[oldcurlyrn49]

The funniest thing I heard was just yesterday. A mom of a 2week old baby
that was admitted for RSV, stated the baby had RSVP!

[Roni_xx]

It was my first posting as a new grad. I was dispensing evening medications to my patient assignment when Margaret the charge RN came running down the hall to me.

“Come quick” she said “I think one of your patients is dead.”

To which I replied, “Not on my shift too much damn paper work.”

Margaret gave me a scathing look as I followed her back down the hall to Flora’s room.
There were two patients to each room.

Now Flora was an elderly lady of 87 years at that time and has by now passed on. She slept with her eyes and mouth open was extremely hard of hearing a shallow breather and not easy to palpate vitals.

Margaret stood on one side of Flora’s bed taking her pulse while I stood on the other side bent over calling Flora’s name each time getting louder. Flora, FLORA, FLORA .

The look on Margaret’s face, she was aghast, her mouth hung open and when on the third time I called Flora’s name practically yelling and Flora responded “WHAT??” I thought Margaret was going to hit the floor.


A few months later I came on for a day shift and my patient assignment again included Flora. I learnt in report that Flora’s roommate Mary had passed away in the night. The doctor had been called to pronounce Mary dead but as yet had not arrived. As it turned out night staff had not thought to remove Flora from the room so she was still in bed asleep. As I said before, she slept with her eyes and mouth open was extremely hard of hearing a shallow breather and not easy to palpate vitals.

As I exited report the doctor came to find me saying he had just been in the room but he needed clarification as to “Which patient would I like him to pronounce dead?” Apparently he had been checking vitals on both patients for more than 5 minutes.

I have since moved on to other hospitals but when I left Flora was still going strong.

And before anyone asks yes these are true stories and in eleven years of nursing I still find them humorous.

[ShirleyR]

I remember when I first got out of nursing and worked nights on med/surg. This little elderly man was admitted to our floor with CHF. His wife was with him & was planning on staying the night in his room. The Doc had ordered 80 mg of lasix IM. Before administereing the lasix I placed a condom cath on ( my first). I gave him the lasix, explained the call bell system & made sure they were comfortable and told them I'd be in a little while later to check on him. I then went back to the nurse's station to start on my notes. About 30 minutes went by & the little gentleman's call light went off. Using to call intercom I asked, " How can I help you?'. The patient's wife timidly said, " Ma'am, this think you put on my husband is broken & it's making a mess everywhere." I had no clue as to what she was talking about, so a CNA & myself went right in to assess the situation. We get in his room & the patients little wife is sitting in the chair with her feet held up as to not touch the floor, she said, "Watch out you'll fall!" There was urine all over the floor. We get over to the patient and pull the covers back, expecting to see the condom off in the bed, but were we surprised!!! His penis looked like a little water fountain & the condom cath held his testicles . The CNA immediately left the room, I appologized & started cleaning him up, One of the other nurses came to help with clean linens and a new condom cath. After the situation was controlled I went to the break area where the staff were at,almost lying in the floor laughing. I finally had to explain to them that I cound't find his penis and had put all the wrinkly stuff inside the condom cath.

[alvardalton]

Working one night on a geriatric ward with a nursing student we were doing the "poo round" when we encountered that smell... Any nurse with some experience will know that if you can smell something at a distance its not good! Well, we went in to the LOL in NAD (little old lady in no apparent distress) and proceeded to change her. Half way through I was finding it tough to continue and before I could make comment the student left the room.....I did not know what to make of this, and was curious when the student came back moments later with a hudson mask! Before I could ask what this was for as the LOL was in NAD, the student connected the mask to the Oxygen and put it on himself!!! This still serves as a source of amusement and I wonder if it works!

