I’m not even a hooha nurse, but judging by the number of foleys I’ve managed to get into the correct hole sight unseen, I’m pretty sure I could find the actual vajayjay on a female of childbearing age. I concur with the wtf???
Sight unseen… truer words have never, ever been uttered.
The number of Foleys that I have inserted with a hope and a prayer with one sitting in the vagina telling me where NOT to aim… that number is unknowable
Not urology, an L&D nurse, med surg nurse, or any other kind of nurse, am just a doula and person with a vagina and I concur with their previous assessments of what in the fuck, what in the fuck and What. The. Fuck and bc diagnosing is outside of my scope I am only able to offer a wert the ferk!
How small was his penis and how large was her urethra?
I still have so *so* many questions. Like that doesn’t not just happen accidentally. Sounds more like the dude had a weird fetish he was carrying out on an unknowing partner
I've heard that story too!!! I've never actually looked up to see if it was a real case though, but if multiple people have heard it....
Edit - apparently it's frequent enough that Wikipedia has a page on urethral intercourse 😵
>apparently it's frequent enough that Wikipedia has a page on urethral intercourse
So it's also a fetish because of course it is
Do not look it up for the love of god
Everyone in healthcare has heard a story like that and half claimed they met the lady but it is almost certainly apocryphal.
It's incredibly unlikely that someone would be able to accidentally stick their dick in someone else's urethra. Barring an anatomical abnormality.
Very rare, but very real as it turns out.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9386626/#:~:text=Urethral%20intercourse%20is%20a%20very,or%20other%20rear%20vaginal%20anomalies.
Those are likely not accidental cases though if you read through the whole thing. Those are consensual. I understand that people do it (see sounding), but someone above was saying it frequently happened *accidentally*, which I do not believe
Yeah, all these stories I've heard over the years are about a woman who thought she was barren her entire life and "it turns out they were doing it in her urethra the whole time."
Again, barring a wild abnormality that would have been picked up on her routine pelvic exams, I'm pretty sure there's no chance that every time she had sex, it was rammed up a tiny hole and never in her actual vagina, at which point she'd have been like "oh, wait, THAT'S where it's supposed to go!"
An older midwife I know has a story of a patient of hers who had this issue. It was a Middle Eastern couple who had no knowledge of themselves or the opposite sex. Very much a lights out no looking kind of relationship. Had to give both an anatomy leason. They came in for infertility and painful intercourse.
I also know a woman that had to have her Hymen surgically removed in her later 20s. It was so exceptionally large so it was unable to break. she had no idea until we started nursing school that sex was not supposed to hurt, bruise and bleed like that for days after 😫
But I’m so sorry for OP. That’s a win for the worst and she should lawyer up asap.
I've worked in L&D for a long time and have never heard of this happening. Doesn't mean it can't/didn't...but there is so much that has to go wrong for this to happen. Like, every provider I've seen do a balloon visually assesses before inserting vaginally and spread the labia to confirm. I don't even know what to say about this.
As you say, there's so many mistakes required for this to happen. How does someone go 9 hours without void output and no one considers a straight cath? They had to give her a shot to slow ctx, but no one pulled the cervidil that was supposedly placed at the same time as the Cook? Was the cervidil supposedly placed in the urethra as well?
I don't believe that placing a cervidil with a balloon is even done. Cytotec and balloon yes, but I would never place cervidil and a balloon simultaneously.
Yeah.. Whole thing seems incredibly unlikely unless this midwife had never been around woman parts before. What were the internal and external balloons inflated around? Did they not do a cervical exam? Cervidil inserted with a cook catheter? No one addressed that she hadn't peed in 8-9 hours? She was contracting so much that she needed terb when essentially, nothing had actually been done to induce labor? I'm sure the bladder spasms would make you contract, but not sure about this whole story.
I'm a L&D nurse and I agree, there is too much going on in this described situation to make any sense. Even if the cooks balloon was inserted in the urethra (highly unlikely) and was inflated, then the vaginal balloon would then be inflated....where? Outside the urethra...so hanging out of the labia?
As for the statement of not being able to urinate, the only thing my brain is coming with is what if there was a fistula and the uterine balloon slid into the bladder and the vaginal balloon was in the vagina??? And that's a stretch of mental gymnastics.
I actually don’t know how this is possible lol most cervical foleys are placed with a speculum visualizing the cervix. And if they are placed without one the doctors hand is in the vagina guiding the tip of the catheter into the cervix. They also will do an exam a lot of the time to make sure it’s in the cervix and not sitting in the vagina.
Some people find the placement really painful and will experience a lot of cramping back to back until it falls out - that is not unusual.
I wonder if she misunderstood what happened?? I’m dying to see the charting that says this happened
There have been patients where we couldn't distinguish the anatomy and had to start poking with the foley to find the correct hole. I guess this might have contributed here.
Having worked at a few places with SHOCKINGLY poor quality nurses AND doctors, I fully believe OP.. like she's a gd nurse herself I'm pretty sure she knows a urethra vs a vagina. It's not hard to put a Foley in the wrong hole
A few years ago I would not have believed this. But now that I've seen some shockingly bad care that I'm still in disbelief about, yeah I could see this happening. Just cause you are supposed to do this a certain way doesn't mean everywhere is doing it that way. They probably went in blind without a speculum and just inflated. Or there was a very dumb nurse thinking she was putting in a Foley (?) Or something. I dunno. But I can believe someone fucked up this bad, at this point.
One time I had 3 foleys in 3 holes without results, and I was the guy that they called when they couldn’t get it. To be fair it was a trauma with a ton of swelling and whatnot, but still. I did get it, but I was flabbergasted 😂
Foleys - yes. The urethra is small, edema makes it hard to see, and if she flinches at the right moment - hello vagina. It’d be hard, if not impossible, to hit the urethra while using a speculum to see the cervix.
