Share Your Funniest Patient Stories...

dina77 · Aug 1, 2008

Call me old fashioned but how the h*ll does one intice a small mamal where the sun don't shine?:chuckle

Tash4nvyblues, RN · Aug 1, 2008

dina77 said:

Call me old fashioned but how the h*ll does one intice a small mamal where the sun don't shine?:chuckle

hypnotherapy! maybe?

Cathlabnurse46 · Aug 1, 2008

dina77 said:

Call me old fashioned but how the h*ll does one intice a small mamal where the sun don't shine?:chuckle

The proceedure, from how I heard it was done went like this: You tied a string to the gerbils tail. Placed a tube, like a toilet paper roll in the rectum (I have no idea how you can dialate the rectum that big). The critter goes in the tube, like a habitrail! Once the tube is removed, the critter asphixiates. :cry: Apparently the movement stimulates the vagus nerve and gives the person an orgasam :loveya:. The string is then pulled to remove the animal.... HOPEFULLY :eek: .

Still Gerbils have teeth and claws and how do you tie a string on thier tails? He must have failed his EAGLE SCOUT BADGE in KNOTT TYING!

stumpy1 · Aug 1, 2008

The first pediatric patient I cared for with a trach was good as gold the entire time he was trached for epiglottitis. It was a metal trach, if that tells you how long ago it was. He allowed us to suction him, change the dressing, and administer oxygen/respiratory treatments and we did not need to restrain him. He could not write since he was only 4 years old. The entire staff was amazed that he was so cooperative.

I was caring for him the day the md removed the infamous trach. After it was removed and he could speak, his mother asked him why he had been so good. His precious reply was, "Mommy, the doctors made me BIONIC.":redpinkhe I melted.

Now does that tell you how long I have been a nurse? (Please don't email me if you don't remember the 6 Million Dollar Man)...It effectively shows how our culture has been affected by television.

stumpy1 · Aug 1, 2008

I have always wondered how/why/ and what are they thinking? Thanks for answering all of those questions. Its' amazing what we are exposed to as nurses.

Daywalker · Aug 5, 2008

Cathlabnurse46 said:

staying with the last two themes, over the years I have seen plenty of X-rays of
forgiven objects in places they shouldn't be. While being a traveler in Bristol TN, an elderly man came into the ER with a lacerated rectum. Seems his favorite HARDEE'S collectable glass had broken that he would use to stimulate his "O" during a certain act. I got him in my ICU... needless to say he couldn't sit nor lay flat too well. He actually lost a lot of blood and way critically ill. In the days prior to PAX and digital radiology, we had real film (for you newbies, this process was done in a dark room). I would have a friend that would run films up to the CCU to show us vibrators, dildo, rings... small mammals in peoples colons! Of course this was before HIPAA and confidentiality concerns were addressed (we tried not to laugh too loud). However this one event, way before HIPAA, sticks with me. It happened while I was still in Nursing school.

A "TV sports news broadcaster" came into my hospital with a bowel obstruction/acute abd. He'd been "gerbiling" when the string broke and the little critter scurried into the colon where it managed to lacerate his bowel before it died. He was rushed into surgery for a bowel resection (no the gerbil didn't make it). Some of my other classmates were doing their OR rotation (in diploma programs we spent 13 weeks in the OR, many times scrubbing in) and witnessed what happened. During lunch the surgeons spoke about the patient (a breach in patient confidentiality now know as HIPAA) in the cafe and it got out who this person was. They fired 3 OR nurses (a lesson to be learned to newer nurses)! The sport's caster moved to another market some years later as the story spread. This was in the early 1980's.

Let me get this straight.... the doc spoke out, but the RN's got fired? :banghead:

H3llo Nurse · Aug 11, 2008

i dont have an exact funny story to tell, but i guess my first quarter at clinicals has to be filled with total humor. i remember all my fellow nursing students we were all lookin at eachother like. "WHAT THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO". ahh the good old days. :nurse:

stefano · Aug 14, 2008

cant help but laugh!!

Euskadi1946 · Aug 15, 2008

I just had to share this with my nursing colleagues. If you have ever had a colonoscopy, you will enjoy this....

Dave Barry's Colonoscopy Journal

... I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office,

Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis .

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; alI I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.

Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose watery bowel movement may result.'

This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground. MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep.

The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by Abba. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' has to be the least appropriate. 'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than decade.

If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like. I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, Abba was shrieking 'Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from the tambourine ...'.. and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.

Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

ABOUT THE WRITER

Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor

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MamaBabyRN · Aug 22, 2008

Had a funny yesterday. Postop C/S patient and I had asked her if she was passing gas. She replied she was and her husband (being a funny guy) added that she was "clearing the room". I told him that it was better than the alternative and that we (nurses) were excited by news that our patient's bodies were working as they should. The patient asked what the alternative was and I told her that surgery and anesthesia could cause the bowel to not work well and she could be retaining gas which is painful. And that if she really couldn't get any flatus going (didn't use that word as I didn't want to confuse anyone) we would have to put a tube through her nose and down into her stomach. Her husband seemed fascinated by this thought and asked, "So, they suck the farts out through her nose?!!" LOL

gracie05 · Aug 22, 2008

A patient of mine had a sign that said "No free water" on her door. One day she put her call light on in a rage and yelled, " I AM NOT PAYING FOR WATER IF THE OTHER PATIENTS HERE GET IT FOR FREE!!!!!!!!!" :chuckle

nurse430+yrs · Aug 25, 2008

MamaBabyRN said:

Had a funny yesterday. Postop C/S patient and I had asked her if she was passing gas. She replied she was and her husband (being a funny guy) added that she was "clearing the room". I told him that it was better than the alternative and that we (nurses) were excited by news that our patient's bodies were working as they should. The patient asked what the alternative was and I told her that surgery and anesthesia could cause the bowel to not work well and she could be retaining gas which is painful. And that if she really couldn't get any flatus going (didn't use that word as I didn't want to confuse anyone) we would have to put a tube through her nose and down into her stomach. Her husband seemed fascinated by this thought and asked, "So, they suck the farts out through her nose?!!" LOL

Cute: I think this website should have a contest...vote for the funniest.... :nurse: nurse430+yrs