Share your funniest patient stories...

I was working the brain injury unit of a rehabilitation hospital. I needed to start an IV on a male patient who spoke only Chinese. I was making no progress trying to explain to him by gestures what I needed to do. The patient was speaking to me, but I had no idea what he was saying. At that time his son, who spoke Chinese but also fluent English, arrived and he offered to help. He managed to explain the procedure to his father well enough that his father allowed me to start the line. I thanked the son, explaining that I spoke no Chinese. "It wouldn't matter if you did", the son explained. "He isn't making sense anyway."

In my last 2 years of nursing school, I worked as a float PCT in a local hospital. During summers I worked the night shift in the ED. As a nursing student, I was hauled into many interesting cases, if nothing but to observe. Like many EDs, we had some NPs doing the urgent care stuff. On a hot July midnight, one of them comes down the hall and motions for me to come with her. I trot along behind her. She explains to me that the patient, a female in her 30's, came in because she "lost" her lipstick...in her vagina. So, we get into the room with the pt, assist her into stirrups, and insert the speculum...and lo and behold...an open tube of bright red lipstick in the vault. We retrieve the lipstick, and throw it in the trash. The pt wanted it BACK! So, we fished it out of the trash and gave it back... Oh, how many EMT's came up to me that summer asking if I could find some lipstick for them.

The nursing home residents had a mysterious wave of headache complaints from only the ladies. It seems the complaints manifested following "relations" with their significant others. The mystery was solved when a shortage of Nitopaste was discovered. It seems the elderly lotharios found that spreading Nitropaste on their personal areas produced a significant, 'desirous' effect on previously malfunctioning instruments. They were unaware of the side effects that were transferred to their partners. They believed, individually, that the headaches were a result of their skills and passion.

OMG, these stories are hilarious. Makes me see a whole other side to Nursing. I am still a pre-nursing student wondering how I'll cope, so it's really done my heart good to see that there are light moments to it all.

Thanks all.

I had a middle aged man who had had a foot amputation. Anyway, he had to be in the hospital for over a week, and apparently was missing his finance and their "relations." I walked in the see his fiance giving him "oral" care

so, i had a heart failure pt. who had been on my floor for quite some time and was occaisionally confused. and when the CCU team rounds, they all come in the pt's room in a big crowd and like 5 of them have their steth on the pt at the same time. one day after rounds, the pt says to me: what do you call 8 dr.s all at the same time? i say i don't know. he says a DOCTORPUSS! and bursts out laughing. in the morning he had also taken to just yelling COFFEE! COFFEE! COFFEE! until someone came in to get him some. thinking about that, i really don't blame him...

WHEN I WORKED MED SURG I HAD A ETOH ABUSE GENT THAT WAS STANDING IN HIS DOORWAY SMILING WITH NOTHING ON BUT A BLUE CHUX THAT HE HAD FASHIONED INTO A TOGA! WE CLEANED ALL THE COTTON OFF OF HIM, PUT HIM IN THE CHAIR WITH A POSEY AND GAVE HIM HIS BREAKFAST, WHEN I WENT TO CHECK ON HIM HE WAS TRYING TO CUT HIS POSEY OFF WITH A STRAW. I NOW WORK OB. WE HAD A 14 Y/O COME IN TO HAVE A BABY THAT HAD A TATTOO ABOVE HER PUBIC HAIR THAT SAID "JUST EAT IT" WITH AN ARROW POINTING DOWN. I LOST IT WHEN THE OTHER NURSE I WAS WORKING WITH SAID "APPARENTLY HE CAN'T READ OR WE WOULDN'T BE HERE TODAY"

I've been working on oncology and recently took care of a 43 y/o woman with brain metastases. She'd been growing steadily more ill and had all of her family surrouding her while she lay in bed. She couldn't see or hear well 'cause of tumor involvement and there were communication problems...... Anyway, she started calling out and her family called the nurses in. When two of us entered (in whites) she started calling out and waving us towards her, meanwhile telling her family members to back up. As we each came up on a different side of her bed she grabbed our hands and started telling us that she was ready to go. Me, not understanding, tried to reason with her and convince her that she wasn't in any shape to be walking. At that point she began telling her family members goodbye and that she loved them all dearly.....then told both of us that she was ready for the "angels of death" to take her away! Guess who the "angels" were?! I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry- better than the other patient (an older lady) who saw my charge nurse enter her room and screeched "Get back, b**** of death!"

Some years ago working as an RN at a very large and rather old fashionned psychiatric hospital, on a long stay psychogeriatric ward, I was sent to search for a patient overdue from one of her many walks. She was prone to be late on accasions but because she was "quite old and a frail" and the weather was getting cooler in the evenings now, someone would pop out and just help her along. I eventually found her walking back from the direction of the hospital church carrying (as was usual) her two plastic shopping bags with her few possessions in. She greeted me with a smile and as we both walked back to the ward together she told me she had just paid for her cigarettes and tobacco.
I had not been on this ward for very long but had been at the hospital for about five years working in locked wards and security at the other end of the vast complex. This lady was known by everybody on the grounds and the staff as the "bag lady". She was a 'bipolar' fairly well stabilised and in her early eighties.
I asked her how much did you pay for your cigarettes and she replied without any hesitation, "just one **** thats all!" I did not dare to ask her what she paid for the tobacco.
When we got to the ward the female deputy charge nurse welcomed her and took her for a shower and to get ready for the evening meal. Up to this point I had not mentioned the content of the conversation with our "bag lady".
Later that evening I asked the deputy what did "bag lady" mean when I asked what had she paid for her cigarettes, only to be answered that she always paid for her cigarettes and tobacco at the church, or in summer outside the back of the church, by doing certain favours for some of the other patients in the hospital - the older men!
(Going all the way was a whole packet of smokes and doing other things was by negotiation!)
I was informed that as she said, "She was doing it usually in church so it was all OK!"
I only became in total shock on the subject following a request on the following sunday from one of the staff - "if you are going up to the church to escort the patients to the service please would you check with the vicar if any of "bag lady's" knickers were there as she was getting very low on underwear again!
I am not so dumb now! That was very many years ago and I often wonder what became of the "bag lady" and her suppliers!
Crazy? But the truth.

Mister Chris

You should have seen the ads that popped up when the word gorilla was used once.