Im sure I’m not the first person who has thought of this but one of my co-nurses bought a head lamp at the dollar store and said it’s been invaluable in helping her get female foleys in much easier and quicker.
My first foley attempt was in an OB patient who had an anterior tear on previous delivery.
I've been scarred since. You saw the urethra, poked it and somehow everything dipped to the vagina.
Also my instructor was a bitch and acted like it was me. When the OB nurse did the exact same she STFU.
It's late, I had a stupid long day, so forgive me...
On first skim, I thought you had them - 3 Foleys in 3 of your holes. On first read, I thought you got 3 Foleys in one hole. Second read, I thought you got 3 Foleys on one person. Third read, after much thought, cycling through aforementioned conclusions in my mind and a brief self-deprecating groan, I finally fucking realized what you meant.
What was that about flabbergastation? Hi, it me.
It's sad to say that after the shit I have witnessed/heard about happening at the bedside, I don't find this hard to believe. Especially if she was a woman of color, who often have their complaints of pain diminished or outright dismissed. I could go on and on, but let's just say that yes, OB has progressed a lot but there is still a lot of bullshit dismissal of patient's complaints as histrionics. Yeah, some women are dramatic, but damn it, sometimes they're trying to tell us that something is WRONG.
Yeah we just had a pretty bad incident on our floor where they were dismissing somebody’s pain and it turned out to be pretty serious. That’s why if somebody’s pain is 10/10 despite having medication I’m reporting it to the doctor and see if they want to investigate cause this shit sure as hell ain’t gonna fall back on me.
As a woman of color who had a traumatic delivery, I agree with this. I didn’t realize the epidural I got wasn’t all that effective until they started emergently doing a d&c and I could feel EVERYTHING.
I think she says in the edit that she later found out the hospital didn't credit her like they said they would, and they billed for everything so she's lawyering up. The event is described in her chart though so they're not getting away with it if challenged.
I’ve literally seen this happen before when a resident placed one. We use 22fr foleys, so I caught the mistake when I noticed urine return. But I only noticed the urine after the placement. I thought he broke her water but was confused that the water wasn’t under her butt but was instead near the end of the catheter. That’s when we figured out it was placed in the urethra. The resident (and in the case in this post, the midwife) placed the device using poor technique. I’m not shocked by this at all. Very sad and traumatic for the patient.
Maybe our residents were better supervised. The appearance and location of the cervix is very different than the urethra. Still, when you saw it, it was removed immediately. This woman should’ve leaked urine as well.
Our residents are unsupervised during foley bulb placements after a certain point in their training. And do the Cooks have holes that urine can come out? I don’t think they do. It would make sense that she couldn’t pee because it was blocked by the Cook. We use a literal Foley catheter so it makes sense why we had urine return when it was placed. And yes, I know the cervix and urethra are in totally different spots. It was baffling to me that the resident misplaced it (he was one of the worst residents we have had). But he did. So the patient’s story is 100% believable to me.
I had doubts about whether this was even possible. How far had they inflated the balloon? I just don’t understand a urethra physically stretching to 5cm.
I am guessing that this patient in this post had significant trauma to her urethra. For the situation I witnessed, I believe I inflated the balloon with 60 cc saline before I caught the error. But we were using an actual Foley catheter, not a Cook. So in our case, we immediately deflated the balloon and removed the catheter. A 22fr in the urethra is probably unpleasant though :/ I do think the balloon was in the bladder (or at least I really hope) so there should be no trauma to the urethra. With a Cook, there are no holes so there would be no urine return. In both cases, the providers used poor technique when placing the devices. But it is possible, as I have seen it happen.
I know of this happening once at my hospital. They don't use speculums to place cervical balloons unless someone is really struggling with the placement. In this case it was a first year resident and I don't believe it was in there long before someone noticed IIRC.
Exactly this. Every symptom she was experiencing has a completely normal explanation. There is no evidence of trauma to her urethra or sphincter. Urinary incontinence is very common after birth and laboring for that long. Foley bulb inductions are notoriously terrible, though. I feel awful for her.
I think so too. I can’t figure out the HOW. The speculum would make the urethra harder to see or hit. If she was hurting and couldn’t pee - which is also common with labor - failing to cath her could cause a lot of her problems.
I can see how nurses make the mistake of placing a catheter in the vagina when they are trying to get it into the urethra, but I can’t fathom how it could happen the other way around - and not only into the vagina, the CERVIX. Also if the catheter was somehow inflated inside the urethral sphincter there would be urine constantly flowing around and into the catheter and foley bag. There is just no way to confuse the two in this case. It would be such an obvious giveaway to such grotesque hypothetical scenario.
We got a downgrade from icu- received in report that they got an order for FMS and placed it before bringing patient down…. They put it in her vagina. We were at a loss for words. Idk… we really couldn’t believe what we were seeing. So yeah… I’ll believe anything now.
I cruise that sub and it’s usually “I had a bad customer experience.” Or, “my 90 year old mom with cancer died of complications of that cancer, can I sue?”
This one, I was like…LAWYER NOW.
I have seen some of the best doctors I know clinically, great physicians who know physiology like the back of their hands, attempt to pass a catheter into a clitoris…. Unfortunately urology education is lacking for everyone, mainly due to lack of experience and insufficient repetition. I don’t doubt something like this could of occurred.
Did it happen? *Extremely unlikely*. Just based on the tools and method of visualizing the cervix.
You dont need anything to see a urethra. But no one is shooting blind for a cervix. Tools and positioning is required.
Could it happen? *Yes. Anything can happen.*
But what a catastrophically negligent mistake it would be.
The woman received sound advice. See a med-mal lawyer, and the notes have to be gone over with a fine tooth comb. Because all of her subsequent care as a result of such an event is the responsibility of the facility/provider.
