Ever have patients who are a little too honest?

bethem · Mar 18, 2006

The same thing has happened to me. I was setting this old duck up for breakfast, and I did all of that and made sure her tray looked nice so she'd want to eat. I turned away to go help the person on the other side of the room and the duck said "Oooh, isn't that girl fat!" I knew she was demented, but it still upset me.

shock-me-sane · Mar 18, 2006

i am a nursing student and one of my patients was a 70-something year old male. I was listening to his bowel sounds and noticed "tenting" under the sheets. He then says LOUDLY to his roommate, "this skinny thing with long legs is getting me hard" and then turned to me and asked me if i would hold it for him.

i excused myself and told him i would be back in a few minutes when he had calmed down.

CoffeeRTC, BSN, RN · Mar 18, 2006

That is why I love LTC. Never a dull moment and tons of laughs.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Mar 18, 2006

Had a pt. (early 40's) say to me "You'd be prettier if you got breast implants." I said "I disagree, i'd be conforming to your idea of what pretty is. No thanks." What a moron.

PamUK · Mar 18, 2006

I died of embarrassment a few weeks ago. My daughter (aged 23) had just returned from surgery... full of anaesthetic and pain killers. The patient in the bed next to her was 103 years old and stone deaf. Her son was talking to her, quite loudly. My Darling Daughter raised her head, tried to focus on him but couldn't, and said "Will you shut the f*** up"

Fortunatley, he saw the funny side and darling daughter has no recollection of this. But I couldn't give him eye contact for the rest of her stay

wooh, BSN, RN · Mar 18, 2006

Had a lady tell her voices (about another nurse), "No, don't tell her she's fat, that would hurt her feelings!" right in front of the nurse. Later that night, she told her voices not to kill me, because I was "always nice." (Hate to think if I hadn't been!)

Long Term Care Columnist / Guide · Mar 18, 2006

Oh, the stories I can tell about dementia patients.......... :lol2:

In the first LTC where I worked, there was this one sweet little lady from Alabama, who had an accent so thick you could cut it with a butter knife and a charming, elegant Southern manner. In her youth, she had been a belle, and she probably wouldn't have used a vulgarity if her life depended on it. As her age and dementia advanced, however, she had come to the nursing home, and every now and then she would say something that would just knock your socks off:

One night, she was cruising around in her wheelchair and approached me as I was setting off on my rounds, saying in her honeyed tones, "Well, hello, sweetheart, how are you doin' today?" I gave her my customary hug and replied, "Fine, Miss Silda, just fine......and how are you?"

"Oh, Ah'm just fahn, honey.......'cept mah p***y hurts", she said conversationally, as if she were merely catching up with an old friend at a summer garden party. :lol2:

Then there was the frisky gentleman at another LTC who, when I asked him if he needed anything, said, "Yes........you, here, in this bed with me, right now!!" Some of the younger nurses who worked there would have gotten offended---there were certainly plenty of notes in the man's chart about his verbal indiscretions---but I just laughed it off and said my husband might have a problem with that.

Which brings me to a particular sore point: Men of his generation, especially the ones with dementia, really don't grasp the concept of 'sexual harassment'..........and as long as they don't grasp anything else, I couldn't care less about the innuendo. I think people nowadays are too quick to take offense, to label this as some sort of behavioral issue and make a big deal out of it by monitoring and charting the 'behavior', when it's really just a generational thing. Let's face it, wolf whistles and remarks about a girl's appearance were merely ways men paid compliments in the old days, and we should relax a little and let them be men in the ways they knew. (I'm not talking about the ones who use filthy language and allow their hands to wander---that's just nasty, no matter how young or old they are.)

OK, getting off my soapbox now.

allthingsbright · Mar 18, 2006

i am a nursing student and one of my patients was a 70-something year old male. I was listening to his bowel sounds and noticed "tenting" under the sheets. He then says LOUDLY to his roommate, "this skinny thing with long legs is getting me hard" and then turned to me and asked me if i would hold it for him.
i excused myself and told him i would be back in a few minutes when he had calmed down.

LOL!

Ever have patients who are a little *too* honest?

Ever have patients who are a little too honest?