Elders Say the Darnedest Things!

As anyone who's ever worked with the elderly knows, every care facility has its "characters": the curmudgeon, the hothouse flower, the Church Lady. And the best-kept secret in the business is the hilarity that ensues whenever one of these folks offers his or her commentaries on everyday events. Nurses Announcements Archive Article

Take Ed, our resident Oscar the Grouch. He's a World War II vet who also worked as a train conductor; his manner is gruff, and his language is often as colorful as the Oregon Ducks cap he wears. He enjoys nothing more than to wheel himself about the facility, advertising his presence by periodically calling out his own name, "Ed-DEEEEEEEEE!" or whatever occurs to him at the time.

So one night when he complained to me about "not bein' able to hear as good as I usedta", I checked his ears with the otoscope. Sure enough, he had a heavy buildup of cerumen in both ears, and I informed him of this as I put away the instrument and washed my hands. Next thing I knew, he was cruising down the hall announcing "Ear WAX!" to everyone he met along the way.........and grinning like the cat that ate the canary!

This is the same guy who once made a late-stage Parkinson's patient, who never even cracks a smile, break into hysterical laughter by hollering "STOP!! Yer mashin' m' boys!" at a CNA who was trying to straighten him up in his chair. He is also the same resident who made a humorously clumsy pass at me one evening when I was checking his blood sugar:

Ed: "Y' know, I need ta find me a woman."

Me: "Well, there are a lot of single ladies here......."

Ed (looking me up and down): "Nah......I think you'd do, though."

Me (chuckling): "I think my husband might have a problem with that, Ed. Besides, you don't want this old bag---you want a pretty young thing."

Ed (eyes twinkling madly): "Honey, I'll take any bag I can git!"

Then there's Elaine, who's well into her eighties, wildly demented, and as funny as they come. She is cheerfully profane, and she will bless you and curse you.......sometimes in the same breath. I was working with her roommate one late afternoon when she called out to me: "Hey, Mary!" (Elaine calls everyone either Mary or Philip, and to this day NOBODY, including her family, knows who Mary or Philip really are.)

Me: "What is it, Elaine?"

Elaine: "Why do you think I keep itching all the time? This itch is driving me crazy!"

Me: "I think it's because when we get older, our skin dries out a lot, and when it's dry, it itches sometimes."

Elaine (quizzically): "How do you know that? How old are you?"

Me: "I'm fifty, Elaine."

Elaine: "Oh, well, that explains it---you've got some years on me."

Me: "Oh, really? How old are you?"

Elaine: "I'm forty-three........and I'm PREGNANT! Can you believe that (stuff)?"

And there's Carol, Heaven bless her. She is seventy, looks fifty-five, and acts like she's nine. She's as full of mischief as any two-hundred-pound hemiplegic "kid" can be; having suffered two serious strokes, her impulse control is non-existent, and her dry wit and her barbed tongue, on top of her physical challenges, are too much for some staff members.........hence, I handle most of the day-to-day interactions with her. It's OK with me; I think she's got great comedic timing, and her one-liners are priceless.

It was late in the evening; Carol's roommate, who is only about three times more demented than Carol herself, was having a conversation with..........nobody. This drives Carol up the wall, especially when it goes on all day and half the night as it did that time. I went in to give her the bedtime dose of Lantus insulin, and she pantomimed "talks too much" with her good hand, rolled her eyes, and mouthed the words, "Quack, quack, quack!" This immediately struck me funny, and I snorted, which made her giggle, and then we both broke up, cackling madly while the roommate continued gabbling to herself. It wasn't very nice, and I made myself stop........but only as long as it took to get out of the room entirely!

Another time, I'd been off for a four-day stretch when Carol wheeled herself up to the nurses' station and announced loudly that she thought she'd hurt the feelings of the nurse who'd taken my place. "I TOLD HER YOU WERE A BETTER NURSE THAN HER BECAUSE YOU DON'T HURT ME WHEN YOU GIVE ME MY SHOTS!" she bellowed, obviously enjoying the effect her words were having on the same nurse, who was easily within earshot as she was standing at the neighboring nurses' station at that moment.......

She also has a fascination with Las Vegas and believes that she and her boyfriend, who lives in an assisted living facility a few miles away, will someday go there and get married. One day I went in and caught her halfway out of bed, having disengaged her personal alarm so that it wouldn't go off and spoil her plans to sneak out. I looked down at her, trying to be serious, and asked, "Carol, wherever in the world do you think you are going?"

