It's hard to live with a nurse because...

[Brian]

1) When you forget to flush the toilet, you get a complete analysis with a plan on how to correct any noted problems.

2) Thanksgiving dinner comes in pre-cut small pieces because she doesn't want to have to perform the Heimlich maneuver and be reminded of work on the only holiday she's had off in years.

3) You've been awakened from a dead sleep in the middle of the night to find her shaking you because your breathing patterns were a little too close to a Cheyne-Stokes rhythm.

[Goofball]

Originally posted by nightingale1991

A good friend of mine's husband was always badgering me for stories from "the front line of nursing". One day I told him about a young woman who came in to our OB unit with a wicked case of genital warts. He was unsure of what these warts looked like, so I told him they resembled cauliflower florets. My friend has since told me that he can not even look at a head of cauliflower without gagging. Needless to say he never asks me to share anymore work stories.

This is too funny.

Oh yeh, we nurses do love to describe or relate everything to food. Wonder why?

[Goofball]

One time I came home after a 12-hour shift, and my son (then 18) was sort of whining about a stomach ache he'd had all day. He was so vague about it, and didn't have a temp, I was just half ignoring him and getting ready to take a shower and go to bed. I'd been taking care of whineybutt pts. all day, and had little sympathy left. But something about his statement "I'd feel better if I could just have a BM" (how many times have you heard that one, right before a pt. coded and died!) got my attention. I took him to ER, still wondering if I was being stupid about it.

Turned out he needed an emergency appendectomy! It took several hours to do, and the surgeon said it had been so bloated and angry-looking, and entangled with bowel, it was a very difficult surgery, and he was surprised it hadn't ruptured already.

[Mitzi-RN]

Lol, this is all too familiar... When dating my fiance, I would often fondly look at his veins and under my breath utter "I could hit that across the room" After being together for a while, he was in the hospital having to get an IV started, and after many attempts, my fiance said.. "Can my fiance just start it for you?" Made me feel good.

Another short one...I had a car wreck a few years back. I rear ended a woman and her approx 12 year old child. I immediately got out of the car, and went to check them out. Asking, are you bleeding, did you hit your head, is anyone hurt? The woman replied no, but where did all that blood come from? I looked down only to find myself covered with blood, and glass hanging out of my hand. I asked her if she had anything to stop the bleeding, sanitary napkins or anything...she didn't, so I told her to tell the police I would be right back. I went to the nearest restaurant and pulled all the glass fragments out, cleansed it with soap and water, and stopped all the bleeding. I came back and noticed my hand had went through the windshield, and I didn't even realize it. When the ambulance got there, I told them I was fine, and to go on because I had bandaged everything myself. Should have seen their faces!! Just leave it to a nurse to self diagnose and treat themselves!!

[RNforLongTime]

Since I now work at a hospital that doesn't have an IV team, I find myself looking at people's veins and thinking, now I know I could get a 20 gauge in there. It drives my husband nuts cause I am constantly palpating his very large hand veins with my finger tips saying "what nice veins you have". He STILL won't let me practice on him! LOL

Kelly:)

[NotReady4PrimeTime, RN]

I've been known to take blood to work in my pocket... My son has had a liver transplant and whenever his LFTs are a little out of whack (or his poop is too pale!), Mommy just draws a little red stuff before she leaves for work. Saves having to haul him down to the lab! Both my daughters, adults now, have had such bad experiences with lab personnel that they ask me to go with them to appointments just so I can do the blood work! "Could my mom give me my Td booster?" I've treated second degree burns (look Ma, no scar!!), scalp lacs, mild concussions, broken toes and a nasty dog bite that went clear through the fingernail, all without turning a hair. I've d/c'd sutures from the dog post spaying... why pay the vet a bunch of money for something I can do myself! My husband is a Type H (for HOSTILE ) personality; he flies off the handle over the most trivial of things. Plus he's a tad overweight and gets no exercise... I've learned to ignore his OSA, since he refuses to see his doc about it, and I don't keep track of his anti-HTN meds anymore either. I just remind him, "Dear, when you have your stroke, I'll come visit you in the nursing home!" He doesn't get it. As for TV shows and movies, he used to refuse to watch withme, until I started complaining about his running commentary in every war movie we've ever seen. He has got to stop calling me to ask me if I know What's-her-name who works in L&D... along with 65 other people...

