C'mere and share your on-the-job laughs!

[UM Review RN]

family wants patient dc'd asap, they say. they're tired, patient is tired and what is the holdup anyway. where is this doc, that doc, the other doc.

we're just frustrated because we all want to get patient out of here.

right. we get it.

finally the last consulted doc--a psychiatrist--comes breezing in, talks to patient for about 45 minutes, then to family, then to charge nurse, then to yours truly. we all agree that patient is good to go.

doc is about to leave when suddenly the family wants to talk to him again out of earshot of the patient. i see the doc listen, nod, then come over to where i'm sitting. he leans forward conspiratorially, looks around to see if patient is nearby and says,

"ummm...you know that we're going to discharge 3b."

i nod.

"ummm, the family has a request."

i nod expectantly.

"ummm...they don't want the patient to know she's being discharged."

i leaned toward him and stage whispered back, "but doc, don't you think she's going to find out?"

[color=#483d8b]

[color=#483d8b]

[nservice]

I was working on a telemetry floor and we had a patient who was S/P penectomy and transferred to our floor with C/O chest pain. In report the off-going nurse said, "He hasn't complained of any chest pain". One of the male nurses said, "I guess not...the last time he complained they cut his d*** off! I spit coke across the table at that one.

[bethin]

When I worked LTC I had a pt who had a scooter. I was in the dining room feeding patients when I looked out the window. I did a double take. Fred was on his scooter headed for a retaining pond! I chased after him, trying to get him to come back and eat. I'm sure it looked funny to the passerby's on the road. I ended up tripping over a hole and he got away. I found him headed towards the local McDonald's because he didn't like the food that was served in the LTC. Had to have the police pick him up.

He did it again the next week. This time he headed for KFC. He also scooted to the liquor store two blocks away. Can we say scooting while drunk??

[nursejourney]

I'm starting a teaching job at the local Uni and will be tutoring the 1st year nursing students. I asked a fellow nurse for some simple advice to give the 1st years... she said "Tell them never to clean more than one set of dentures at a time" ... very sound advice!

[Eric01]

I had a confused little-old-lady a couple weeks ago who was upset that she kept getting hemmoroids in the mail. I suggested she stick them back in the mail marked "Return to Sender".

I had another patient who had ECG electrodes on and was dressing for d/c. Her visitor (both individuals were bright lady's in their 40's) asked what those stickers were, and actually believed me when I explained that they were the new anti-shoplifting tags, and that the doors wouldn't open if the patient had any on her.

[GardenDove]

I had a confused little-old-lady a couple weeks ago who was upset that she kept getting hemmoroids in the mail. I suggested she stick them back in the mail marked "Return to Sender".

I had another patient who had ECG electrodes on and was dressing for d/c. Her visitor (both individuals were bright lady's in their 40's) asked what those stickers were, and actually believed me when I explained that they were the new anti-shoplifting tags, and that the doors wouldn't open if the patient had any on her.

Why shouldn't they believe you? They don't know anything about the healthcare system at all, which is why they asked what they were in the first place. I hope you immediately corrected their misperception.

[Megsd, BSN, RN]

When I worked as a CNA in a nursing home we had a funny 95 year old woman. Her friend brought her a jar of jellybeans and she would sit in the halls and munch on them periodically. One day she was sitting in her wheelchair by the nurses station munching on something. She called the nurse over and said "I'm having trouble chewing a few of these jellybeans... can you come take a look?" The nurse put gloves on and the woman spit out the "jellybeans."

They were her hearing aides! To her credit, only the part that sticks outside the ear is flesh colored, and the whole rest of the aide is red or blue, so they do look kind of like jellybeans.

The whole thing was very funny, and even funnier was listening to the nurse having to call the family/POA/doctor to inform them (with a straight face) that this woman had eaten her hearing aides.

[tvccrn, ASN, RN]

Why shouldn't they believe you? They don't know anything about the healthcare system at all, which is why they asked what they were in the first place. I hope you immediately corrected their misperception.

Maybe because this wasn't in a shopping area, it was in a healthcare area. Why would we be concerned about shoplifting?? And the poster did mention that they ladies were "bright ladies in their 40's". Surely they would realize someone was joking about shoplifting from a medical facility.

tvccrn

[fultzymom]

Just the other day I had to get a chart off the Alzheimer's unit. I went in the nurses station and got it. The station is by the lounge area. There was a man who I had not heard speak in months sitting there by the door in a recliner. When I pulled the door back shut, it banged really loud. He jumped et yelled, "JESUS!" Was so funny. Every worker there was laughing at me for about giving him a heart attack!

