ER Forensics

This morning I get our usual 4 AM nursing home dump, the ever so uncreative altered mental status in a late stage Alzheimer's patient. Yeah, okay. We've started theorizing that they're just transferring the patients for diaper changes now. So of course as we're doing the old person AMS workup that always includes a Foley catheter, we open the diaper up to find a diabolical situation including a turd that is probably older than some of our nurses. Enter famous emesis bag nurse and I attempting to carbon date fossilized stool.

Hood Nurse:"Dude. This has definitely been in there a while. There seem to be rings forming around it. And there's like, a film on it, see that? What would you say, that has to have been there for like, at least 4 hours, right?"

Emesis Bag Nurse:"Four hours? No way. That's way under. It's pretty obvious she must have dropped that when she heard Whitney Houston died last night and it's been there ever since."

When in doubt, guess high.