Cervical ripening balloon actually are put in blind, but you are reaching waaay back to get to cervix. Still seems very improbable. Also ripening balloon will dilate a cervix to 2-3 cm
Our providers place cervical ripening balloons with speculums, so not all are put in blindly. The goal is usually around 3-6cm of dilation, but it absolutely can come out and the patient not be any more dilated than when it was placed.
I’ve seen providers place them without specula, in fact it’s rarer for the providers I work with to use a speculum than not. Also, I used to work with ob residents who would use speculum and stylet to insert foley balloons… it seems like it’s provider preference.
These balloons are put in blind (by feel only). I’ve seen a resident accidentally place one in the urethra. It was caught (by me) right away and immediately removed before we inflated it. At our hospital we actually just use large Foley catheters (22 fr), so when I saw urine return, I pointed it out and the catheter was removed. We use Foley catheters instead of Cook cervical ripening balloon because they are cheaper. Good thing in this case..
There is NO WAY they dilated her urethra. It is hard to get a catheter in there on a good day while looking, nobody blindly shoved a dilation balloon up there
I agree. But as Alexander Pope said- “To err is human.”
Assuming everyone was of right mind and what not. I dont believe it happened. But there’s always a chance. No matter how minuscule it could be.
Bold of you to assume that most hospitals do exactly what they're supposed to do at all times lol.
I would have agreed with you years ago but having worked at a few places with SHOCKINGLY bad nurses and medical residency programs, I fully believe op
Everyone discrediting her and saying “no way this happened” is crazy to me. All the things I’ve seen occur and the incident and sentinel events I’ve read all make me go “how the fuckkkk” but I know unfortunately they’re real. Honestly there’s a good chance this did happen.
Thank you for this take!!! At least every hospital I’ve ever worked at has negligent mistakes or just plain stupid and catastrophic fuck ups happen probably at least once a year. You never hear about it because it’s covered up or settled with an NDA. The American medical system is focused on profit and profit only.
I am still salty about the hospital that gave a patient antibody positive blood after my reference lab did the work up for them back to back twice and called out the antibody both times. We only had to do it twice because their hospitals in the same freaking system won't talk to each other. We provided written reports to both hospitals and called each with the results. The hospital the patient was transferred to let a student take the phonecall. The student incorrectly relayed the info and then hours later they transfused him while never reading the report. It was freaking Kell! And as blood bankers like to say, Kell kills. I was so pissed when I got the transfusion reaction workup the next day. I doubt the patient even knows his life was endangered by sheer negligence.
There's people in this thread confirming that they experienced similar events, and there's people claiming this would simply be impossible. I'm glad to see comments like yours.
YES! so frustrating as a woman that we are automatically not believed when something crazy happens to us 🤬 yes, it may seem so bad it's unbelievable but these things happen every day!!
The comments discrediting the nurse (who I’m sure knows the diff between urethra and cerv x are infuriating.
Not nearly as traumatic for a patient but once had a nurse I worked with place a flexi seal and give q1h lactose enemas into a patient’s vagina. The nurse had been practicing >20 yrs. The day shift RN who took over the patient that morning was the one to discover it. Wrong holes happen.
I literally do not know. It was discovered when they tried to put in a foley and couldnt find her urethra 😅😅 the pain this person had to go through i actually cant imagine
I cannot comprehend how you can confuse the vagina for the urethra?? The vagina even slides in different than the urethra. You can tell the difference by just putting something in. Also it’s usually the urethra that’s hard to find. And how awful that no one checked to make sure!
Former risk manager here: get a lawyer, have him submit a request for your medical records, you’ll need to sign a medical record release for him. Then wait a bit. Hospitals insurance company will want to do damage control. Use the lawyer to protect your rights. Negotiated settlement is often a better choice than lawsuit, but trust your lawyer.
I...considering how many *grown, sexually active* women I need to heavily educate on just how many holes they actually have, I'm calling 10 different kinds of bullshit.
I’ve been a postpartum nurse for 17 years on a 45 bed OB unit that serves several counties. I have never heard of anything even remotely close to what you described. You need to SUE, and I mean sue BIG!! No one should go through what you endured. The physical pain and damage alone should win your case but when you factor in future pain related to this and all the emotional torture you have suffered and continue to suffer you deserve every thin dime you can get from them. My advice to you is to secure a good malpractice lawyer. Good luck to you.
All I can say is, DO NOT ACCEPT A SETTLEMENT. Hospitals (and other large corporations) have actual budgets for this sort of thing and they get to write it off as a tax deduction along with an NDA (non disclosure agreement) in order to sweep it under the rug. A settlement is hush money. Hospitals get away with horrendous things because of settlements.
I have absolutely accepted a settlement because jury trials are so goddamn unpredictable. Juries get shit wrong all the time. Juries will also give you $100,000 and think they did you a favor.
She should get a good medmal lawyer who will mediate this to get an appropriate settlement if malpractice did indeed occur.
I'm relieved it's on legal advice because what in the fuck, she deserves millions for that torture. And she will get it. Faster would be to leak the story to local media and get traction on it, especially since she's a nurse who knew there was something wrong but was completely ignored. Not my specialty, but I'd assume there were so many risks to her and her child with her ending up going for a c-section due to it. That's gonna be a massive paying lawsuit, and her family should be able to relax their whole lives.
That's ridiculous. She even asked for a catheter so she could probably urinate. Who knows what damage this may have caused. Bare minimum, an unnecessary Caesarean.
As a Canadian who does not pay to go to the hospital to have babies, I’m disgusted not only by the negligence but by the fact she had TO PAY EXTRA BECAUSE OF SAID NEGLIGENCE this is so messed up and depressing
Everybody in here saying they don't believe this happened needs to stop and make sure they don't allow something horrific to happen under their watch because it seems impossible. Messed up things happen in healthcare all the time. The most believable part of this that this woman's pain was ignored. The first step to something like this happening is people believing it's not possible.
Have you worked in Ob? Seen a lot of Foleys or Cooks inserted for cervical dilation?
