Go ahead laugh. Laughter keeps you from going crazy.

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    Joe V
    Editorial Team / Admin

    Joe V

    7 Articles; 2,555 Posts

Specializes in Programming / Strategist for allnurses.

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It's been said laughter is the best medicine. It is healthy to laugh and very contagious. Nurses often become infected with giggles that can lead to uproarious laughter at some of the most inopportune times. Where have you been when you've tried to stifle a giggle?

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Specializes in LTC Rehab Med/Surg.

Codes!! Adrenaline is pumping, emotions are wacky, and more than once I've caught myself laughing at something somebody says. It's completely inappropriate, but I've noticed I'm not the only one.

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Usually when I'm working with that one dementia patient who uses every name in the book. I know we shouldn't laugh but some of the things they say are just down right hilarious. I love them, though they keep me on my toes.

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Specializes in Emergency Department.

Lately I've been telling people that I've lost most of my sanity. Life's a lot more fun that way... ;)

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Specializes in Education, FP, LNC, Forensics, ED, OB.

Funerals.

At a family member's funeral, I cried and suddenly it turned to laugh out loud. I tried to stifle it in the beginning but to no avail.

Another funeral was someone I did not know, but again, tears turned to laughter.

It's embarrassing and so disrespectful ...

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

I was at a staff meeting, we were all sitting casually around a long, thin table. One of the guys had come in for the meeting on his day off, and he was wearing cutoffs. This was in 1975, before guys wore saggy, baggy britches. Anyway,as he was sitting just to my left, I was admiring his legs, I admit it. The coworker across the table from me asked me what the speaker had just said, and I shrugged, and wrote upside-down on the top of my hand-out page where she could read it: "I wasn't paying attention. I'm watching Bob's legs." She and the girl next to her both burst out in a snorting laugh and they set me off.....

We all had to excuse ourselves and leave the room. We were collapsing and crying with laughter out in the hallway.

REAL professional!

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I was doing allergy testing on a pt and pt was very itchy at the location of the histamine control. I was applying some cream to help soothe the itch and I guess it felt a little too good, because pt started moaning and gyrating against the exam table and telling me to give them more. It reminded me of When Harry Met Sally. I kept a straight face the entire time I was in the room, then managed to make it all the way to the breakroom before I lost it!

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Specializes in Mental Health, Gerontology, Palliative.

I was doing a home visit for a profoundly deaf patient. Patient lived on a really noisey road, and I asked them "do you find the noise from the road bad....." Luckily patient had a really good sense of humour.

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Specializes in LTC.

A CNA came running down the hall to tell me a resident "looks like he died." So, I hurry down the hall and in to his room to find him sitting up in a recliner with his head cocked to the side and his tongue hanging out. Reminded me GREATLY of sleeping dog for some reason. Took everything I had to suppress the well of giggles bubbling up as I checked for signs of life (with a scarcely hidden stupid grin on my face) before I excused myself to notify management. Giggling all the way down the hall of course. Grossly inappropriate, I know. I couldn't help it. I'm just very thankful that there was no family there to witness it all.

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When I was working as a CNA on an oncology floor we had six patients die in one night. The transport guy couldn't keep up. He was back and forth to the morgue all night. All I could think of was Monty Python..."I don't want to get on the cart I'm not dead yet." "Yeah, but you will be." I died laughing every time a saw him. Sigh...I'm such a bad person.

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I think us nurses have a bit of twisted humor at times :) We have to in order to survive the stress!

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Specializes in None yet..
When I was working as a CNA on an oncology floor we had six patients die in one night. The transport guy couldn't keep up. He was back and forth to the morgue all night. All I could think of was Monty Python..."I don't want to get on the cart I'm not dead yet." "Yeah, but you will be." I died laughing every time a saw him. Sigh...I'm such a bad person.

You'd only be a bad person if you DIDN'T laugh when recalling classic Monty Python bits. Like live liver transplants.

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