Randy called to the nurse. “Let’s do a rectal and see where this blood’s coming from.”
Arthur moaned like a poleaxed cow. “No, no,” he pleaded. “Don’t examine me there. Please.”
“You’re bleeding from there,” Randy said coolly. “I just want to put my finger inside. That may show us what’s going on with you.”
“No, please don’t,” whined Arthur. “It just hurts too much there.”
Suddenly the vision of a giant Coke bottle materialized in my mind.
“Listen, Arthur,” I said, “maybe this sounds a little silly, but you didn’t put anything up there, did you?” Arthur remained very quiet. Randy craned his neck at the X-rays, looking for a foreign object in the region of the rectum.
“Come on,” I said. “Why don’t you tell us what you did. If you don’t know it, you’re a pretty sick guy, and you may save your life. At least you may save yourself a rectal examination.”
Arthur looked up at me, his eyes full of fear. “You wouldn’t kick me out of here, would you?” he whimpered.
“Christ, no one ever gets kicked out of Bellevue,” I said. “Don’t you know that?”
Randy put on his examining glove with a snap.
“All right, all right,” cried Arthur. “I’ll tell you. A few of us were fooling around a little, you know, at a Gulf station up First Avenue a-ways. We were taking turns sticking the air hose up each other’s ass and blowing in a little air. It feels kinda funny, you know? Anyway, one of the guys decided to get wise; I didn’t know it. He turned the meter all the way up before he gave me my kick.” The little man winced in recollection. “Oh, I tell you, Doctor, I never felt such terrible pain in all my life. I thought he had blown me up.”
In fact, that was precisely what Arthur’s friend had done. They had been playing a game that some people called homosexual roulette: blowing air into their rectums from a gas-station hose. It was not an uncommon practice, and as one might imagine, injuries were not infrequent. But Arthur’s was in a class by itself.
Randy’s surgical team operated on him without delay, and found his rectum literally in shreds. He had peritonitis because the blast of air had sent a fecal aerosol spraying throughout his abdominal cavity. It was touch and go for several days, but Arthur finally survived, though with his rectum resected, he was left with a colostomy as a souvenir. An impacted Coke bottle would have been a bargain.
Generally speaking, homosexuals seemed to have trouble with their orifices. If it wasn’t the anus, it was the mouth. This latter situation was illustrated by one of our admissions during my tenure as intern on male medicine. He was a tall, very asthenic Chinese man who minced and pranced around the ward, causing the nurses and aides to collapse in helpless laughter. One of them teasingly offered to chaperone me while I examined him.
The patient’s name was Charlie Wong, and his problem was a high fever and a sore throat. That didn’t sound like anything special, and I wondered why the doctor in the Admitting Office had seen fit to admit him. As I examined him, however, I stopped wondering. Aside from his 104° temperature, he had a chain of swollen lymph glands the size of walnuts running the length of his neck on the left. And his sore throat looked like no strep infection I had ever seen. The entire left tonsillar region was covered with a very angry-looking red sore which was sending out rays of beefy inflammation so that the whole thing looked like a sunburst. Beneath the sore, the throat was so swollen it appeared ready to pop.
Charlie told me that he had been feeling increasingly ill for about a week, with progressive soreness and inability to swallow, and increasing malaise. I couldn’t begin to imagine what manner of dread disease he had. I swabbed his lesion, made smears, and examined them under the microscope, but I was unable to identify any particular offending bacterium. I thought
Arthur moaned like a poleaxed cow. “No, no,” he pleaded. “Don’t examine me there. Please.”
“You’re bleeding from there,” Randy said coolly. “I just want to put my finger inside. That may show us what’s going on with you.”
“No, please don’t,” whined Arthur. “It just hurts too much there.”
Suddenly the vision of a giant Coke bottle materialized in my mind.
“Listen, Arthur,” I said, “maybe this sounds a little silly, but you didn’t put anything up there, did you?” Arthur remained very quiet. Randy craned his neck at the X-rays, looking for a foreign object in the region of the rectum.
“Come on,” I said. “Why don’t you tell us what you did. If you don’t know it, you’re a pretty sick guy, and you may save your life. At least you may save yourself a rectal examination.”
Arthur looked up at me, his eyes full of fear. “You wouldn’t kick me out of here, would you?” he whimpered.
“Christ, no one ever gets kicked out of Bellevue,” I said. “Don’t you know that?”
Randy put on his examining glove with a snap.
“All right, all right,” cried Arthur. “I’ll tell you. A few of us were fooling around a little, you know, at a Gulf station up First Avenue a-ways. We were taking turns sticking the air hose up each other’s ass and blowing in a little air. It feels kinda funny, you know? Anyway, one of the guys decided to get wise; I didn’t know it. He turned the meter all the way up before he gave me my kick.” The little man winced in recollection. “Oh, I tell you, Doctor, I never felt such terrible pain in all my life. I thought he had blown me up.”
In fact, that was precisely what Arthur’s friend had done. They had been playing a game that some people called homosexual roulette: blowing air into their rectums from a gas-station hose. It was not an uncommon practice, and as one might imagine, injuries were not infrequent. But Arthur’s was in a class by itself.
Randy’s surgical team operated on him without delay, and found his rectum literally in shreds. He had peritonitis because the blast of air had sent a fecal aerosol spraying throughout his abdominal cavity. It was touch and go for several days, but Arthur finally survived, though with his rectum resected, he was left with a colostomy as a souvenir. An impacted Coke bottle would have been a bargain.
Generally speaking, homosexuals seemed to have trouble with their orifices. If it wasn’t the anus, it was the mouth. This latter situation was illustrated by one of our admissions during my tenure as intern on male medicine. He was a tall, very asthenic Chinese man who minced and pranced around the ward, causing the nurses and aides to collapse in helpless laughter. One of them teasingly offered to chaperone me while I examined him.
The patient’s name was Charlie Wong, and his problem was a high fever and a sore throat. That didn’t sound like anything special, and I wondered why the doctor in the Admitting Office had seen fit to admit him. As I examined him, however, I stopped wondering. Aside from his 104° temperature, he had a chain of swollen lymph glands the size of walnuts running the length of his neck on the left. And his sore throat looked like no strep infection I had ever seen. The entire left tonsillar region was covered with a very angry-looking red sore which was sending out rays of beefy inflammation so that the whole thing looked like a sunburst. Beneath the sore, the throat was so swollen it appeared ready to pop.
Charlie told me that he had been feeling increasingly ill for about a week, with progressive soreness and inability to swallow, and increasing malaise. I couldn’t begin to imagine what manner of dread disease he had. I swabbed his lesion, made smears, and examined them under the microscope, but I was unable to identify any particular offending bacterium. I thought
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