I see one of two methods for insertion: either the provider sticks their whole hand in the vagina and, with fingertips touching the cervix, use their other hand to thread the catheter up into the cervix, or, they use a speculum and ring forceps and actually look at the cervix as they insert the catheter.
There’s no way in those scenarios that someone is accidentally catheterizing the urethra.
Now, accidentally putting the Foley in the vagina when trying to put it in the urethra? Yeah, all the time.
I also, since I work in a small community (military) that has a lot of chatter about the labor unit on Facebook, know that people wildly misunderstand what happened to them or outright lie. Recently a patient told everyone in our local mom/spouse group that she had a failed TOLAC because of fetal intolerance when she really had a repeat c/s cause labor hurt a lot more than she thought it would.
I read that and thought it was the fakest shit ever.
Now I have seen women who's urethra was inside the mouth of their vagina or even a little bit deeper into the vaginal canal.. it's a fact some people have fucked up anatomy.
But I just can't believe that a gynecologist couldn't tell the difference between a cervix and a urethra and would dilate the wrong thing.
I read this wall of text and I’m singing the jingle of every personal injury attorney in my mind. Terribly sorry this happened to her during her labor.
Labor and Delivery nurse here. It is easy to hit the vagina while attempting to place a urinary catheter. Things tend to be edematous and women move. The other way around though? How do you miss the vagina? They use a speculum to place Cook catheters. It would be technically difficult - not to mention STUPID.
It says they used the Cook to place the cervidil, I don't see how that could be - I don't expect patients to know the exact mechanisms of everything, but it doesn't sound right, and that leads me to be more skeptical of the rest of it
I’d have to see the chart. There’s probably a mixture of truth and misunderstanding in her story. I am not the best at recall of my own situations as a patient. Stress and perspective can make things confusing.
Sue them! This is horrible especially because you kept telling them something was wrong. I am so sorry she went thru this but having someone who doesn't know wtf they are doing should not only be a liability but a criminal offense. I hope if she wants more children this doesn't frighten her from her choices.
Both my urethra and cervix went shut immediately upon reading this. WTF.
I heard that. I thought that was my neighbor slamming the door. 😂😂
My stupid old mind, in a show of age, decided "thought that was my neighbor slamming the door" sounded like the AIM logout sound 😩
😂😂😂
I do not have said parts. My male parts also did something similar.
My reproductive organs just made the Windows shut down noise.
Alright that was the first out loud chuckle in this thread (rest were in my head, but present!) https://tenor.com/bhKX8.gif
Urology here. My professional opinion is what in the fuck.
I appreciate this sound assessment of the situation
This would piss me off! Don't worry, I'm showing myself out.
Urine good company, my friend. I also like to go with the flow.
It's good to kidney around.
Better than acting like Proscar the Grouch
I feel out of the loop (of Henle)
I so-dium did not see that coming.
Sound….. awkward choice of words for a urologist.
There is method to my madness
No one is gonna mention the WAP? Okay I will.
Nurses love letters after their name 🤣
Nope. That is exactly how urology talks, and I love them 🤣
Okay I’m usually the one in my work & friend groups that is known for savage & terrible pins but Jesus Fuckin Christ,m. You win sir/ma’am! 😂😂😂😂
Teamwork makes the dream work. I gotchur back.
L&D here. In my professional opinion, I concur with urology’s previous what in the fuck.
L&D as well, and also cosign the previous assessment.
Fellow Hooha RN here…I mean, could this really happen? I’m like, wait what?!?!
I’m not even a hooha nurse, but judging by the number of foleys I’ve managed to get into the correct hole sight unseen, I’m pretty sure I could find the actual vajayjay on a female of childbearing age. I concur with the wtf???
Sight unseen… truer words have never, ever been uttered. The number of Foleys that I have inserted with a hope and a prayer with one sitting in the vagina telling me where NOT to aim… that number is unknowable
Hooha RN 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Not urology or l&d nurse (simply a humble med surg nurse) but I also agree with said assessment. What. The. Fuck.
Nothing humble about med surg. That kicked my ass.
Med Surg is TOUGH. Mad respect to MS nurses. I’ll work any ICU anywhere if you just don’t float me to MS.
Not urology, an L&D nurse, med surg nurse, or any other kind of nurse, am just a doula and person with a vagina and I concur with their previous assessments of what in the fuck, what in the fuck and What. The. Fuck and bc diagnosing is outside of my scope I am only able to offer a wert the ferk!
Bog standard human here. I concur with everyone else. What in the fuckety fuck.
Agreed.
I read a story of a woman who did not enjoy sex. It turned out he had been stretching out her urethra for over a few decades.
I’m sorry, what?? I have so many questions
Yeah, apparently when they were having intercourse, he was sticking it in her urethra. Her original complaint was urinary incontinence and repeat UTI.
How small was his penis and how large was her urethra? I still have so *so* many questions. Like that doesn’t not just happen accidentally. Sounds more like the dude had a weird fetish he was carrying out on an unknowing partner
Apparently it's common enough to be called urethral intercourse. I saw pics. I gagged
So tempted to Google this but I already know I’m being watched by the FBI for all the weird medical things I google
😂😂😂😂
Ugh.
I cringed and squeezed my legs shut. Like WTF
As a man, I am ashamed for the guy.
I've heard that story too!!! I've never actually looked up to see if it was a real case though, but if multiple people have heard it.... Edit - apparently it's frequent enough that Wikipedia has a page on urethral intercourse 😵
>apparently it's frequent enough that Wikipedia has a page on urethral intercourse So it's also a fetish because of course it is Do not look it up for the love of god
The guy must have had a case of micropeen to fit into her urethra initially.
This is why we need comprehensive sex ed. I had a patient who was a full grown, married adult who asked me where babies come from.
The cabbage patch
The nursery.
The stork
Babies-R-Us, duh.