Her eyes danced merrily as she responded: "Vegas. You wanna be my matron of honor?"

Specializes in ICU, Telemetry.

One of my teachers told me this one, and it makes me giggle to this day. They had a little fella in their LTC who was sure he was still back on the farm, and would completely unravel if someone didn't "get the cows in" around sundown, and would try to go get the cows in, despite not being able to walk, not being on a farm, etc. So, everyday, someone would go out one door when he started worrying about the cows, saying, "don't worry, I'll go get them in for the night." And they had to go out one door and come in another for this to work.

Well, they had a two new nurses one night, and one tried to "reorient" the poor guy, and upset him to no end. So, the other new nurse, who was rapidly clued in as to what needed to be done, said, "don't worry, I'll go get them in" and takes off out the door. The guy sits there in his wheelchair, cussing "that fool woman, don't know them cows'll git into mischief if they're out all night..." So the second nurse comes back in, breathless from running from one door to the other, and said, "Okay, Mr. Smith, there's a bunch of gurnseys in the barn."

The guy went completely nuts and started screaming, "You fool, we ain't got gurnseys, you stole somebody's else's cows!" and nothing would calm him. Each nurse, aide and janitor in the place went out in turn, guessing red cows, black cows, spotted cows, and never getting it right, and the poor resident's getting more and more upset. Finally, the charge nurse came on the scene, and said, "Mr. Smith, you stop messing with these girls, you know I get your cows in every night, and they're all just fine." For some reason, that worked, and he settled down, until he looked at the first nurse and said, "How many cows are out there?"

My teacher said the poor thing looked like she was going to cry. Welcome to the world of dementia....the charge nurse said, "all of them" and a second crisis was stopped in its tracts.

I've always remembered that with dementia patients -- if you've got to tell them something, keep the story the same, AND DON'T ADD TO IT.

Specializes in LTC, Acute Care.
These are too funny. I have a very confused resident (LOL) that wanders around in her w/c humming all day. Never talks. She came in to my office to visit the other day, as she does sometimes. She looked me dead in the eye and asked "How is your shark doing?".......needless to say I had a hard time answering that one with a straight face.

LMAO!!!!

So...how is your shark doing?

My VERY first day of clinicals, we were in a LTC facility and I was helping a lady get ready for bed. I had helped the nurse the night before, who warned me she was a bit "rough" but that night she seemed an angel, so the next day I decided to give it a go. I had another student with me, but she would only allow one person to touch her and help her, so the other student kind of stood back and watched. When it came time to wipe her, it was my very first time, and I guess I was being a bit, uh, shy about it 'cuz she said, "Come on, it ain't gonna bite you!"

I am now much more efficient, I'm proud to say. The lady even ended up taking a liking to me, go figure.

Specializes in LTC.

I work as LPN in LTC. There is a elderly lady on my hall. She tells everyone, everymorning that she is tired of living in the "whorehouse" she just wants to move out and go home. Every night she has people in/out of her house, and all those men are driving her crazy. She is sick of living in a "whore house".

Specializes in med/surg.

I LOVE hearing these stories!! And this is why I love my seniors! I had a 70 YO married gentleman who was infamous about joking around (no Dementia documented) tell me all about his Penile Implant and I thought he was kidding, so I laughed. Well he got very serious and said "Well old men gotta do it too!! Ya want some?" Hilarious! I'll never forget it!

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Well, I went back to work today after nine wonderful, restful, relaxing days off, and let me tell you, if I ever had doubts about whether I make a difference in my residents' and staffs' lives, those doubts are gone now.

The CNAs were so glad to see me, they hugged me until they about squeezed the life out of me. I got a hug from the DNS as well, and even the RCM told me she was happy to have me back, and she's never happy to see anybody. The night nurse was ecstatic---she said, only half kidding, that I am never allowed to take another vacation (apparently things didn't run terribly smoothly while I was gone). And the residents.........one who is almost chronically grumpy literally took my hand and kissed it, saying "Oh, I missed you!", which all by itself is something I can live on for at least three months!

This was a good thing. I desperately needed that time off, but I was ready to go back and I felt good all shift, easygoing and relaxed like I used to be, with plenty of energy. Heck, I even LOST three more pounds while I was on vacation.........it doesn't get any better than that.:D

Specializes in Extreme generalist.

