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!
O come on Cara, everyone knows dead patients are really the funniest.
I think as nurses we have a morbid sense of humor that helps us deal with stressful situations. It makes horrible situations easier to cope with.
Thank you Supr-rn for coming to my defense. Of course, It wasn't the nicest thing, but it was my first (death) maybe I should have added that. But it was pretty unnerving for me, and the other nurse was trying to make it easier for me. It did help, and I was able to get through it.
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....
Believe me no one heard me laughing either. I think I did say that I went into the charting room to laugh. And I did have to tell them that he had died and believe me I was not laughing or smiling. Thanks for taking a funny thread and flaming me.
This is on one of our OB's. He had such bad eyesight with coke bottle glasses so had to get reaaaalllly close to see what he was doing...SO he sewed his cap to a woman's perineum one day. I kid you not!!! The room was hysterical!!! including the mom and dad!!!
As for laughing with the dead or sedated or comatose, well, it just happens. Sometimes, it doesn't strike you as that funny and other times, you want to roll on the floor. It has to do with the stress you're under. No one means disrespect, at least I don't, but some things are just plain funny. When my sister died, I helped the nurse clean and get her ready for the morgue. When we turned her, a lot of blood came out of her mouth onto the floor. I said, "Now, she'd be pissed off if you did that on HER floor!"
This nurse knew my sister and what an attitude and sense of humor she had. This exchange gave her permission to laugh and then we started talking about my sister and all the months she had been there.
You have to laugh, you have to find the humor in life's bad times, but it can be done with respect and out of the hearing and sight of families.
BTW, I'm an NICU nurse, and the Milk Duds in the diaper was hysterical. I WILL use that one for a persnickety nurse I know. She deserves it!
This older woman had just had some type of surgery and my co=worker decided that this poor soul needed some help in the beauty dept, so she proceeded to pluck out and trim with scissors the ladys voluminous white chin hairs.
i hope this nurse works on me!!! one of my biggest fears about being old or incapacitated is that i'll have a fu manchu, and nobody will shave me!!! :chuckle
:chuckle :chuckle This happen when i was in nursing school,i was in the same group with this male nurse who is to present the topic unconscious patient,when he was in front of the class to present,he became nervous and probably confused and the first he said was 'uuhhm now let us go to unconsciousness'[everybody laugh] he finished the presentation and somedy now ask him to elaborate on their nutrition .without thinking he said___give them intravenous milk,juice and the like ...
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!
Anyone have any others to share????? :chuckle
This is very funny, probably the patient may even heard it but unable to " express" himself/herself.
A co-worker standing at the station trying to run a strip on a telemetry patient who was asymptomatic but having frequent PVC's. The strip wouldn't come out, she was so funny, I knew it was out of paper but kept quiet for a minute. All of a sudden she said loudly "I JUST WANNA STRIP". She got plenty of looks from all the docs at the station.
Yep. I had an incident yesterday where NOW I know I acted totally inapropriate...but its too late. I definitely have to have a good laugh while I work and some of my fellow nurses are the same way. Unfortionately in the incident I was involved in, someone called up the ADON and she came up and rephremanded the Unit Manager of our floor because she was involved in it too. She told her she has to apologize to all the people who saw the silly thing we did at the desk....blah!
Makes me wonder why the other employee who was "offended" didn't just say something instead of calling the boss. Theres a good example of nurses eating their young huh?
Didn't you ever have a totally inappropriate thought or impulse, get the giggles, and not be able to quit? I can see that happening to myself in the ventriloquist story... NOT the best way to handle someone's deceased Daddy, but if it ever did happen I think I'd have to be picked up off the floor.
I see most of these hilarious stories seem to be medical...I was a psych nurse in a past life and this is one of MANY funny pt experiences...
We were finishing up our charting in the nurses station on the psych unit when one of our regular schizoaffective pt's came to the doorway looked at the small group of us nurses and preceeded to start shaking her arms and head (while standing mind u) stating "I'm having a seizure"...my colleugue calmly escorted the pt back to her room and returned to the nurses station to a histerical group of nurses...we still laugh about the funniest pseudoseizure we have seen.
The next time this patient came to the nurses station (about half hour later) she calmly stated, "I'm putting a mafia hit out on that Taco Bell Chihuahua dog".
In psychiatric nursing u get really good at holding back a laugh until u are able to sneak into the break room or away from the pt to laugh histerically
I think as nurses we have a morbid sense of humor that helps us deal with stressful situations. It makes horrible situations easier to cope with.
Thank you Supr-rn for coming to my defense. Of course, It wasn't the nicest thing, but it was my first (death) maybe I should have added that. But it was pretty unnerving for me, and the other nurse was trying to make it easier for me. It did help, and I was able to get through it.
In psychiatric nursing u get really good at holding back a laugh until u are able to sneak into the break room or away from the pt to laugh histerically
We've had residents who did things just to get laughs like that b/c they think we're all too serious at work.
I see most of these hilarious stories seem to be medical...I was a psych nurse in a past life and this is one of MANY funny pt experiences...
We were finishing up our charting in the nurses station on the psych unit when one of our regular schizoaffective pt's came to the doorway looked at the small group of us nurses and preceeded to start shaking her arms and head (while standing mind u) stating "I'm having a seizure"...my colleugue calmly escorted the pt back to her room and returned to the nurses station to a histerical group of nurses...we still laugh about the funniest pseudoseizure we have seen.
The next time this patient came to the nurses station (about half hour later) she calmly stated, "I'm putting a mafia hit out on that Taco Bell Chihuahua dog".
In psychiatric nursing u get really good at holding back a laugh until u are able to sneak into the break room or away from the pt to laugh histerically
heres one..we had a pt. that had had a stuffed dog .she would sleepwith. one day the Dr.asked her how she was ,,""she said ,,i didnot sleep at all last night,my dog kept me awake all night,barking". we cracked up ,,,in fact she had slept like alog that night.
he finished the presentation and somedy now ask him to elaborate on their nutrition .without thinking he said___give them intravenous milk,juice and the like 
...
gr8rnpjt, RN
738 Posts
I think as nurses we have a morbid sense of humor that helps us deal with stressful situations. It makes horrible situations easier to cope with.
Thank you Supr-rn for coming to my defense. Of course, It wasn't the nicest thing, but it was my first (death) maybe I should have added that. But it was pretty unnerving for me, and the other nurse was trying to make it easier for me. It did help, and I was able to get through it.