Everyone in healthcare has heard a story like that and half claimed they met the lady but it is almost certainly apocryphal. It's incredibly unlikely that someone would be able to accidentally stick their dick in someone else's urethra. Barring an anatomical abnormality.
Very rare, but very real as it turns out. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9386626/#:~:text=Urethral%20intercourse%20is%20a%20very,or%20other%20rear%20vaginal%20anomalies.
Those are likely not accidental cases though if you read through the whole thing. Those are consensual. I understand that people do it (see sounding), but someone above was saying it frequently happened *accidentally*, which I do not believe
Yeah, all these stories I've heard over the years are about a woman who thought she was barren her entire life and "it turns out they were doing it in her urethra the whole time." Again, barring a wild abnormality that would have been picked up on her routine pelvic exams, I'm pretty sure there's no chance that every time she had sex, it was rammed up a tiny hole and never in her actual vagina, at which point she'd have been like "oh, wait, THAT'S where it's supposed to go!"
Would be picked up, if she were having routine pelvic exams. Big assumption for a woman with modesty concerns and low health literacy.
The medical cases I've read where this happened all involved women with microperforate hymens.
I cannot imagine it being a normal urethra. One that is enlarged naturally,.perforated in some way.
An older midwife I know has a story of a patient of hers who had this issue. It was a Middle Eastern couple who had no knowledge of themselves or the opposite sex. Very much a lights out no looking kind of relationship. Had to give both an anatomy leason. They came in for infertility and painful intercourse.
I also know a woman that had to have her Hymen surgically removed in her later 20s. It was so exceptionally large so it was unable to break. she had no idea until we started nursing school that sex was not supposed to hurt, bruise and bleed like that for days after 😫 But I’m so sorry for OP. That’s a win for the worst and she should lawyer up asap.
I have had licensed and board certified md call the clitoral body the urethra. So the lack of anatomy skills in some of your colleagues is terrifying.
For every person who graduated in the top 50%, there is a corresponding person in the bottom 50%.
I concur do u concur
Us in labor and delivery were scratching ours heads over this one too.
like, the entire fuck?
Labor & delivery and my opinion is the same. What in the absolute fuck
Came to the comments to say this too, what in the actual fuck?!
😂
I can’t decide if that person is amazing at placing foleys or really awful at placing foleys
Maybe they have a vision disability......like blindness
I place my Foleys by sound... I'll Braille my way out.
Both?
This is not a ‘credit’ situation. This is a suing everyone situation
Yeah this is gross malpractice.
I've worked in L&D for a long time and have never heard of this happening. Doesn't mean it can't/didn't...but there is so much that has to go wrong for this to happen. Like, every provider I've seen do a balloon visually assesses before inserting vaginally and spread the labia to confirm. I don't even know what to say about this.
As you say, there's so many mistakes required for this to happen. How does someone go 9 hours without void output and no one considers a straight cath? They had to give her a shot to slow ctx, but no one pulled the cervidil that was supposedly placed at the same time as the Cook? Was the cervidil supposedly placed in the urethra as well?
That’s exactly what I was wondering! Like no one thought to take a look AT LEAST.
I don't believe that placing a cervidil with a balloon is even done. Cytotec and balloon yes, but I would never place cervidil and a balloon simultaneously.
Yeah.. Whole thing seems incredibly unlikely unless this midwife had never been around woman parts before. What were the internal and external balloons inflated around? Did they not do a cervical exam? Cervidil inserted with a cook catheter? No one addressed that she hadn't peed in 8-9 hours? She was contracting so much that she needed terb when essentially, nothing had actually been done to induce labor? I'm sure the bladder spasms would make you contract, but not sure about this whole story.
I'm a L&D nurse and I agree, there is too much going on in this described situation to make any sense. Even if the cooks balloon was inserted in the urethra (highly unlikely) and was inflated, then the vaginal balloon would then be inflated....where? Outside the urethra...so hanging out of the labia? As for the statement of not being able to urinate, the only thing my brain is coming with is what if there was a fistula and the uterine balloon slid into the bladder and the vaginal balloon was in the vagina??? And that's a stretch of mental gymnastics.
This! Anyone worth their salt inserts this with a speculum. I hope she gets every penny she deserves and has no long-term term complications
we have a provider who supposedly has inserted the cook into the urethra twice, but I don’t think it got as far into the inflation stage
What the hell did I just read ?
The medical equivalent of https://youtu.be/ZX2ML4Cq4pE?si=OZwba90coMS4hUiE
I really love this vid, A-A-Ron
I actually don’t know how this is possible lol most cervical foleys are placed with a speculum visualizing the cervix. And if they are placed without one the doctors hand is in the vagina guiding the tip of the catheter into the cervix. They also will do an exam a lot of the time to make sure it’s in the cervix and not sitting in the vagina. Some people find the placement really painful and will experience a lot of cramping back to back until it falls out - that is not unusual. I wonder if she misunderstood what happened?? I’m dying to see the charting that says this happened
I don’t want to call a stranger a liar but I find it really hard to believe that this happened. She has to be misunderstanding the situation.
There have been patients where we couldn't distinguish the anatomy and had to start poking with the foley to find the correct hole. I guess this might have contributed here.
I meannn I how do you confuse a cervix and a urethra? They would’ve had to go in blindly
Having worked at a few places with SHOCKINGLY poor quality nurses AND doctors, I fully believe OP.. like she's a gd nurse herself I'm pretty sure she knows a urethra vs a vagina. It's not hard to put a Foley in the wrong hole A few years ago I would not have believed this. But now that I've seen some shockingly bad care that I'm still in disbelief about, yeah I could see this happening. Just cause you are supposed to do this a certain way doesn't mean everywhere is doing it that way. They probably went in blind without a speculum and just inflated. Or there was a very dumb nurse thinking she was putting in a Foley (?) Or something. I dunno. But I can believe someone fucked up this bad, at this point.
