The tales from the ER are also very funny. People who swallow weird objects, or insert them in various orifices, or people saying uncensored things as the anesthesia wears off.
I read a joke about a man who brought his wife with him to a gathering of his co-workers, who'd never met her. Someone came over and said, "You must be his wife..." and she turned to her companion and snapped, "You have a WIFE???!"
As someone who has, at different times in my life, regularly been covered in not-my-own blood, the idea of fainting at blood has always been fascinating to me. I understand it anatomically (it’s a vasovagal reaction - heart slows, blood pressure drops, less oxygenated blood to the brain, you faint) but why is even a tiny quantity of blood so distressing that it provokes a full-on vasovagal reaction? Did they witness or were part of an incident when they were small that caused them to feel any amount of blood is a terrifying catastrophe? It is something they unintentionally learned from seeing someone else faint from blood exposure? Do some people instinctively fear visible blood? Why can people like me get soaked in someone else’s blood and it’s just another day at work for us, but a quarter-teaspoon coming out of someone’s finger will cause someone else to lose consciousness? What’s different between us to have such wildly varied reactions?
Apparently almost all primates are afraid of snakes - they showed snakes to orangutangs, chimps, gorillas, etc., and they all run away. I suspect other such viscerally-felt fears are leftover survival traits. If someone has lost a significant amount of blood, that means they were badly injured, and you should pass out and play dead before whatever harmed the other one comes after you. I'm not especially bothered by the sight of blood, but I have felt the whole "I'm about to faint" thing after experiencing something that terrified me, and then the terrifying thing stopped and went away and I nearly fainted from relief. And blood (and vomit, feces, and such things) just bother me because they're difficult to clean up, and I'm going to have to clean everything up, and I'd rather not have to be the one who does the cleaning; I don't like work. And having given birth and raised an infant to adulthood, I changed plenty of messy diapers.
I don't watch when medical professionals start an IV or draw blood for testing, not because it makes me feel faint, but it hurts worse when I see the needle puncture my skin.
I'm kind of fond of snakes. Their experience of the world is so completely different from that of common animals (most of whom are mammals). And they're often very beautifully colored, and they move so gracefully.
And human children go through stages when their preferred way to identify objects is by putting them in their mouth. So the child wasn't in very much danger. Most snakes are not venomous, and even the ones that are know better than to kill something that's too big for them to eat.
And there's the "optical cliff" - a transparent surface adjacent to an ordinary opaque horizontal surface, and a baby will crawl on the opaque part and turn around when it gets near the edge of the clear part. This also works with young apes.
That’s part of what is puzzling to me; if certain things are instinctive, shouldn’t they be species-wide? Why have some people born without certain instincts and other ones with? Or if it isn’t instinctive, has every person who faints at a small amount of blood experienced something that traumatized them and created that unconscious reflex? (Note that experiencing something doesn’t have to be direct; people can be vicariously traumatized by things they hear, see on TV, etc., especially when they’re young.) Having been a Scout leader (ages 5-10) and seen 75+ kids through bloody incidents like skinned knees and minor cuts, I’ve never yet met a child who faints at the sight of blood (they’re usually fascinated or titillated by someone else’s injury). But having worked in the medical field, I’ve certainly met adults who do.
I think that what could be a slight discomfort or dizziness in children could easily become palpitations and fainting in adults just due to size and blood pooling below the heart, especially when standing. I have an ex-roommate who couldn’t remember any trauma or anything but would either have to sit or lie down before he fell down at the sight of even small quantities of blood. His blood pressure would drop so visibly that he would go instantly pale, and sometimes we had to catch him or he’d hit his head on things from someone getting a bad cat scratch.
Yeah, vasovagal reactions are wild. Within literal seconds they transition from totally fine to pale, eyes dilated, skin clammy, often sweating. We never had long to intervene in those situations. At least usually we had advance warning (the person themselves knows about their reaction to blood and I always made sure to ask in advance), so in those cases I’d assign them a chair to sit in and we’d explicitly discuss 1) where blood was likely to occur and 2) to keep their butt in the chair and 3) to fold forward and breathe slowly through an attack if one happened.
I did manage to get all my forewarned clients through it with no fainting, but occasionally we’d come across someone who hadn’t yet learned that they react that way to blood. With those you just have to cross your fingers that someone is close enough to grab them and break their fall as they go down.
