[allaboutthefamily]

As a male nurse doing my OB rotation in school (currently) I had one experience that was embarassing and funny. I was taking care of a young woman who was in the early stages of labor and I was going over the questionarrie that was given to me by my instructor. When I asked her how she would like to deliver (position) she replied, "you know the normal way, missionary". I wanted to laugh out loud but it was my own fault for not giving her choices, sometimes I take for granted that the patients level of understanding (terminology).

[skinnyNurse]

I used to work on an alzheimers unit, Do I have stories! One night the police arrived and said an old lady called (911) and said there were a bunch of people in her hourse having a party and they wouldn't go home!!

[dchen]

There was this one time when we were exposed in the ER. A patient came in who had a complaint of nausea and vomiting. She kept on vomiting and could barely stand so we placed her on a strecher. Her friend who was with her told us "I never thought eggs could cause high blood! Her blood pressure was 180/100!!" @_@ We students so wanted to laugh xD

[vicky1964]

Originally Posted by Jessiedog

Oh, yeah!! There were some days working on our orthopoedic ward when I spent more time in my confused patien't reality than I did in my own! I swear dementia's contagious, and it happens when you have 6 patients, all with NOF's, and they're ALL confused, and you have to be very inventive with explanations of why they really shouldn't walk on their broken hip!

The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they're okay, then it's you.

[SaraO'Hara]

Doing clinicals on the rehab unit today....

It was 90+ degrees outside, so one nurse paged overhead that all windows and doors in resident's rooms should be closed, thus allowing the AC to run unimpeded.

A pt with alcoholic encephalopathy, who is quiiiite delusional, called 911 from his room and informed the police that the staff were going to gas everybody to death.

Police arrive (we had no idea he'd called), charge nurse is trying to sort things out, so they go into the man's room - where everything on the bedside table gets thrown at them for their trouble.

1/2 hour later, 2nd shift nurse comes out talking about how he'd told her to put a wet cloth over her mouth and nose or she'd die. The last I heard of this was an order for IM Ativan...

[ohioln]

That's sweet! I've worked in nursing homes most of my nursing career.A lot of the residents are so sweet. I wish all of them were. I feel so bad for the ones that don't want to be there & have no place else to go.

[Melinurse]

I work on an orthopedic/neurology unit and it was my first night shift. I was working a double shift that evening so the rest of the 2nd shifters had left and it was just myself and 2 other nurses and 1 aide. Well, we had 2 pts with dementia.They were on opposite sides of the hall from each other. The man had had a wife named " Jill " who had passed 5 years before, on the other side of the hall was a female dementia pt named " Jill". You can see where this is going Any way, " George " began yelling for his wife " Jill" very loudly. Guess who started answering? Yep, the pt across the hall, "Jill". The funny part was the next morning when "Jill's" family arrived, it seems her late husbands name happened to be " George ".

[Kiwi RGN]

One day when I was working on a cardio-thoracic surgical ward, I was trying to quickly check vital signs on all my patients before the surgeons and their teams did their rounds. As I had looked after one of my patients previously, I was aware that he was a very deep sleeper, and often slept with his eyes half open. I decided to check on all the other patients first and come back to him as it often took him a while to wake up.
I came back into the 'deep-sleeper's' room just in time to see the Registrar beside the patient's bed, looking very worried, obviously thinking that the man had become unresponsive. He was gripping the man's shoulders, shaking him and loudly saying, 'Are you alright? Wake up! Are you alright? Can you hear me?'
The man woke up with a huge fright, jerked upright, pushing the Registrar away, and shouted, 'Who are you? What are you doing here?'. The Registrar also got a fright, and jumped back...
I couldn't help laughing. Eventually they both saw the funny side- once their heart rates had returned to normal!

[Cindy_A]

I once had a resident walk up to the nurses station and declare " You know, that Bill is just like a brother to me." When I informed her that Bill was her son, she repled "He is? Well, no wonder I liked him so well!"

[Kiwi RGN]

Originally Posted by Dan.Ed

psychiatric unit 15 years ago.... staff had not had good crisis training. A young bipolar woman was combative and someone called a code security. By the time all of the staff had caught up with the lady she was in the door way to her room trying to take out as many staff as she could with her feet. (She actually knew karate) Because she was standing in the doorway staff could get in front of her and behind her , but not to her sides... Someone yelled "get her feet". A security guard bent over and grabbed hold of one leg and began tugging trying to get her on her back on the floor. Unfortunately the leg he grabbed belonged to the charge nurse who fell to the floor with her feet over her head and her skirt 'up to there", as she fell she was holding on to the pt who also fell, as the patient fell everybody who was holding onto her lost their balance and fell, too. But as we all lay in the floor struggling nobody let go of any body part they were holding on to... the security guard still had the charge nurse by the leg, who by this time was shouting "let go of me" and struggling for all she was worth. I tried to dislodge the security guard from the charge nurse, but he thought my hands on him belonged to the patient so he started twisting the charge nurse's leg. everybody starting screaming and yelling and the patient finally calmed down ( I think because it was becoming apparent to even a bipolar person that someone was getting ready to break something on somebody real soon). When it was finally over the charge nurse could barely walk ; I felt like I'd been dragged by a truck, and everybody else was scraped up and pitiful --- but I still couldn't stop laughing.. dan

That is one of the funniest stories I've heard!

It reminds me of one of my colleague's stories... she was on duty when they had to restrain a very agitated and aggressive patient. There were 4 nurses holding the person down on his bed, the two nurses holding the patient's legs were kneeling on the bed beside him. A fifth nurse was told to give the IM sedative injection into the patient's thigh, 'Now!'
Within seconds one of the staff had slowly slid off the bed onto the floor! Oops!