[Danianne]

This is a little story about one of my favorite nurses. I was a patient a few months ago and I was totally barfing and such and lost alot of weight.... so they started me on a continuous NG feed of Jevity (that stuff tases so nasty!) anyways my NG came un plugged and my bed got all covered in Congealed Jevity and my NG got alll plugged and my nurse being the nice gal she is wanted to save me the discomfort of having a new one placed so she decided to get a can of coke and smoosh it down the tube well she put a little too much force into it and had her sillouette imposed on the privacy curtain and I got al really good laugh, she was awesome! we had some really good water fights in the mioddle of the night with the huge 60 ml syringes!

[alvardalton]

I was called in one night to special a patient, a LOL. This lady just had a hip fracture and was very aggressive about wanting to go home and was trying to get out of bed! The ward was busy and the order of the night was to keep her quiet and in bed (easier said than done!). This elderly woman was becoming increasingly annoyed with me as I continued to tell her to stay put. She was calling me a mean spirited individual and many other phrases she could think of!. Just as I was beginning to believe her it was time for my break (a sanity break!). I was off for just half an hour but when I came back the nurse that had taken over was at her wits end and frustrated with the LOL, she was glad to see me. I took over and she left. I was uncomfortable in the chair I was sitting in and as I had just managed to convince the lady to take a break from squirming (and resume in a little while!) I decided to lay on the floor. Just as I had gotten comfortable this little old lady who I thought hated me, looked over the bed rail at me and said "are you okay dear?". "Would you like me to get you a blanket?". I found this very funny, and sweet at the same time.

[alvardalton]

Originally Posted by ShirleyR

I remember when I first got out of nursing and worked nights on med/surg. This little elderly man was admitted to our floor with CHF. His wife was with him & was planning on staying the night in his room. The Doc had ordered 80 mg of lasix IM. Before administereing the lasix I placed a condom cath on ( my first). I gave him the lasix, explained the call bell system & made sure they were comfortable and told them I'd be in a little while later to check on him. I then went back to the nurse's station to start on my notes. About 30 minutes went by & the little gentleman's call light went off. Using to call intercom I asked, " How can I help you?'. The patient's wife timidly said, " Ma'am, this think you put on my husband is broken & it's making a mess everywhere." I had no clue as to what she was talking about, so a CNA & myself went right in to assess the situation. We get in his room & the patients little wife is sitting in the chair with her feet held up as to not touch the floor, she said, "Watch out you'll fall!" There was urine all over the floor. We get over to the patient and pull the covers back, expecting to see the condom off in the bed, but were we surprised!!! His penis looked like a little water fountain & the condom cath held his testicles . The CNA immediately left the room, I appologized & started cleaning him up, One of the other nurses came to help with clean linens and a new condom cath. After the situation was controlled I went to the break area where the staff were at,almost lying in the floor laughing. I finally had to explain to them that I cound't find his penis and had put all the wrinkly stuff inside the condom cath.

It's surprising the guy didn't say something about the placement!

[Franemtnurse]

I just love the one about the new nurse who had just gotten a new job, and was helping resiscitate a patient. He spoke broken english, and what was so funny was how he pronounced the word, jewels. This is what he said, "300 Jews; convert!"

[ninagrandma]

This story happened in the good ol' days @ 1980 or so. I had a patient who was afraid of getting anymore staph infections. When questioning him he thought it was one of us staff that had given him this infection. When the air was cleared, we all had a good laugh about this one. This will certainly be included in my memoirs.

[Frank01]

Originally Posted by Psychaprn

Psych is full of funny stories-as a new prescriber, I tried to educate my pts.that some of the antidepressants can cause delayed ejaculation. A young construction worker came to me with this problem. I told him, as we talked about the drug, to "hold it "for a week to see if things improved. He returned a week later telling me that holding his penis hadn't helped with the delayed ejaculation. Neeless to say, I learned to be MORE clear when telling patients to hold or stop a medication.

Some years back I was working on an elderly care unit and we had a new patient admitted. As was the standard procedure the junior doctor came to do the assessment interview with me. One of the standard questions to ask is "do you know where you are" to which we got the reply " yes I am in the f*****g zoo" " what makes you think you are in the zoo" the doctor asked (he was very junior), the reply was "because I`m surrounded by f*****g animals".