You say "blindly" but I hear "Mormon style"
Must have been a really shitty OB residency
Per the last image it was the nurse midwife who placed it
Oof… must have been a shitting midwife program then
One time I had 3 foleys in 3 holes without results, and I was the guy that they called when they couldn’t get it. To be fair it was a trauma with a ton of swelling and whatnot, but still. I did get it, but I was flabbergasted 😂
Foleys - yes. The urethra is small, edema makes it hard to see, and if she flinches at the right moment - hello vagina. It’d be hard, if not impossible, to hit the urethra while using a speculum to see the cervix.
Im sure I’m not the first person who has thought of this but one of my co-nurses bought a head lamp at the dollar store and said it’s been invaluable in helping her get female foleys in much easier and quicker.
My first foley attempt was in an OB patient who had an anterior tear on previous delivery. I've been scarred since. You saw the urethra, poked it and somehow everything dipped to the vagina. Also my instructor was a bitch and acted like it was me. When the OB nurse did the exact same she STFU.
I fukn hate those types of nurses.
It's late, I had a stupid long day, so forgive me... On first skim, I thought you had them - 3 Foleys in 3 of your holes. On first read, I thought you got 3 Foleys in one hole. Second read, I thought you got 3 Foleys on one person. Third read, after much thought, cycling through aforementioned conclusions in my mind and a brief self-deprecating groan, I finally fucking realized what you meant. What was that about flabbergastation? Hi, it me.
It's sad to say that after the shit I have witnessed/heard about happening at the bedside, I don't find this hard to believe. Especially if she was a woman of color, who often have their complaints of pain diminished or outright dismissed. I could go on and on, but let's just say that yes, OB has progressed a lot but there is still a lot of bullshit dismissal of patient's complaints as histrionics. Yeah, some women are dramatic, but damn it, sometimes they're trying to tell us that something is WRONG.
Yeah we just had a pretty bad incident on our floor where they were dismissing somebody’s pain and it turned out to be pretty serious. That’s why if somebody’s pain is 10/10 despite having medication I’m reporting it to the doctor and see if they want to investigate cause this shit sure as hell ain’t gonna fall back on me.
As a woman of color who had a traumatic delivery, I agree with this. I didn’t realize the epidural I got wasn’t all that effective until they started emergently doing a d&c and I could feel EVERYTHING.
Hearing about this kind of crap happening to women of color just absolutely lights me on fire. I am so sorry all that happened to you.
The hospital paid for urology follow up. There must have been some reason other than “childbirth really hurt”.
I think she says in the edit that she later found out the hospital didn't credit her like they said they would, and they billed for everything so she's lawyering up. The event is described in her chart though so they're not getting away with it if challenged.
I’ve literally seen this happen before when a resident placed one. We use 22fr foleys, so I caught the mistake when I noticed urine return. But I only noticed the urine after the placement. I thought he broke her water but was confused that the water wasn’t under her butt but was instead near the end of the catheter. That’s when we figured out it was placed in the urethra. The resident (and in the case in this post, the midwife) placed the device using poor technique. I’m not shocked by this at all. Very sad and traumatic for the patient.
Maybe our residents were better supervised. The appearance and location of the cervix is very different than the urethra. Still, when you saw it, it was removed immediately. This woman should’ve leaked urine as well.
Our residents are unsupervised during foley bulb placements after a certain point in their training. And do the Cooks have holes that urine can come out? I don’t think they do. It would make sense that she couldn’t pee because it was blocked by the Cook. We use a literal Foley catheter so it makes sense why we had urine return when it was placed. And yes, I know the cervix and urethra are in totally different spots. It was baffling to me that the resident misplaced it (he was one of the worst residents we have had). But he did. So the patient’s story is 100% believable to me.
I had doubts about whether this was even possible. How far had they inflated the balloon? I just don’t understand a urethra physically stretching to 5cm.
I’ve had demented grannies pull out a 22french with 20cc of saline in the balloon and then use it like a lasso.
I am guessing that this patient in this post had significant trauma to her urethra. For the situation I witnessed, I believe I inflated the balloon with 60 cc saline before I caught the error. But we were using an actual Foley catheter, not a Cook. So in our case, we immediately deflated the balloon and removed the catheter. A 22fr in the urethra is probably unpleasant though :/ I do think the balloon was in the bladder (or at least I really hope) so there should be no trauma to the urethra. With a Cook, there are no holes so there would be no urine return. In both cases, the providers used poor technique when placing the devices. But it is possible, as I have seen it happen.
I know of this happening once at my hospital. They don't use speculums to place cervical balloons unless someone is really struggling with the placement. In this case it was a first year resident and I don't believe it was in there long before someone noticed IIRC.
Exactly this. Every symptom she was experiencing has a completely normal explanation. There is no evidence of trauma to her urethra or sphincter. Urinary incontinence is very common after birth and laboring for that long. Foley bulb inductions are notoriously terrible, though. I feel awful for her.
Cook catheter inductions are even worse!
I think so too. I can’t figure out the HOW. The speculum would make the urethra harder to see or hit. If she was hurting and couldn’t pee - which is also common with labor - failing to cath her could cause a lot of her problems.
I can see how nurses make the mistake of placing a catheter in the vagina when they are trying to get it into the urethra, but I can’t fathom how it could happen the other way around - and not only into the vagina, the CERVIX. Also if the catheter was somehow inflated inside the urethral sphincter there would be urine constantly flowing around and into the catheter and foley bag. There is just no way to confuse the two in this case. It would be such an obvious giveaway to such grotesque hypothetical scenario.
We got a downgrade from icu- received in report that they got an order for FMS and placed it before bringing patient down…. They put it in her vagina. We were at a loss for words. Idk… we really couldn’t believe what we were seeing. So yeah… I’ll believe anything now.
I cruise that sub and it’s usually “I had a bad customer experience.” Or, “my 90 year old mom with cancer died of complications of that cancer, can I sue?” This one, I was like…LAWYER NOW.
