Emotional and Clinical Challenges While Dealing With a Blind-Deaf-Mute Patient

A 43-year-old male, known to be deaf, mute, and blind, presented to the ED accompanied by his daughter. She said that he had multiple episodes of diarrhea and vomiting for two days. At first, it gave the impression of gastroenteritis because the patient also had upper abdomen pain, but later a series of investigations were carried out, including blood tests, electrocardiogram (ECG), chest X-ray, ultrasound abdomen (USG), and CT of the kidney and the urinary bladder (CT KUB), to reach a diagnosis. It was confirmed on CT KUB that the patient had a stone in his ureter, which was causing dysuria and increased urinary frequency leading to multiple bathroom visits and vomiting due to severe pain. The patient was given analgesia, and the stone was removed via ureteroscopy. It was challenging to make a diagnosis due to a lack of communication, and it was an emotionally distressing case for the clinical team.