[nptobee]

I had a patient last night, 95y/o female. A/O x 3, in with pneumonia and a UTI. She had long acrylic nails with designs. I thought that was too funny.

[UM Review RN, ASN, RN]

Had a patient who was a schizophrenic and was having hallucinations. Strange people were in her room talking, she said. They made her chest hurt.

Somehow I managed to get her to take her Seroquel and she slept most of the shift.

I went into her room at the end of the shift and she sat straight up and complained, "I don't want that woman to come in here again! She had a deep voice and she wandered in, said, 'I'll just help myself, if you don't mind,' and sat right down and used my commode! Right in front of me!"

The commode was right next to the bed. I placated her as best I could, then went up to give Report to the next shift nurse regarding this patient's latest hallucination.

On the way, a patient poked her head out of a room--and I noticed she was coming out of the wrong room.

"How to I get to St. Cecile's?" she asked in a deep voice. "I've been wandering around here for hours and I can't even find the bathroom."

Suddenly I realized where she'd been.

[MS._Jen_RN, ASN, RN]

Had a patient who was a schizophrenic and was having hallucinations. Strange people were in her room talking, she said. They made her chest hurt.

Somehow I managed to get her to take her Seroquel and she slept most of the shift.

I went into her room at the end of the shift and she sat straight up and complained, "I don't want that woman to come in here again! She had a deep voice and she wandered in, said, 'I'll just help myself, if you don't mind,' and sat right down and used my commode! Right in front of me!"

The commode was right next to the bed. I placated her as best I could, then went up to give Report to the next shift nurse regarding this patient's latest hallucination.

On the way, a patient poked her head out of a room--and I noticed she was coming out of the wrong room.

"How to I get to St. Cecile's?" she asked in a deep voice. "I've been wandering around here for hours and I can't even find the bathroom."

Suddenly I realized where she'd been.

OMG, I about wet myself!!

We had a RN who had went to give a confused patient his PM meds which included a suppository(which she'd put in a little plastic cup). She forgot the lube for the suppository and told him she'd be right back. When she came back in the room he said, "I took that pill you left, but man was it nasty!" Yup, you guess it- It hadn't been as far out of his reach as she thought, he chewed the Ducolax! His wife said she always knew he had a potty mouth!

~Jen

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

had a confused little old man on our med/surg floor, waiting to go to the nursing home. he'd been waiting for about 9 months for a nursing home bed, but i digress. we all liked him -- he was really sweet and cute -- but he took to getting out of bed and wandering off, saying he was going to find his own da__ed nursing home bed! so eventually, we started putting him in the geri chair with the tray locked down in front of him and leaving him at the nurses station at night so we could watch him and talk to him on slow nights. i don't know when he slept, because the day nurses had him in the geri chair, too.

one weekend i got report that he'd been up all day, and had learned to scuttle down the hall in his geri chair by pushing backwards with his tippy toes. so that night, one of the aides got the idea to tie him to the sink in his room so he couldn't scuttle off while we were busy with the poop clean-ups. (15 patients all incontinent, two staff. we spent most of the night cleaning up.) we were down the hall doing a clean-up when we heard a loud crash and the sound of a water fall -- ran down to juan's room and found him scuttling out of the room in the geri chair, pushing with his tippy toes and dragging the sink behind him! the resulting flood beat him out of the room and down the hall.

we were in a brand new building, and there had been problems with construction standards. obviously. the next night, someone got the bright idea of tying his chair to the handrails in the hall. middle of the night, loud crash and even louder swearing. he'd pulled the handrail right off the wall -- was attached only to dry wall which also came off. the occupant of the room was busily having sex with his so when the wall came crashing down, exposing their activities to two shocked nurses!

juan's wandering was the end of him. he scuttled out of the room, down the hall and off the nursing unit when some brilliant medical student found him trying unsuccessfully to open the door to the stairwell. the ms kindly helped him out by opening the door and holding it for him. with predictable results. the ms told me he'd gone down the stairs backward, bounce, bounce, bouncing on every step. "at what point did you realize you'd made a mistake?" i asked him later. he was lying on his back in the geri chair, feet in the air and hands folded neatly on the tray when the team arrived on the landing where he'd come to rest.

next night, in a full body cast, juan was once again scuttling around the unit in a geri chair. that night we blocked the exits with the linen carts and let him go. he eventually became septic from a decub underneath the cast and died, still waiting for that nursing home bed.