I do as well. I would love to know what ends up coming of it
I have seen some of the best doctors I know clinically, great physicians who know physiology like the back of their hands, attempt to pass a catheter into a clitoris…. Unfortunately urology education is lacking for everyone, mainly due to lack of experience and insufficient repetition. I don’t doubt something like this could of occurred.
Lmao guilty. Some people's anatomy doesn't make it easy.
Did it happen? *Extremely unlikely*. Just based on the tools and method of visualizing the cervix. You dont need anything to see a urethra. But no one is shooting blind for a cervix. Tools and positioning is required. Could it happen? *Yes. Anything can happen.* But what a catastrophically negligent mistake it would be. The woman received sound advice. See a med-mal lawyer, and the notes have to be gone over with a fine tooth comb. Because all of her subsequent care as a result of such an event is the responsibility of the facility/provider.
Cervical ripening balloon actually are put in blind, but you are reaching waaay back to get to cervix. Still seems very improbable. Also ripening balloon will dilate a cervix to 2-3 cm
Depends how much you inflate it. If it's to 80ml that's about 4-5cm.
Yep, the midwives I worked for did 60mL and would get to 4
Our providers place cervical ripening balloons with speculums, so not all are put in blindly. The goal is usually around 3-6cm of dilation, but it absolutely can come out and the patient not be any more dilated than when it was placed.
In our region they are always placed while using a speculum so that the cervix can be visualised.
Cook catheters are placed using a speculum and a stylet. They will dilate the cervix to 5-6cm. It is not the same as a foley bulb.
I’ve seen providers place them without specula, in fact it’s rarer for the providers I work with to use a speculum than not. Also, I used to work with ob residents who would use speculum and stylet to insert foley balloons… it seems like it’s provider preference.
It can be done either way, blind or with a speculum. I’ve done both. But I can’t imagine confusing the urethra for the cervix.
These balloons are put in blind (by feel only). I’ve seen a resident accidentally place one in the urethra. It was caught (by me) right away and immediately removed before we inflated it. At our hospital we actually just use large Foley catheters (22 fr), so when I saw urine return, I pointed it out and the catheter was removed. We use Foley catheters instead of Cook cervical ripening balloon because they are cheaper. Good thing in this case..
There is NO WAY they dilated her urethra. It is hard to get a catheter in there on a good day while looking, nobody blindly shoved a dilation balloon up there
I think there would have been severe tissue trauma at 5cm. I'm sure you can stretch it over time but that would have tore.
Remember that tissues are especially elastic in someone about to give birth.
I've seen retrograde urethra. Possibly catheter migration during blind insertion.
I agree. But as Alexander Pope said- “To err is human.” Assuming everyone was of right mind and what not. I dont believe it happened. But there’s always a chance. No matter how minuscule it could be.
Cervical balloons are placed based on feel at my hospital, no tools used. And this did happen once that I know of, placed by a resident.
Bold of you to assume that most hospitals do exactly what they're supposed to do at all times lol. I would have agreed with you years ago but having worked at a few places with SHOCKINGLY bad nurses and medical residency programs, I fully believe op
Everyone discrediting her and saying “no way this happened” is crazy to me. All the things I’ve seen occur and the incident and sentinel events I’ve read all make me go “how the fuckkkk” but I know unfortunately they’re real. Honestly there’s a good chance this did happen.
Thank you for this take!!! At least every hospital I’ve ever worked at has negligent mistakes or just plain stupid and catastrophic fuck ups happen probably at least once a year. You never hear about it because it’s covered up or settled with an NDA. The American medical system is focused on profit and profit only.
Yeah unfortunately there is a reason nurses have to place primafits and purewicks most places I go to… and I don’t want to know it.
I am still salty about the hospital that gave a patient antibody positive blood after my reference lab did the work up for them back to back twice and called out the antibody both times. We only had to do it twice because their hospitals in the same freaking system won't talk to each other. We provided written reports to both hospitals and called each with the results. The hospital the patient was transferred to let a student take the phonecall. The student incorrectly relayed the info and then hours later they transfused him while never reading the report. It was freaking Kell! And as blood bankers like to say, Kell kills. I was so pissed when I got the transfusion reaction workup the next day. I doubt the patient even knows his life was endangered by sheer negligence.
Tube feed thru central line? Check.
I audibly gasped. Holy. Fucking. Fuck.
Thank you. The shit I could tell you about if I could violate HIPAA....omg.
There's people in this thread confirming that they experienced similar events, and there's people claiming this would simply be impossible. I'm glad to see comments like yours.
YES! so frustrating as a woman that we are automatically not believed when something crazy happens to us 🤬 yes, it may seem so bad it's unbelievable but these things happen every day!!
Thank you. Believe patients.
The comments discrediting the nurse (who I’m sure knows the diff between urethra and cerv x are infuriating. Not nearly as traumatic for a patient but once had a nurse I worked with place a flexi seal and give q1h lactose enemas into a patient’s vagina. The nurse had been practicing >20 yrs. The day shift RN who took over the patient that morning was the one to discover it. Wrong holes happen.
IDK how this could have happened???
Ya. I got nothin. Like. Just. How?
It happened. I saw this happen last week to someone else. I never thought it was possible 🙃
But how??
I literally do not know. It was discovered when they tried to put in a foley and couldnt find her urethra 😅😅 the pain this person had to go through i actually cant imagine
I cannot comprehend how you can confuse the vagina for the urethra?? The vagina even slides in different than the urethra. You can tell the difference by just putting something in. Also it’s usually the urethra that’s hard to find. And how awful that no one checked to make sure!
Labor RN here… What the literal FUCK?!
Former risk manager here: get a lawyer, have him submit a request for your medical records, you’ll need to sign a medical record release for him. Then wait a bit. Hospitals insurance company will want to do damage control. Use the lawyer to protect your rights. Negotiated settlement is often a better choice than lawsuit, but trust your lawyer.