[Serani, BSN, RN]

Sad but true, can anyone identify with this:

Partner and I having a romantic evening in - things progress - oops - just realised I was performing a quick testicular check while in the vicinity. Nothing like a mood spoiler.

[LPN_mn]

I have been a nurse for 3 years so my family has learned alot of medical terms. Here is a good example of one of them. The other nite my husband and I were driving home and he was eating gobstoppers and he made a choking sound. I said honey don't be choking on those it will be awfully hard to do the heimlech manuever on you when you are driving 60mph down the interstate. That is ok he said you can just do an episiotomy. I started laughing so hard. I told him that he was anatomically incorrect to be doing that. He said well what is that emergency thing when they cut a hole in your throat. I said a tracheotomy, he said well I knew it had an otomy on the end of it.

[Laura79]

my husband was having abdominal pain for several weeks, nothing specific, just dull ache, no appetite. I strongly advised him to go to DR. HE refused - doesn't like Dr.s or hospital. One Sunday the pain worsened, I wanted to take him to ER- thought appendicitis - again he refused. HE inisted on playing volley ball in his regular leaque, I went along knowing he would never be able to play. Well guess what, he played. Then came home, sat down at the table to eat supper, and declared his pain was so bad, he couldn't eat, and was ready to go to ER. I said "FINE, GO" I stayed home with the kids. About an hour later he came flying in the house, said he had acute appendicitis and was going to have surgery. I asked him what he was doing home, had he ever heard of a telephone. He said he had things to do first! When I went with him back to the hospital, the anesthesiologist stated this was the first emergency surgery he had been called to see that walked out of ER and he had to wait on him. So sometimes all this wait and see attitude we preach to our families can backfire on us. He had a ruptured appendix and was quite sick for awhile. luckily all turned out well. Stomach aches are not always about constipation.

[ninaldunn]

OK, My husband is the little sympathy person, even though I'm the nurse. I was getting more and more short of breathe walking stairs and even walking down a short hallway at work. Then I had a coughing spell at home at 0400. For some reason I went into the bathroom and flipped the light on - I was entirely blue - lips, face, hands. I freaked and woke up my husband to take me to ER now (before I die).

He found a cough drop in the medicine cabinet, slapped it in my hand and told me to go back to bed! I was live-ed. Though - it did the trick. I did go to the doctor the next morning and indeed had pneumonia.

I do really grill the babysitters and Daycare for I&O and BM's.

I love the story about the kid puking at the buffet:D

[3651bht]

My best one was the time my youngest was about 9 years old and hurt his shoulder at school.. When the teacher asked him what she should do he said, "Call my mom she is a nurse and she has an X-ray machine.." Course I don't know where he thought I kept it.. Also, when my oldest was 8 years old he decided to be Evil Knivel and construct a ramp and jump his bicycle. He went over the handlebars and suffered an epidural hematoma.. I was only in nursing school at the time but rushed him to ED and then on to major medical center for craniotomy.. When I went to see him post-op found the hair that had been shaved and promplty threw in down the incinerator so he couldn't die because there was no hair to put on his head.....

Oh we are a sick bunch aren't we.... But it's ok.. Also, don't know if any of you remember the ER movie with Michael Learned as an ED MD and the drunk that she ordered 100 MG of IVP Valium for who continued to trash on the stretcher.. Had to watch the whole movie so I could see who the consulting MD was for the flick....LOL

[stephi57]

all so true!! My family has banned me from watching ER since I woke them up yelling at the TV while the idiot "doctor" killed a woman by giving her mag sulfate for a post partum hemmorrhage.

My kids believe I have no understanding of their ailments, my husband and brothers cover their veins, my mother believes the woman at the health food store over me every time and people I really don't know well volunteer intimate details of their bodily functions. In preschool, my oldest daughter passed out the milk while she told her classmates that it had calcium for strong bones and teeth. They all knew that mom leaving work for a sick kid ment all day in bed, no videos, no books, no radio, no telephone and clear liquids only. If they agreed to it, I knew they were sick. I have been heard to say--it's a live with it kind of thing--for those things that are annoying to the person but not worth whine time to me.

[stephi57]

oh yes, and you should have seen the look on the doctor's face when he brought in the x-ray reading of my daughter's arm to tell me it was broken and I responded "oh, good!" I hadn't wanted to run off to the ER for nothing and look silly after my friend (also RN) and I had stared at her arm doing the is it or isn't it routine!