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!
Actually I question whether some of these "dark humor" situations really happened, or if they are just people trying to out do other's stories. For some of them, I truly hope it is their imagination only.
nursing is an extremely stressful job. we all deal with our mistakes (and the mistakes of others) as best we can, but to criticize others for finding humor in a not so humerous situation is beyond me. i happen to know an elderly lady that if she were alive today would still be questioning my ability to practice nursing simply because i laughed to cover my embarrassment over tripping over her wheelchair and literally throwing her and her husband's supper trays on the floor at their feet as a result. i also happen to know a nursing student who was terrified to sit with a deceased patient until the family arrived because the deceased was a known practical joker and she honestly believed he was going to pop up in bed and say "gotcha!" all this even though she was the person who found this patient, called the code, and helped the rn on duty perform cpr. or the new nurse that followed procedure for a death, only to realize during shift report the doctor never returned the phone call releasing the body to the funeral home, the incomming nurse asked "am i expected to go to the funeral home to give this patient her meds?"
we deal with life and death. sometimes we do stupid things. and we laugh about it later. only another nurse can understand the gravity and the severity of some of the things we deal with on a day to day basis. so we laugh because laughter is the best medicine there is.
She was working in a Nursing Home and had some very young first year nsg students placed on her unit. One of their pts died. She told them, "make him look nice while I call in the family'.
When she went to check on their work before the family arrived, she found him looking nice alright- he was sitting up in bed, reading glasses on and a newspaper in front of him! (and of course, still very dead). The students thought he looked "nice and natural". Needless to say, a quick lesson in post-mortum care followed!
This is the first one that actually made me laugh out loud. Thanks for a great start to my morning.:rotfl: :chuckle :rotfl:
OK, now if this happened to me, I would probably vomit, but it was hilarious because it wasn't me...
One night another nurse and I were cleaning up a disasterous code brown (patient was sedated, on the ventilator). He got some poop on the outside of one of his gloves and then sort of scratched his cheek with that hand, leaving a streak of runny poop across his face. I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to pee myself and HE HAD NO CLUE! I couldn't hardly get the words out "You have poop smeared on your cheek!" When he discovered it (quickly, the smell from his cheek to nostrils couldn't have taken long) he wiped it off with a paper towel and then used alcohol pads across his entire face...But oh, the look of war paint was hilarious! :rotfl:
Getting report from our night nurse, a wonderful Irish woman, we were told that Mrs. J. in Rm. 5 had fingerpainted in organic:chuckle brown all over the wall next to her bed. "It stunk so much and looked so bad I couldn't stand to see it, so I covered it with a sheet". Sure enough, making rounds, room 5 has a sheet taped to the wall. We tiptoed up and peeked under it to find a note saying, "You don't really thing I'd do a thing like that, now do ya?"
Just a student... but one day in class before a test our teacher instructed us to make sure we turned our vibrators off! She meant on our cell phones but the poor thing turned bright red as the class got hysterical.
as a new nurse in a PCU, I had a patient who started having what was thought to be an A flutter, or artifact, but only in short bursts, on the telemterty monitor, so my preceptor told me to go check on her and see how she was doing. I knocked on the door, opened it, and saw my patient with her sister playing a game of yahtzee. I didn't see my patient in any signs of distress, and asked her if she was feeling faint, dizzy, or lightheaded...ect....she was fine. This kept happening for the next 30 minutes, so my preceptor finally stepped into the room and saw what was transpiring. She used the call bell to ask the telemetry monitor to tell her what rythym he saw when she aksed the patient to "roll" her next move. Well, needless to say, the same rythym apeared on the monitor again as the patient shook her roll, so now we have a common name for artifact on our unit .... the Yahtzee Rhythym......
During my student years, I had been assigned to a constipated elderly woman. We she and I worked to get her to have a bowel movement for a couple hours. When she finally went I took the specimen to show my instructor, because I was so proud of this accomplishment. I think back on this when ever I find my self taking things too seriously.
