time until this patient came in with an odd and off-color issue.
According to his bio, Andreas’s videos are mostly skits but this one in particular does call attention to a particularly awkward problem that many a nurse has the displeasure of encountering.
The imagery of the cassette tape on the X-ray screen begs one very pressing question: how did that even happen?
Some commenters are wondering where the patient even found a cassette tape in 2024 and why their first instinct upon locating one was to shove it up their rectum. Others are wondering how a cassette tape even fits in this person’s anus. I mean, cassette tapes aren’t thick, but they are pretty wide.
One person joked that the patient must’ve wanted to feel the music, while others mused that the nurse was probably regretting every life choice that led him to this moment.
At this point, the main question among the almost 30 million viewers isn’t why, but how. And how the nurse and surgeons were going to get that out of there.
According to WebMD, if a foreign object gets stuck in your rectum, it should be removed immediately, as it may cause serious complications. If the object isn’t removed, it may cause symptoms including abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, fever, rectal bleeding, or peritonitis, which is inflammation of the abdominal wall. WebMD recommends seeking emergency medical assistance if you have a fever or are bleeding. Most emergency departments have the tools to remove objects from the rectum.
It’s not a nurse’s job to question how something ended up in a grown patient’s anus. Nine times out of ten they probably already know the answer. However, commenters with nursing experience noted that most people won’t tell the truth. Everyone knows that it was likely to evoke some sort of pleasure.
But most patients will say that slipped and fell at a miraculous angle and ended up with a cassette tape in their butt.
Whatever odd, obscure, and one and a million circumstances landed this particular patient in this position, here’s hoping they thanked their nurse profusely.
And that this wasn’t his final sign to switch to a cushy — and far from tushy — career in finance.