I have fainted from intense pain, and once when I thought someone I cared about had been severely injured or killed. And in each case, I knew to sit down and put my head between my knees and try to breathe slowly and steadily. (Yea, I was a precocious little brat. But I was strongly interested in science. And first aid is an aspect of medicine, which is a science, and learning first aid was accessible to a seven-year-old.)
I don’t think it’s “precocious little brat” territory at all for kids to learn basic first aid; I really wish we had time and space to teach it in elementary school. There have been parents and other family members whose lives have been saved by quick-thinkimg elementary-aged children (and sometimes even younger) who knew how to call 911 and communicate appropriately with first responders. There’s some basic first aid that’s accessible beyond that - don’t move a victim, go for help, put a pad and pressure over bleeding, help someone sit or lie down when dizzy or feeling faint, help hurt people breathe slowly by slowly counting to 4 over and over - even for early elementary schoolers.
Anything that helps kids feel more ready to deal with emergencies is a powerful tool to build a sense of competency and capability, and kids can and do help in real ways at times.
I've seen videos where a toddler - in one case, just about two years old - had been told to dial 911 if someone was hurt or sick. "My mommy fell down on the floor, and now she's asleep. But she's having a baby!" And the operator talked her through telling them her address, letting in the paramedics, and fetching towels and stuff, and she helped deliver her baby brother.
I just meant that I took as many opportunities as I could find to learn about "sciency" things like first aid, weather, and my curiosity make grownups think I was an obnoxious pest who asked too many questions about stuff kids weren't supposed to be able to understand. One time my father went to donate blood for the family member of a co-worker, and I asked if I could watch. They said, "No, we're afraid you'll faint or throw up, and we don't want that to happen. I said, "I don't faint", and I watched how they inserted the IV, and saw that freshly drawn blood flowing into the bag is a really interesting shade of red. My dad was proud of me for not reacting. The nurses were startled when I acted as if I were watching an educational movie.
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malionette
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Date: 2025-01-17 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-17 12:22 am (UTC)hugs you tightly I owe you email/text/communication!
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Date: 2025-01-17 12:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-17 01:10 am (UTC)“Wait a minute—YOU’RE my WIFE?” (As if he were trying to wrap his mind around his good fortune.)
Funny, but also romantic as all get out, the implication being that he’d fall in love with her all over again.
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Date: 2025-01-17 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-19 06:41 am (UTC)that one was ADORABLE.
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Date: 2025-01-17 05:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-17 07:29 pm (UTC)I don't watch when medical professionals start an IV or draw blood for testing, not because it makes me feel faint, but it hurts worse when I see the needle puncture my skin.
Warning for graphic displays of (domesticated) snakes.
Date: 2025-01-17 10:02 pm (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3L4lxusff1c
Re: Warning for graphic displays of (domesticated) snakes.
Date: 2025-01-17 10:09 pm (UTC)And human children go through stages when their preferred way to identify objects is by putting them in their mouth. So the child wasn't in very much danger. Most snakes are not venomous, and even the ones that are know better than to kill something that's too big for them to eat.
And there's the "optical cliff" - a transparent surface adjacent to an ordinary opaque horizontal surface, and a baby will crawl on the opaque part and turn around when it gets near the edge of the clear part. This also works with young apes.
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Date: 2025-01-17 11:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-18 12:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-18 03:13 pm (UTC)I did manage to get all my forewarned clients through it with no fainting, but occasionally we’d come across someone who hadn’t yet learned that they react that way to blood. With those you just have to cross your fingers that someone is close enough to grab them and break their fall as they go down.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-18 08:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-19 02:57 pm (UTC)Anything that helps kids feel more ready to deal with emergencies is a powerful tool to build a sense of competency and capability, and kids can and do help in real ways at times.
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Date: 2025-01-19 11:00 pm (UTC)I just meant that I took as many opportunities as I could find to learn about "sciency" things like first aid, weather, and my curiosity make grownups think I was an obnoxious pest who asked too many questions about stuff kids weren't supposed to be able to understand. One time my father went to donate blood for the family member of a co-worker, and I asked if I could watch. They said, "No, we're afraid you'll faint or throw up, and we don't want that to happen. I said, "I don't faint", and I watched how they inserted the IV, and saw that freshly drawn blood flowing into the bag is a really interesting shade of red. My dad was proud of me for not reacting. The nurses were startled when I acted as if I were watching an educational movie.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-17 07:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-18 05:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-01-18 07:35 pm (UTC)Ahhahahahah he's also pretty funny. His "arriving at the ER" series gives me nostalgia for my first job (which was terrible)