One evening, I went to give one of our ladies her pill. She had nasturiums planted on her windowsill, and had been talking about them at great length.

She looked at the one little pill in the cup, and said "Just one seed? (swallows pill)... Think it'll grow?"

Specializes in LTC.

I work as LPN in LTC. We had a elderly resident (passed in May), when she didn't want to do something, she would "pretend" to be unconsious. I am not joking either.

I had just taken over the hall that I am working on now (I was a new grad then), and did not know the residents too well.

One day I was standing at the med cart, pulling another residents meds, when I saw a CNA flying out of the dining room with this resident on literally two wheels (she was in a broda chair), the CNA was having what looked like a panic attack, she was yelling/shouting, "help, help, Mrs. Ruth is unconscious and we can't get her to respond, I don't think she is breathing, please somebody help us. Well, like a nurse, I ran over there as fast as I could, started taking her pulse, and got them to grab b/p cuff, yelled for another nurse to get me a 02 concentrator/cannula, here I am getting her pulse ox, trying to help lift her into her bed, cause she is flat cold out of it, and I can't get her to respond to anything. Here I am thinking OMG, she is gonna die on me. Well in the meantime, the other nurse who left this hall to go to another hall, comes over to see what all the commotion is. She says "let me see what is going on". I am about to call the doctor. She says "Mrs. Ruth, what is going on with you?". Mrs. Ruth raises her head up and says " I wanted to go to bed", they won't leave me alone. It was serious, but in the end it was so funny. I learnt from this. All along she was playing us. The poor CNA was in tears.

Every now and then she would try this trick again/again. But, I quickly learned. All I would have to do is say "Mrs. Ruth" and she would pop them eyes open and say something. I don't think she ever did it but a couple more times, by then she had learnt my voice and would respond immediately. Since she has passed, I still find myself thinking about her when I pass her room, and each time it makes me laugh alittle. Funny how the little things like this you always remember, and how attached you get to these residents.

One of the LOL in our facility told the CNA "get that snake down there, it's inside me eating all my macaroni and cheese and spaghetti." LMAO

This LOL is priceless, I have another really good story about something she said but it's quite obscene so I better hold back. Loving these stories btw.

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.

Last night I was giving a new admit her insulin shot and asked her where she preferred it. In all seriousness, she looked at me and said, "Oh, don't put it in my belly, you might hit the baby!"

Me (trying not to laugh): "Baby?"

Resident: "That's right, I'm gonna have a new little one any day now. You didn't think I was just fat, did you?"

Specializes in ICU, home health, med surg, pain management.

YOUR WHAT HURTS?

This from my father-in-law, whom I cared for in our home, when I took him to the Dr:

Buddy: What am I here for?

Me: To see the doctor for your bladder infection.

Buddy: I have a blabber infection? (Sly grin, followed by a belly laugh, which broke up the waiting room.)

PISTOL PACKIN' GRANDMA

When my grandmother was in an LTC facility, there was another resident who would wander into Grandma's room and pilfer through her drawers, helping herself to whatever she took a fancy to. Grandma was sharp mentally, but was bed-ridden due to a stroke, and could not do anything but holler at the intruder. So, Grandma somehow got her hands on a toy water gun, and some collaborator filled it for her. The next time the unwelcomed guest made an appearance, Grandma was ready. "I told you to get out of here!!!" Squirt, squirt squirt - problem solved!

Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
YOUR WHAT HURTS?

This from my father-in-law, whom I cared for in our home, when I took him to the Dr:

Buddy: What am I here for?

Me: To see the doctor for your bladder infection.

Buddy: I have a blabber infection? (Sly grin, followed by a belly laugh, which broke up the waiting room.)

PISTOL PACKIN' GRANDMA

When my grandmother was in an LTC facility, there was another resident who would wander into Grandma's room and pilfer through her drawers, helping herself to whatever she took a fancy to. Grandma was sharp mentally, but was bed-ridden due to a stroke, and could not do anything but holler at the intruder. So, Grandma somehow got her hands on a toy water gun, and some collaborator filled it for her. The next time the unwelcomed guest made an appearance, Grandma was ready. "I told you to get out of here!!!" Squirt, squirt squirt - problem solved!

GREAT stories!! ROFL:lol2::lol2::lol2: