My patient said WHAT ?!

[NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN]

Here is mine:

I'm taking care of a 95 yr old patient who is a MAJOR fall risk and have fallen over 35 times. I and the other staff educate him on using the call light for all transfers. So I hear the chair alarm, rush to his room and find him ambulating with out assistance and almost fell. I ask him to please use his call light for assistance. He looks at me and says : " Do you know what you need" and I say no. HE says : " you need an ATIVAN" ! I was completly shocked.

I felt like saying ( which I didn't) " Yes I do need an ativan being your nurse"

What crazy things have your patient said, that just left you speechless.

[MassED, BSN, RN]

do you not have bed alarms? If the pt is a major fall risk, was/is the patient near the nurses station, within view?

I have patients (usually that are confused or hostile [or both]) say the same thing about Ativan... "why don't YOU take it?" Oh, honey, I would love to sometimes. I don't find most things offensive, I'm just there in the middle of their crisis, it's not mine and never personalize any of it. If anything, it's pretty funny, but usually I'm the only one smiling.

[NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN]

In my original post I did say he had a CHair alarm. ANd the time the alarm went off I was doing my med pass. I work in LTC so its totally different from med surg.

[thinkertdm]

I hope I'm that with it when I'm 95! He's pretty feisty!

[BraeRN]

I was giving scheduled IV Ativan to a very confused older patient. As I was pushing the medication, he looked up at me and said "I need you to do something for me. Open your shirt and show me the light."

Another time I was getting ready to discharge an elderly patient back to the nursing home and he kept trying to get a hold on me. All of a sudden he said "You know what? You need to be spanked!" Then he tried to grab my butt. He had already touched the breast of another nurse. I think he had also told another nurse about things they should uh..do together.

Then last Friday there was another very confused patient who kept putting her call light on to tell us she was dying and didn't know what she would do if that happened. Well at about 3am I answered her call light again and she said "I am gone now. Life moves on but I just wanted to let you know that I'm gone."

[JB2007, ASN, RN]

LOL I would have told the pt that I would indeed need an Ativan if I found him standing one more time without assist. I have residents tell me all the time to just take their pills because they do not want them. I just laugh and tell them to tell it to the doctor the next time they see them.

[StNeotser, ASN, RN]

I had an old professor tell me the high cost of health care was due to nurses expecting too much money and then he bumbled on about how nuns used to do nursing for free.

I gave him perfectly good care, but didn't bother with any extras.

Edited to add, he also mentioned if had wanted respect I should have gone into education.

[JBudd, MSN]

Well, not speechless but fun. We had a retired elderly monk, who was confused and always trying to climb over the side rails. As my colleague and I were tucking him back in yet once more, she (also a Catholic) told him if he didn't behave she was going to tell the pope on him! He settled back into the bed and muttered he hadn't done anything bad enough to tell the pope about (but he did stay in bed for awhile).

[Rabid Response]

I answered a rapid response call in a double room. After I had wrapped things up with the rapid response patient, I was walking past his roommate's bed when the man gestured to me. "Can I help you with something?" I asked him.

"Yes," he said, "I need you to scratch me." I did not know anything about this patient, so I wondered if he was more disabled than he looked at first glance.

"Where do you need to be scratched?" I asked him. He lifted his arm and pointed at the bed covers roughly in the area of his crotch.

I told him, "If you can point to it with that hand, then you can scratch it yourself."

He raised his hand and stared at it as if the appendage had just grown there in the past few minutes. Then he reached under the covers and scratched himself. The expression on his face was similar to the one my dog has when he is scratching himself behind his ear. "Thanks," he said (sincerely!) to me as I turned to leave the room.

I have had a lot of odd interactions with patients, but that one has stuck with me for some reason.

[LouisVRN, RN]

From a patient I was applying restraints to for trying to pull out his central line and repeatedly trying to get out of bed post-op.

"You better make those really tight...'cause I'm super fast!"

Point noted.

[Trilldayz,RN BSN]

When I was a CNA in a LTC facility (before I started nursing school), I saw one of my elderly patients sitting in her wheelchair in the foyer, CRYING her eyes out, like someone had died! So I went to her, knelt down and asked her "What's wrong Ms. XYZ, why are you crying?" She continued to cry for like 10 more seconds and then she proceeded to stop with this look on her reddened face like she was in deep thought....only to reply "I don't remember." Poor thing!

[JenniferSews]

From one of my all time favorite 85 yo patients after I put 2 pills in her mouth instead of 1-

"That's 2 pills!"

Me- "I'm sorry, do you want me to take one out?!"

Her- "No, I just wanted to *****."

Boy do I miss that little lady. She was a nurse herself many years ago and always had something funny to say.