Patients Say the Darnedest Things - WIN $250! Nurses Week Contest 2018

sarahlee23, LPN · Apr 14, 2018

I work nights in LTC, and one night I was giving one of the residents with dementia a wheelchair ride around the building since sometimes that helped settle him. At one point he turned to me in his wheelchair and said "Do I need to call your mother?" Out of curiosity I asked him if he thought it would help. He stared at me for a moment, then I got "Not a **** bit." All of us got a laugh out of that one.

C0SM0 · Apr 14, 2018

I work in the OR. One day anesthesia was putting a four-year-old child under, and he became combative and starting kicking and screaming. As I was holding him down, he stared deep into my soul and screamed "YOU ARE NOT INVITED TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY!". Well that's wonderful, Timmy, because you're not invited to mine either.

gemmi999 · Apr 14, 2018

I work ED. I was float RN, doing a foley catheter on a septic patient. I have never seen this patient before, she was in her 80s and a bit demented. She was in bed two in a two bed room. I go in, gown up, and start inserting catheter per procedure. Suddenly she starts shouting:"Oh,yes, that's wonderful! Put it in harder!" and jerking her hips. I was very startled and tried explaining, again, that I was inserting the catheter into her bladder and it was to drain urine while she was ill. Pt. then proceeded to scream and pretend that she was having an orgasm.

The patient in bed 1 was a younger mom with her children with her. The patient's mom immediately sent the children out of the room. I stopped the foley because I didn't feel comfortable continuing without a witness because of everything the patient was screaming. I cleaned up and walked out of the curtained off area and I noticed that the pt's children were outside the door with their hands over their ears.

I walked out and told the children it's okay to go back into the room, the screaming had stopped. The younger child, couldn't have been more then 7, said: "Thanks! When my mom screams like that it's normally a lot louder! And she takes forever!"

I went back to the nursing station cracking up, told the primary and the ER doc. We all spent a good ten minutes just cracking up. Then I went back and did the foley with the primary RN present. No screams this time!

allnurses Guide · Apr 14, 2018

Elderly, confused little lady in the nursing home whom we were trying

to catheterize to collect urine for suspected UTI. Naturally she didn't want

to be cath'd and was fighting us.

Of course, cathing a patient means getting "down there", up close and

personal right? Well, here's what she said in the midst of all of this:

"Awww, you all just like LOOKIN' at it! You probably like SMELLING it too!"

allnurses Guide · Apr 14, 2018

Another confused little lady in the hospital... this was back when I FIRST

worked as an aide. I was with another aide:

"Ladies!! Have you ever had to just take a really good ****??"

sevensonnets · Apr 14, 2018

One time I worked 7P/7A, a rarity for me. This one patient had multiple solusets to hang so I was in and out of the room all night, but even with the light from the hall she didn't stir all night. Went in to hang the last ABX at 0600 and she says, "Do you know anything about the Portuguese language?" I said, "Uh, noooo. Do you?" She says, "No, I just thought you might."

jaelpn, LPN · Apr 14, 2018

I have a resident that was a big golfer back in his day. One night, as I knocked on the bathroom door and entered, he was sleeping in his wheelchair. I gently woke him up and assisted him to the bathroom. As I was washing him up, he said, "Wow, I never had a caddy wash my butt before!"

Tenebrae, BSN, RN · Apr 14, 2018

I work in LTC

I had this lovely chap who often would have a tourettes type moment and come out with some really random stuff.

As I'm working my way down the corridor this morning med pass doing my morning med pass, all I could hear from Mr Patients room

"I'm a salmon, I'm a salmon":roflmao:

NurseYoshi · Apr 14, 2018

I've got two! Neither are probably funny to anyone else, but they were hilarious to me at the time.

First one, pt: "What's that in your ear?"

Me: "my stethoscope?..."

Pt: "no there's a shiny thing, like an earring"

Me: "oh my daith piercing?"

Pt: "that's a what!? How did they get in there?"

Me: "well it's not that complicated when you go to a professional to get them to do stuff for you. It's a piercing that helps with migrantes."

Pt: "NO WAY! Maybe I should tell my daughter so she can stop using drugs. She gets migraines from working with kids."

LOL

Second, while I'm drawing blood after I realized it was my pt's birthday the day prior(.

Me: "sorry I missed your birthday, maybe we can count this as your birthday present?"

Pt looking at where I'm drawing her blood and sees that she's starting to bruise: "maybe you shouldn't give me any more birthday presents."

Lol. I hate hurting my patients to draw blood and the lady was really sweet, but she had horrible veins and it blew while she was fidgeting during our conversation.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Apr 14, 2018

And elderly, confused man in the ICU with oxygenation issues kept pulling off his pulse oximeter. He'd leave it on the bed, drop it on the floor, or attempt to give it away to anyone who approached the bed. It was a long, slow night shift and we were all getting weary of the oximeter alarm going off. We had gone through several of the cheap, disposable oximeters that attached with adhesive, so we finally pulled out the clothespin kind. He got it off a little more easily, but we got it back on a little more easily, too.

I was rounding about 1 AM, and I could hear a panicked voice calling for help. Mr. LowOx's O2 sat alarm was merrily blasting away at the same time. As I approached his room, I heard "Help! Help! A snake's got my dick and you'll have to cut it off!" Mr. LowOx had removed the clothespin-type oximeter from his finger and attached it to his member. The sat was reading about 50%, and for those of you who are interested, the waveform sucked.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Apr 14, 2018

Years and years ago, my Med/Surg floor recieved an off-service patient: a law enforcement officer with a gunshot wound to his left buttock. As we were getting him settled into bed, the LPN (whom I'll call "Bill") I was working with asked him how he acquired the wound. Bill was thinking, I'm sure, that he'd hear an interesting story of cops and robbers.

"I'll tell you," the patient (whom I'll call "Dick") said. There may have been a little pain medication on board. Maybe a lot of pain medication. "But this has to be absolutely confidential. It can't go in my chart."

Curious, Bill and I drew closer to the bed and promised not to put it in the chart "unless it's medically necessary."

After swearing us to secrecy, he said "My partner shot me." I was wondering whether this was the story he'd given the ER or not, when he went on to say "We said it was an accident, but he caught me in bed with his wife."

OK, this is perhaps more information than I needed. Just then, the unit secretary called into the room to ask if our patient's wife could visit. The patient turned pale and looked frightened out of his wits. "You can't tell her, you can't tell her," he begged. "She said if it happened AGAIN, she'd shoot me in the other butt cheek!"

Sure enough, this was the SECOND time the man had been "accidentally" shot when he was messing with the wrong woman.

brownbook · Apr 14, 2018

I had a 6 year old female patient for (I don't remember what) minor surgery in PACU.

She was alert, I asked if she wanted her parents back. She politely said no. I didn't want to leave her, as I would an alert, stable, adult, so I stayed close by and asked a few minutes later if she wanted her parents back, she again said no.

Finally I gave her the call light and told her to push the red button if she needed anything. She informed me that it wasn't red, it was maroon!

Wellllll..... excuse me ðŸ˜„.