Favorite "Lay Terms" For Diagnoses

[OleMissRN]

Some of my favorite mispronunciations or "shortening" of a diagnosis by patients and/or family members:

The Gouch - Gout

The High Blood/Low Blood - Hypertension/Hypotension

The High Sugar - Diabetes (sometimes they actually mean hyperglycemia...but usually mean Diabetes)

The Bad Lung - COPD

Also included are the times that people completely ignore the ventilator in the room and the ETT in the pt's mouth and ask me why Johnny won't talk to them.

Anybody have any others that they found humorous?

[Traum-a-Rama]

Mine is more of a regional thing...I live in Virginia now, but all my relatives (all from Philly or NY) say, "Oh, it was just a bout of Ahhhnnn-gin-ah" instead of angina.

Also, I no longer ask patients who their PCP is, because I get "Oh, honey, I don't do no drugs"

This thread has me laughing so hard that my cheeks are starting to hurt! 

[canesdukegirl, BSN, RN]

I worked with a rather obnoxious unit secretary many years ago, and when we were busy admitting a patient to L&D triage, the husband was going over the meds his wife was taking. The secretary listed them out very nicely and then gave me the sheet to look over. I noticed "Side Attack" at the bottom. When I went in the room to clarify with the pt's husband, he said, "She takes Cytotec for her stomach." I had to leave the room in a hurry because I was busting my gut trying not to laugh. When I showed the secretary, she laughed until she had tears in her eyes!

[pockunit, ADN, RN]

Cardinal tunnel, if no one else has mentioned that one yet.

[Not_A_Hat_Person, RN]

On the TV show House, he once ordered methylprednisolone for a patient. All the doctors would say "Give him the methylprednisolone!" Over and over they said it, always beautifully. I was yelling at the TV, "How many takes did that require?! Just say Solu-medrol for God's sake like everyone really does!" I'm sure the actors would have appreciated that!

They probably did that because Solu-Medrol is a brand name. I watched an episode of Law and Order years ago that dealt with Oxy Contin, and I wondered why the detectives kept calling it oxycodone, until I realized Oxy Contin is a brand name. It's the same reason Jet-skis are called personal watercraft.

[Hygiene Queen]

My great grandmother (born in 1902) was a southerner and very lady-like (and ultra conservatively religious). She did not play cards and she did not go to the movies and there was no "heck", "dang" or "geeze" allowed.

She also would not use the word "pregnant".

Nope.

A woman didn't get "pregnant"... she got "sick".

Quaint. 

[AOx1]

As was already mentioned, I have encountered many men with "prostrate" cancer.

However, my favorite was obtaining consent from a pt before a CABG who, explaining in his own words what was to happen, explained that they would take his left "manatee" artery, and use it to fix his heart. After this, they would need to wire his "sputum" (sternum) shut.

I also had another CABG pt consent after explaining that he understood that he would be in the ICU after the surgery due to the need for "Artifical insemination," although it took me a few minutes to figure out that what he meant was the ventilator and that he meant artificial respiration. I think obtaining consent is sometimes the most entertaining part of being a nurse.

[enchantmentdis, BSN, RN]

One of the transcriber's typed something a patient said-- "I don't want that med, it goves me gas and makes me constiapted.

[prinsessa]

One patient told me that she was "suffercating" because she was hot.

[RKpianoman, APRN]

Last week, my pt. in clinical was a doosy; definitely a fun pt. When asking him about his last BM, he replied "oh lord, i just hate to go in the diaper, its so unhuman, you know?" to which i just smiled and nodded, then asked if he could remember when his last BM was, and he replied "naw, son, i feel like i'm just waitin to lay a golden egg"

A lot of patients in the south call hyperglycemia and diabetes "Sugar". Ex: "My sister told me to check my sugar cause she just got a new meter thing, and sure 'nuff, when that thing got through thinkin', I had sugar! So i went to the doctor the next week and he tested me and told me I had the sugar."

[Caffeine_IV]

I've had patients ask for lora-tab and finnagin (phenergan).

[NrsHollyRN]

Fin-a-grin = Phenergan

dehydronated - dedydrated

locked up = constipated

[Nightshade1972]

I was born with hydrocephalus, caused by aqueductal stenosis.  Apparently "water on the brain" is a common colloquial term for hydro, even though it isn't "water" (it's CSF), and it's not "on" the brain, it's "in" the ventricles.