Specializes in Psychiatric, Home Health, Geriatrics.
Here's another psych one for you all who might appreciate it (& if you don't, tough!):deadhorse
I had a pt. come up to the nurse's sta. & say "I'm..." he then proceded to point to his head and move his hand in a circular motion. Not knowing what else to say, I said "Well you are in the right place". A second later, he said "Yes, but could I have a Q tip?" Needless to say, I was pretty embarassed and quite red.
One particular nurse was very fixated on her tiny patient's stools. In babies - almost always runny or very soft and yellow to light brown. One day when she wasn't looking, someone filled her little patient's diaper with milk duds. The look on her face when she opened it up was priceless!
think i've worked with you cara. got myself reamed by a new nurse one night after losing multiple pts on the shift. we all stood around dazed before getting down to the paperwork and without thinking i quoted the "bring out your dead" line from monty python. :imbar
btw--no families bothered to come...don't ya love when you're making a call that you hate, sure you're about to ruin a loved one's life, and they just don't care?!?!
OMG!!!!!:rotfl::chuckle:roll I just spewed Pepsi everywhere!!!!!
Oh, I have one! This baby had a cleft palate with this protrusion of tissue and it was very large and distracting. Well, this nurse that had taken care of him for a while came in one shift after it had been surgically removed and another nurse got a funny idea. She spit out her chewing gum and rounded it out. She brought it in a cup to show the other nurse "Hey, remember [baby] and his lip...well, [the doctor] wanted me to save the specimen." She showed her the pink/red gum in the cup and the other nurse completely flipped out. Then the prankster nurse proceeded to pop the "specimen" in her mouth. At which point the victim nurse was hysterical with horror. :)
I remember one of our orderlies who was young and would always come into work after a huge night out hung over....Well this particular morning after the night before was no exception....One of our nurses knew this and set him up a beauty!!! the nurse strategically placed an oyster into a new sputum cup and placed it beside a patients bed...( the patient was in on the joke too). When the orderly walked into the room, the nurse said "hey Trent look at this..." Being young a gulliable Trent looked into the sputum cup....when he took the look, he just turned all the shades of green...but when the nurse up ended the cup and swallowed the oyster, that was the end of our poor orderly for the rest of the day....be bolted out of the room and made bee line for the slop hopper and then took himself off home......we laughed for days about it....and even more so when the nurse 'fessed" up to the prank. The Charge nurse thought it was just brilliant!!!!!
I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to pee myself and HE HAD NO CLUE! I couldn't hardly get the words out "You have poop smeared on your cheek!" When he discovered it (quickly, the smell from his cheek to nostrils couldn't have taken long) he wiped it off with a paper towel and then used alcohol pads across his entire face...But oh, the look of war paint was hilarious! :rotfl:
Bipley
845 Posts
nursing is an extremely stressful job. we all deal with our mistakes (and the mistakes of others) as best we can, but to criticize others for finding humor in a not so humerous situation is beyond me. i happen to know an elderly lady that if she were alive today would still be questioning my ability to practice nursing simply because i laughed to cover my embarrassment over tripping over her wheelchair and literally throwing her and her husband's supper trays on the floor at their feet as a result. i also happen to know a nursing student who was terrified to sit with a deceased patient until the family arrived because the deceased was a known practical joker and she honestly believed he was going to pop up in bed and say "gotcha!" all this even though she was the person who found this patient, called the code, and helped the rn on duty perform cpr. or the new nurse that followed procedure for a death, only to realize during shift report the doctor never returned the phone call releasing the body to the funeral home, the incomming nurse asked "am i expected to go to the funeral home to give this patient her meds?"
we deal with life and death. sometimes we do stupid things. and we laugh about it later. only another nurse can understand the gravity and the severity of some of the things we deal with on a day to day basis. so we laugh because laughter is the best medicine there is.
Hear hear!!!!!!