You Can't Make This Stuff Up!

As a nurse of some years' duration, I've often been accused of harboring a rather warped sense of humor. I'm not sure what happened, or when I devolved from a normal person who laughs at knock-knock jokes and funny animal videos to a degenerate who cackles madly at bodily functions and the infinite variety of stupid people tricks. All I know is, I've seen some crazy stuff since I've been in this field........and every single one of these stories is 100% true.

........Some years ago when I was still working Med/Surg, I had a patient who could be described diplomatically only as "fluffy". In actuality, she was a diabetic who weighed more than 400 lbs. A pleasant sort, she struck up conversation with me as I performed her PM assessment; when the aide brought her supper tray in, she mentioned that she'd lost her lower dentures at breakfast and asked if I'd seen them. Of course, I hadn't---at least, not until I turned her onto her side so I could listen to her lungs.

There, firmly implanted in her left buttock, were the teeth. They'd made such an indentation that I literally had to pry them off her cheek with a gloved finger..........whereupon she whisked them out of my hand, said "Ahhh, thanks, honey", and popped them into her mouth before I even had a chance to wash them!

........Same hospital: we had this little old man from a nursing home; naturally, he was terribly confused, and much to the dismay of the entire floor yelled incoherently for hours and tried repeatedly to climb out of bed. Finally, after several complaints from other patients and a couple of Ativan tablets that did nothing but wind him up even more, his nurse found a geri-chair and brought him out to the nurses' station so we could keep an eye on him. In exasperation, she told the man, "Now you be quiet---I don't want to hear so much as a squeak out of you."

That was when we found out he wasn't quite as demented as we'd assumed. With a sly grin on his face and an unmistakable twinkle in his faded blue eyes, he said "SQUEAK!" and promptly subsided, content to watch the corridor and nibble on graham crackers.

........Another time, an aide and I were cleaning up after a patient who'd been incontinent of a rather impressive river of loose stool..........in fact, it was pouring off the bed and splattering on the floor (not to mention our shoes). Why I was reminded just then of the need to pick up some chocolate fudge cake mix on the way home, I'll never know, but when I said as much, the aide turned a funny shade of green and fled the room!

.........Here's a patient I'm sure many of us have met: the nineteen-year-old primigravida with tattoos all over her upper body who screeched like a frightened toddler when I tried to start an IV because she "didn't like needles"...........

.........More fun from the OB unit: I've worked three-day stretches in postpartum without seeing even ONE married couple. Sent new parents home who couldn't even read the directions on the box their infant car seat came in. Caught a baby in my bare hands when the L&D nurse was on break and the doctor hadn't arrived yet because Mom was only at 6 cm and the contractions were still three minutes apart after eight hours of labor.

And I've spent nights in a hospital nursery with a baby in each arm, wondering what I'd done to deserve the privilege of actually getting paid to sit in a rocking chair, cradling downy heads and inhaling deeply of the scent of new life. Nope, you really CAN'T make this stuff up.