Machete guy and friends in A new beginning

I should probably preface with I work in a crazy orthpedic office and at this point not much surprises me anymore. For the last couple months I have been dealing with this patient who will be referred to as machete guy. I first received a call from machete guy's girlfriend on a Thursday exclaiming that he was stabbed with a machete and needed surgery ASAP. This all happened in Boston and I was left with the question of if this was so extensive why did they send him a couple states away home for follow up? I later learned Machete guy was so combative that he was kicked out of the hospital. I retrieved the notes and under his history had an extensive opiate theft record and iv drug use and a list of other things only the finest upstanding citizens have. Long story short he ended up having surgery finally and by the time that happened his tendon was just dangling there. He ended up missing his post op appointment due to transportation issues and kept calling in for vicodin refills and my surgeon was like, if he can't find a way down here he isn't getting anymore. I was, as usual the lucky one to tell him this and he was obviously pissed. "Oh so what am I supposed to do suffer then?!! I wish she would have just cut it off!!" And then he hung up on me. I went to lunch and came back to a voicemail from him. "Hey this is machete guy and I heard that you were supposed to set up a ride for me but that doesn't matter anymore because I have a chop saw in my hand and am about to remove my hand. Goodbye!"

At this point I wanted to be like go ahead, cut if off! I was done with him and told management and they called him back and tried to get him in somewhere close to home. He refused to go to the ER to get his stitches out because in his own words, they would only give him tramadol for the pain. (The ER knew his history obviously) Finally he ended up going and then began the battle of getting another surgeon up there to see him for his follow up. He called me a week later asking for a refill again saying if he didn't have vicodin in his system he was going to be arrested. Sorry pal doesn't work that way! Another week goes by and after my surgeon got into a screaming match with another and basically made the doctor see him he finally had an appointment. Only problem was he was now in jail. Got to speak to his mom for 10 minutes over the phone and she told me all about his "junky girlfriend' and how bad she was and I got to hear about her seizure issues and other tmi. He came in just last week and seems like he is on a better path now. His mom seems like she is dedicated to helping him get through this so that is good. I'm hoping this is the last of crazy machete guy and he will stick to the reformed personality he has now acquired. Because really, I get threatened enough daily.

Just the other day I had a guy call in literally from his hospital bed in the ER saying how horrible the doctors are there and the first thing they told him was he wasn't getting any narcotics. "All these junkies in this town ruin it for everybody!!! I need to get in now ok!! I have an appointment on Tuesday and I can't wait that long!!" As soon as I heard his voice and his name I was like...shit. This guy has seen every doctor in our practice almost in the last two years. He is a major drug seeker and very abusive with a personality disorder to boot.

Speaking of personality disorders, the same day had a guy call in and the first thing he said to me was "I need to find out who my doctor is!! I had surgery! I figured out who it was and he was like "When I got discharged from the hospital they didn't give me no pain meds!!" I replied "Um..ok they really didn't give you anything?" He goes "Well they may or may not have. There was a lot going on!" So I look into the notes from the hospital and sure enough they didn't give him anything. Why? Oh only because he was extremely abusive and they had to call security and eventually the police because he stole syringes from the crash cart and was also caught smoking on camera and denied it. They also found syringes in the trash can in his room that the hospital does not use. Under his history severe borderline personality disorder was listed as well as IV drug use and aggressive behavior. The whole reason he needed the surgery was because he got infected from injecting himself so much and he denied using iv drugs! "Oh well I inject myself with testosterone and that's it!"

I'm convinced my phone is the psychopatch line.