Stupid Nurse Trick... Don't try this at home... or work!

On our code cart we had maintenance rig up a bracket to catch the cord in case someone tried running before unplugging. It kept the d/fib from falling and provided enough drag to remind us to unplug.
Also anyone notice the carts aren't aerodynamicly stable. Kind of like a minivan in a windstorm.

Then there was the time one of my colleagues picked up an ammonia packet (not knowing what it was) and asked "what's this?" as she popped it! I thought she was going to right then and there! Tee hee.

i was having a very busy day and was more concerned with getting everything done than opening my eyes and seeing the surroundings.so as i entered the still wet floor of the clean utility room [with the caution wet floor sign right outside] 3 steps in and gets who does the complete splits sideways. me !. i screamed in shock more than pain and didn't know how to extricate myself. however, off to emerg to check things out. bruised self-esteem healed with some nsaids. now i truly respect the wet floor signs. i hope this gymnastic feat doesn't come back to haunt me when i am 60 and still floor nursing full time. i spent the rest of the day laughing as i sheepishly recanted to all how i lost my virginity in the clean utility room !

Let's see, I have performed the following stupid nurse's tricks:

* drank an entire pot of caffienated coffee while studying and spent the day on the toilet groaning instead of studying.

*the next weekend decided to be 'one of the cool kids' while studying and attempted to light a cigarette (I have never smoked) off the gas stove. Burned all my bangs off plus singed my eyebrows.

*chopped chiles for chili con carne and then went to work. Rubbed my eye during report and screamed bloody murder, scaring the bejebus out of the patients.

*not recognized a patient when she took her wig off and demanded to know what she had done with Mrs. Robinson!?!

*when preparing my first deceased patient for the morgue, noticed my friend's hand reaching under the curtain to seize my ankle and stomped on his hand, the devil.

* called into work and when my friend answered the phone I felt the need to tell her I'd be late because I was having fantastico sex with my new hot hunky boyfriend, the Englishman. In detail. In great detail. I was on the speakerphone.

*accidently broke my dead patient's wrist while trying to wrestle her into the outfit in which the family wanted her taken to the funeral home.

*again, while dressing a dead patient, put her Capri pants on backwards. No one noticed.

*slipped and fell into the hydrotub when attempting to bathe a patient. She thought it wildly funny.

*leaned across a quadriplegic patient to fluff pillows and almost suffocated the poor guy with my own "pillows". He said, "What a way to go!"

*managed to destroy 2 additional patient's narcs when dcing my own patient's meds. Didn't look at the names on the blisterpaks. Idiot.

*ripped open my own scrub top catching it on a metal projection on the bed. Thank goodness I was wearing a nice bra.

*got caught by the patient looking down the scrub top of my really good-looking male student and admiring his perfect chest. Yum.

*bobbled a (thankfully clean) needle and had it land straight up, quivering in my foot. Do not wear suede Birkenstocks to work, no matter how cool they look.

*asked a patient I ran into on the street how her baby was. "Oh, uh, he died." was the reply. Kill me now...

*grabbed my friend the doc's bottom and honked him only.... It wasn't my good friend, it was a new doc; one of the most handsome men I'd ever seen. For some reason he avoided me the rest of his rotation. Sigh.

*tripped over the cord and unplugged the iron lung. Yes, I am that old.

*fainted in the midst of a delivery. Twice.

*not showed up for work when I was on the schedule and showed up when I wasn't all due to mistranscribing my own schedule to my calendar.

Last but not least,

*three days ago, a colleague was playing with a SIX AND A HALF INCH LONG remote control tarantula and made it crawl towards me: Discovery Remote Control Mexican Redknee Tarantula

I saw it, leapt backwards and screamed "F^cksocks!" at the top of my lungs. I am one of the Clinical Instructors of Nursing. Classy.

There are more, but they are too embarrassing to recount.

I had a patient once who was quite old (or I thought so at the time) and very wrinkled. I knew she had a grown son and daughter but had not seen them. I walked into her room and she had this nice looking young man in her room.

I said "Oh, is this your son?"

She looked at me with the Evil Eye and said "No, this is my boyfriend!"

I have never, ever made a relationship assumption since. At least, not out loud!

Hi Everyone,
My dogs are looking at me with their heads cocked to the side right now due to my howling out loud!! All of these stories are a hoot!

I once called a man "Eddie" all day int he delivery room, due to the fact the pregnant lady had "Eddie" tattooed on her inner thigh. By the end of the day I realized he was getting less and less responsive. I finally twigged. "Is your name Eddie?"

"No."



Eddie was the last boyfriend.

There must be something about wet floor signs and clean utility rooms...lol About a week ago I was getting supplies in the clean utility room and didn't happen to notice the wet floor sign until right before I hit it. Well, somehow I did this jump/turn move over top of the sign and I didn't drop anything I was holding. It would have just been between me and the utility room, except there happened to be an LPN in there that thought it was hillarious...

Moral of the story: beware of those wet floor signs, especially if they are in or near a clean utility room!!

I got the last inch of my right thumb ripped off unloading a horse from a trailer. It was my sister's horse. She happens to be a nurse also. She freaked out. I had to remain calm while she had to sit down to avoid passing out. I was off of work for 8 weeks with that injury. I work as an othopedic nurse, so now I have something to talk to my hand patients about
I was leaving the hospital after a long night shift. There was a cleaning lady mopping the floor on the way out. I had to walk around the 'wet floor' sign... straight onto the wet floor. I went down like a rock. The look on the cleaning lady's face was priceless...she had put the sign on the dry part of the hall and was making everyone walk on the wet side

I was taking a patient out of a room on a cart. My watch wristband caught on the door handle as I went through the doorway. Nearly degloved my hand!

And of course, who HASN'T cut themselves opening an ampule? I always use an alcohol swab to do the deed, but this time, the Phenergan ampule broke so jaggedly that it slashed my thumb open anyway....that was when I actually had an end to my thumb...:hatparty:

i have many 'wowsers' but choose not to incriminate myself.
yes, they're that bad.

i was watching 'untold stories of the er' recently; and it focused on an elderly gentleman admitted with some gi stuff.
his wife of approx 50-60 yrs never left his side.
as he was preparing for discharge, he started fainting after going to the bathroom.
labs and other diagnostics were all wnl.
doctors were perplexed and decided to have him stay.
as it turned out, his wife had been rubbing what she thought was preparation h on his hemorrhoids, after he was done going to the bathroom.
it was in fact, nitropaste- thus, the sudden fainting.

i'm almost certain he didn't have any hemorrhoids on his arms or chest area.

leslie