One night in the icu, I needed help to turn a patient who was on a vent, and sedated with a versed drip. I had asked a nurse to come into the room, and she followed. We went to both sides of the patient and proceeded to grab the lift sheet when she said........"Wait just a minute, I have to FART!". She then proceeded to back up from the bed, turn around, lift up a leg, and farted as loud as can be. She then returned to the bed grinning to herself and helped me lift the patient.
I couldn't wait to get out of the room. I about died laughing inside. I couldn't wait to "put on a play" for the nurses in the nurses break room and replay that moment for them. They were laughing so hard. We still laugh to this day!
this isn't something a nurse did but something a patient did. suddenly, a 40 year old a&o male patient called on his call light and said "please get this woman out of my bed." turns out the 80 year old disoriented woman next door had come in and climbed in bed with him. we returned her to her room, attemped to reorient her. all night long she kept saying she wanted to get back in bed with her husband. lol
When I was in the military, we were dispatched to Lebanon for a medivac flight. As we were loading patients, the airport began to take mortar fire. A marine guard yelled out "Incoming" and most of us took cover. One nurse however came to the end of the ramp of the plane and hollered out, "What are we getting more patients." Gotta love the stereotypical blonde flight-nurses:rotfl:
When I was going through RN school, I worked as an LPN in a long term care facility. One orientation night I was passing 5 pm meds with my preceptor, which included giving protein shakes out of drink-box type containers to residents who had it ordered to supplement their diets. The boxes needed to be shook well before pouring, so I picked up one on the med cart and proceeded to shake it. Unfortunately, I hadn't checked to see if it was already opened and got protein shake all over my face, hair and uniform. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
I did that once. The previous nurse had set half a can of Jevity on the top shelf of our med cabinet, when I reached up to get new cans to feed my patient, I proceeded to shake the one I picked up and it was already opened.
Jevity flew everywhere.
However............I didn't think it was very funny.
This was supposed to be funny? Sorry, I missed the hilarity there.
Cara
O come on Cara, everyone knows dead patients are really the funniest.
When I was a student a fellow student and I went in a pt room to "prepare" the body for the family. He was recently.. dead.
I went to turn him to clean his "other" side but who knew the side rail should be raised before turning the newly dead? Certainly not a student!
Long story short the NM walked in the room JUST as I was hanging over the bed pulling and tugging while my fellow student was doing the same from the floor.
The NM explained there really is meaning behind the term, "Dead weight" and amazingly, she helped us to get the poor old guy back into bed.
In case anyone is wondering, the newly dead WILL bruise.
This happened to a nursing friend years ago in a LTC facility. She and another RN were each feeding a resident. My friend noticed that the resident the other RN was feeding had his mouth wide open and the food was runnining out of his mouth. The other RN then said to my friend "I just don't understand why Mr. C. isn't eating." My friend said that she took a really hard look at this resident ... the man was dead. Very calmly, my friend asked the other RN if she thought this resident was any longer with us. The other RN looked at the resident again and exlaimed "omygosh, omygosh!!".
An RN friend of mine owned a supervisory care facility. That is where the pt's don't need a f/t RN around, they just need help remembering it is time to eat, etc.
Her niece was working one night and called my friend about 2AM explaining Mr. Jones was quite cold. Mary, annoyed that she would call for something so silly suggested she put a blanket on him!
A bit later the niece called Mary again explaining Mr. Jones was still quite cold. Mary was annoyed and told her to put another blanket on him!
A bit later the niece called Mary explaining that Mr. Jones was cold AND stiff.
ok, I agree that we use morbid humor to cope. God knows our job really sucks sometimes and it takes more than alittle FUNNY to tolerate it. HOWEVER, we have to remember that we should respect the dead. That dead man could have been YOUR dad, or grandad, or even husband, and how would you have felt if you sensed or God forbid...heard the nurses giggling and laughing??????? No, I am NOT "one of those", but I do try to rmember what we are here to do, and that is to give the BEST most PROFESSIONAL care to out patients and their families....
Personal opinion however I prefer to respect the living. Perhaps dying and death don't get to you. But it gets to me in a huge mega way. I use dark humor with those that understand. If you don't, cool. I won't use it with you. Doesn't mean I won't cope with my pain in my way. I'll simply go to a nurse that understands.
As for that patient being my relative, damn straight! When my Mom died I was suffering in a big way. She would have laughed, seriously laughed, at my coping methods.
By the way, regarding using someone's dad for ventriloquism:
I understand that sometimes when under stress humor is needed, but I don't think it's ever appropriate to use that kind of humor with a patient. If I saw someone doing that to my father, you can bet that I would give whoever was playing with my father's corpse a piece of my mind, and also request to see the manager to have that person reprimanded. I think it's extremely disrespectful to the dead and their family. They should be given dignity, even in death.
If you want to make jokes about it in the break room, I have no control over that, and neither do I care. But if someone physically put their hands on my dead loved one and did that, I would blow my top right there. The deceased's family and friends are grieving, and there is no need to add to the problem.
I'm not so sure about that. You might find yourself in the position to be verrry angry and instead, walk away. My Dad died 4/26/05. He died in the driveway on the way to the hospital (for pain management, no less). We were waiting for the coroner to come and pronounce him.
Waiting... waiting... waiting...
Finally I went outside to the driveway to see what was going on. This was 1AM and the night was dark, the ambulance was lit up like a xmas tree. I looked in the back window to see what was going on and just as I peered in the back window I saw the e-medics pull the sheet away from my naked Father and start laughing.
I was verrrry angry. My first reaction was to open those doors and let them have it. Nobody can give it better than I! I caught myself. I realized these were young e-medics and they were coping with the death they just witnessed. My Dad wasn't supposed to die that night, he just did. He broke the rules.
I'd be a liar if I didn't say that I think of that night on a daily basis. I do. I hate those medics as much as I understand them. I've done the same.
The difference? The difference is that I was fully aware of anyone walking in while I was dealing with my pain. Big, huge, mombo sized differece.
Well it wasn't so much what she did but what she said. We were giving this man an IMI of morphine for his pain post operatively. We had him on his side did all the correct checking and then this college proceded to give the injection. The old line came out "now just wriggle your toes"....with that I said in a composed voice trying very hard not to laugh....."he doesn't have any"...you see this patient was a bilateral below knee amputee.....lol
When I was still in nursing school we were on L&D rotation our instructor had taken our clinical group into the nursery to do an assessment on a newborn. The baby was under the warmer and she went through everything and took off the babies diaper (boy) to finish the assessment and turned to us to say now when you do this cover his, she never finished it and took a warm stream of pee right on the kisser. We laughed so hard because most of us knew better because we had kids too. She then picked up the baby and went to swaddle him so we could change the warmer and you guessed it, poop happens, nice green and tary plop on her front and landed in her pocket. She gave us one of those looks daring us to laugh but the staff beat us to it. It was so funny she just said to us jokingly to remember she still had to grade our care plans, the other instructors gave her heck and the next class involved one of the instructors examining a doll and pretending to get wizzed on. She will never live it down.
:lol2: 
VeryPlainJane
237 Posts
When I was pregnant I went into early labor...called my obgyn's office told his nurse I was in labor....her first question was, "are you pregnant?"