Nasty Patients

[diane227]

Do you ever get patients that you just cannot stand? I had a guy the other day who had a very unfortunate situation. He was 44 years old and never took care of himself. He came in with a really bad pneumonia. It was so bad that it could not be cleared up and they ended up having to remove the entire lung. They gave him a trach. He came back to our floor after a couple of days in the ICU. His room was in direct line of site of the nursing station. He would call on his call light and we would all answer him immediately and page staff to go into his room. If no one came in within 3 minutes (I timed this on my watch) he would start banging on the bed rails. After about three days of this I got really mad at him. I went in there and told him that I called someone to help him immediately when he rang his call light and that banging on the rails was not going to get his needs met any quicker. I told him to stop banging on those rails. I told him that the only emergency situation that qualified for banging on the rails was if he was bleeding to death, otherwise, lay off the rails. I felt real bad for this guy, I really did but he got on my nerves so bad.

[CABG patch kid, BSN, RN]

Well, that reminds me of a patient I once had. This guy was in his 60's, completely A&Ox4. Had a penile implant that was.... permanently.....up. So, every time I go in his room, he has that thing sticking out! I'm sorry but in my job, when I see people naked every day, sex or anything sexual is the LAST thing you'd ever want to think about your patients. When you see a penile implant like that, its just disturbing.

So anyway, this guy was using a urinal and kept spilling it in the bed throughout the shift (another pet peave of mine). I'm in there changing the sheets, got one side of the bed striped and I'm putting on the clean sheets while he's laying on his side on the dirty side (can't get out of bed ya know). All the sudden he goes "I NEED TO PEE! I NEED TO PEE RIGHT NOW!" I'm like "Right now? Okay, hold on a sec".

As I'm rounding the foot of the bed, he starts to pee. Now if you can imagine, with that thing sticking straight up, well the pee was going right up into the air!!!!! TOWARDS ME!!!! I couldn't help it, I let out a little scream. I got around to his side of the bed and I think I just put a dirty sheet over him to catch it because there was no way I was trying to aim that stream into the urinal for him and risk getting peed on.

And then there was the patient that wanted me to call him "Uncle Joe". Well I'll save that one for another post.

[diane227, LPN, RN]

I try to use polite limit setting with these people but due to their personality disorders most often this does not work. So I have to put on my heavy Texas accent and have a one sided come to Jesus meeting with them. As for visitors/ relatives , I try my very best to keep them up to date and to make them happy, but once they get in my face and especially if they threaten me, out they go. You know, it is not the missing meds, A$$ doctors, etc that cause me stress at work. It is the unrealistic patients and families that just get to me. Especially when you are truly trying to do everything that you can. And those dirty, nasty patients who are unclean and nasty or sexually forward toward the staff... will you just have to put them in their place right from the start.

[sing_anyway]

oh man,

we had a guy in LTC that was really bad, he call lighted us every 10 seconds, make you pur ointment on where there was nothing wrong, on my second day, he had me roll his 475 pound self to the other side of his plus size bed, get him straightened out, I was sweating up a storm ( i am 5'6" 130 lbs, second day hadn't even learned how to "log roll!") anyway, I get him all good to go, ointment and all, and as I am leaving he says: put me on my other side,

well, I was so worked over myself, and others had call lights on, I said, I just put you how you asked, I can't help you anymore,

and he just says, well, what's wrong with you?!

To which I replied absolutly nothing, and watched him as he ROLLED HIMSELF OVER UNASSISTED!!! arrrrrrgggg!

He would wedge himself into doorways in the halls with his electric chair and scream help me help me, and he would be ignored, wich I still think was wrong, even if it's just because it gets everyone else so freaked out,

well, I wanted to chart "behaviors" on this, me being a dumb newbie, thought that's what we should do...

on my day off, he took his big self,

his power chair, down the hall, '

and ran over a man on rehab for leg surgery,

that man had to go back to surgery, don't know what the prognossis is but it can't begood,

what the heck were we doing with this guy?

...

boiled down,

I don't care what the story,

that guy was a jerk!

[travel50]

Have a good, cute story from today at work regarding balls. We have this new lady at the nursing home. In her 50's, in b/c of comps after bypass surgery, infected wound, etc. She is A&O, ambulatory, very dry sense of humor, never smiles. She has 2 Jackson-Pratt drains, one hanging down under her left breast and one hanging down under her right breast. She is a tiny lady, and when walking around the balls of the drains hang down below her shirt so they are visible. Apparently she thinks they are funny. She looked at us, and in front of some of our alert, younger men, said with a straight face, "these are my boys. I don't want to tuck them in my pants or else the guys here will be jealous." With that she walked off, balls bouncing. I don't know who was laughing harder, the nurses or the guys.