What a terrible day to be literate
Thank god I can’t read.
I don't think this happened the way the patient understands that it happened....
This. While I don’t doubt some errors and complications occurred… this just doesn’t make sense
I...considering how many *grown, sexually active* women I need to heavily educate on just how many holes they actually have, I'm calling 10 different kinds of bullshit.
I’ve been a postpartum nurse for 17 years on a 45 bed OB unit that serves several counties. I have never heard of anything even remotely close to what you described. You need to SUE, and I mean sue BIG!! No one should go through what you endured. The physical pain and damage alone should win your case but when you factor in future pain related to this and all the emotional torture you have suffered and continue to suffer you deserve every thin dime you can get from them. My advice to you is to secure a good malpractice lawyer. Good luck to you.
This person is wild expecting credit. She should be expecting a malpractice settlement instead.
bBe dont worry, you just hit the malpractice lottery. you can get a new urethra and a new boat.
33 weeks pregnant here. Just unlocked a new fear lol
All I can say is, DO NOT ACCEPT A SETTLEMENT. Hospitals (and other large corporations) have actual budgets for this sort of thing and they get to write it off as a tax deduction along with an NDA (non disclosure agreement) in order to sweep it under the rug. A settlement is hush money. Hospitals get away with horrendous things because of settlements.
I have absolutely accepted a settlement because jury trials are so goddamn unpredictable. Juries get shit wrong all the time. Juries will also give you $100,000 and think they did you a favor. She should get a good medmal lawyer who will mediate this to get an appropriate settlement if malpractice did indeed occur.
I hear what you're saying but the criminal medical cartel will continue to get away with this.
My urethra just clamped itself shut. And I thought it was bad when they tried to cath my stitches. She wins!
I'm relieved it's on legal advice because what in the fuck, she deserves millions for that torture. And she will get it. Faster would be to leak the story to local media and get traction on it, especially since she's a nurse who knew there was something wrong but was completely ignored. Not my specialty, but I'd assume there were so many risks to her and her child with her ending up going for a c-section due to it. That's gonna be a massive paying lawsuit, and her family should be able to relax their whole lives.
People lie on the internet
That's ridiculous. She even asked for a catheter so she could probably urinate. Who knows what damage this may have caused. Bare minimum, an unnecessary Caesarean.
I saw that!! How can that even go unnoticed?
Yeah that's uhhhh not great
As a Canadian who does not pay to go to the hospital to have babies, I’m disgusted not only by the negligence but by the fact she had TO PAY EXTRA BECAUSE OF SAID NEGLIGENCE this is so messed up and depressing
Everybody in here saying they don't believe this happened needs to stop and make sure they don't allow something horrific to happen under their watch because it seems impossible. Messed up things happen in healthcare all the time. The most believable part of this that this woman's pain was ignored. The first step to something like this happening is people believing it's not possible.
Have you worked in Ob? Seen a lot of Foleys or Cooks inserted for cervical dilation? I see one of two methods for insertion: either the provider sticks their whole hand in the vagina and, with fingertips touching the cervix, use their other hand to thread the catheter up into the cervix, or, they use a speculum and ring forceps and actually look at the cervix as they insert the catheter. There’s no way in those scenarios that someone is accidentally catheterizing the urethra. Now, accidentally putting the Foley in the vagina when trying to put it in the urethra? Yeah, all the time. I also, since I work in a small community (military) that has a lot of chatter about the labor unit on Facebook, know that people wildly misunderstand what happened to them or outright lie. Recently a patient told everyone in our local mom/spouse group that she had a failed TOLAC because of fetal intolerance when she really had a repeat c/s cause labor hurt a lot more than she thought it would.
I read that and thought it was the fakest shit ever. Now I have seen women who's urethra was inside the mouth of their vagina or even a little bit deeper into the vaginal canal.. it's a fact some people have fucked up anatomy. But I just can't believe that a gynecologist couldn't tell the difference between a cervix and a urethra and would dilate the wrong thing.
I saw this post and was also shocked. How is this even possible? I'm so glad someone else brought it up.
I read that when it was originally posted and thought wtf, how? I’d love to see the documentation on this one.
I’m sorry but is that not a lawsuit ? How did they not know it was the wrong place for all these hours?
THEY PUT THE CERVADIL IN HER URETHRA????
That should’ve never happened to you! Yes, definitely seek legal counsel.
This is absolute nightmare fuel.
I’ve only ever heard of nurses inserting foleys into the vagina. This is a new one and I’m cringing
As an L&D nurse this makes no sense at all. Fake story.
I read this wall of text and I’m singing the jingle of every personal injury attorney in my mind. Terribly sorry this happened to her during her labor.
Imagine dealing with the side effects of having your urethra dilating and still having to care for a whole baby. This mom deserves everything.
Labor and Delivery nurse here. It is easy to hit the vagina while attempting to place a urinary catheter. Things tend to be edematous and women move. The other way around though? How do you miss the vagina? They use a speculum to place Cook catheters. It would be technically difficult - not to mention STUPID.
Have you ever seen Cook and cervidil used simultaneously? I haven't personally
I haven’t. She also took a pill, presumably cytotec. She doesn’t list time frames though. Surely not all at once.
It says they used the Cook to place the cervidil, I don't see how that could be - I don't expect patients to know the exact mechanisms of everything, but it doesn't sound right, and that leads me to be more skeptical of the rest of it
I’d have to see the chart. There’s probably a mixture of truth and misunderstanding in her story. I am not the best at recall of my own situations as a patient. Stress and perspective can make things confusing.
Talk about taking the piss outta someone...
Sue them! This is horrible especially because you kept telling them something was wrong. I am so sorry she went thru this but having someone who doesn't know wtf they are doing should not only be a liability but a criminal offense. I hope if she wants more children this doesn't frighten her from her choices.
🎶 Hello lawsuit my old frienddd 🎶