Another Outrageous Visitor Thread

Nurses Relations

Published

rather than revive an old thread, i thought i'd start a new one. (i always get lost in those threads, anyway -- i get called away from the computer and forget exactly where i was and miss some great posts until someone quotes them in a reply!)

so here's what i wanted to say to the visitors with the patient in the next bed last night:

"it's wonderful that grandma and grandpa have been married over sixty years and that they're still very much in love! especially since grandpa is obviously suffering from dementia and grandma has been taking care of him for years. that may have contributed to the heart disease she's suffering from. grandma just had heart surgery, she still has the breathing tube in, and she cannot answer questions like "so how are we feeling right now?" or "what do you really want right now, grammy?" in fact, she was sleeping comfortably until you came in and started shaking her and demanding that she wake up and tell you all about the pain. susie, grammy's nurse has explained all of this to you several times. i know because i heard her doing it."

"while it's fascinating that grandma and grandpa have never spent a night apart since their wedding night over six decades ago, grandpa cannot spend the night here in the room. for one thing, it's a double room and grammy's roomate keeps coding. in fact, we're getting ready to open her chest at the bedside, so you're all going to have to leave. no, i'm sorry. you can't just leave grandpa here to keep grammy company. susie's too busy taking care of grandma to feed, toilet and supervise grandpa so he doesn't wander off and get lost. and i'm too busy setting up to open this chest. really. i'm busy."

what i did say? "i'm sorry sir, but visiting hours are over. i'll get susie to explain it to you."

what's your favorite outrageous visitor story?

Specializes in Rehab, Infection, LTC.
Like this? :banghead:

*LOL*

did you have a camera in the bathroom on me?? lol, cuz thats exactly what i looked like :yeah:

Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

Here's another one I just thought of.

A visitor tells one of the aides, "I'm a trial attorney. Now put my mother to bed." This visitor proceeds to stand very close to the aide while giving cold stares.

The aide is as cool as a cucumber and obviously not intimidated, because he responded, "Okay. Have a seat while your family member waits her turn."

Specializes in ICU/Critical Care.
One of my least favorites was the mom (60's) who's son was ever so attentive. Ever so. When she had a BM, he'd clean her...and clean her...and yes, at 3 am one night, the telemetry went crazy, we go tearing into the room, and they were...and she was returning the favor....He got booted off the floor (the woman had had abdominal surgery, for pete's sake), and she started screaming that we couldn't keep her from having her son visit, it was illegal. To which my charge nurse said, "No ma'am it's not illegal, but incest is."

I thought we were going to have to code the heifer right there.

I'm glad that I am on a clear liquid diet so I really don't have much to throw up...:barf01:

Specializes in EMS, ER, GI, PCU/Telemetry.
One of my least favorites was the mom (60's) who's son was ever so attentive. Ever so. When she had a BM, he'd clean her...and clean her...and yes, at 3 am one night, the telemetry went crazy, we go tearing into the room, and they were...and she was returning the favor....He got booted off the floor (the woman had had abdominal surgery, for pete's sake), and she started screaming that we couldn't keep her from having her son visit, it was illegal. To which my charge nurse said, "No ma'am it's not illegal, but incest is."

I thought we were going to have to code the heifer right there.

eww.... thats foul.

that made me think of another one.

young man probably mid 20's came up to the floor admitted for cocaine induced afib... was having trouble peeing, so doctor had us cath him. no big deal... right.

well his genius girlfriend came in and i suppose they decided they were going to fool around and i'm not sure whose bright idea it was, but i heard this blood curlding scream from down the hallway. about 10 of us ran in the room and found the girlfriend holding the cath, bloody balloon in tact, and pt bleeding from member, crying and cursing. she must have yanked that thing HARD.

her logic? "i figured if i took it out it now would hurt less when he (word for ejaculate)". he hurts a wholeeeeeee lot worse now, dummy. the male nurses on the floor were standing there with their legs crossed in sympathy pain.

Specializes in Emergency Nursing, Cardiology.

Had a patient with decompensated heart failure. He was a "frequent flyer". During his previous visits we educated him and his family about salt and fluid restriction, etc.

So on one of his admissions his son came up to the nurses station and said, "Can you heat these two hotdogs up in the microwave for Dad?" When I explained about diet for CHF he said, "But Dad eats hotdogs every day and he hasn't had any problems:grn:..."

Here's another one I just thought of.

A visitor tells one of the aides, "I'm a trial attorney. Now put my mother to bed." This visitor proceeds to stand very close to the aide while giving cold stares.

The aide is as cool as a cucumber and obviously not intimidated, because he responded, "Okay. Have a seat while your family member waits her turn."

What a great aide you have. I'm going to be using that line too.

I think I mentioned this before but I am still fuming at the family who wanted to take mother out in the gardens as everything looked so pretty, but wanted a nurse to push her while they walked along. Oh yes sir, I'll just leave the other twelve patients to their own devices while I dress up in an old style nurses dress with a big apron like they did at the sanatorium!

It is hard to soar like an eagle when you are surrounded by turkeys!

We had a pt that was NPO and scheduled for an endoscopy the next morning. We put a sign in big letters saying this pt was NPO. Well, his wife decides that a milkshake couldn't hurt and when I checked on the pt he was happily sitting up in bed enjoying his milkshake. I had the task of taking it from him and explained to his wife it was imperative that he have nothing until his procedure was done. "Can you at least get him some crackers and a Sprite?":banghead: Eventually the CN came in and explained, yet again, what NPO meant. The wife was concerned that he was literally starving! Come on! He weighed over 300bs! I doubt seriously that he was going to stave to death within 14hrs! ARGH!!! :bugeyes:

Specializes in Emergency Nursing, Cardiology.

It was another busy night shift. Had a patient going for open heart surgery the following morning. Daughter flies in from somewhere across the country. She walks into her mother's room pushes the call bell and asks to speak to a nurse. She wants to find out how her mother can make a Will. We called a chaplain to come talk to her. Turns out he can help her with a Living Will but not a Last Will and Testament. The daughter calls a lawyer- friend from her home town who advises her on such short notice she should get a generic will from Office Depot or from the internet.

So the daughter left her mother to search for a fill- in- the-blank will that she found at a local office supply store. She brought it back to the room and spent the next hour or so quizzing her mother on her wishes and filling in the blanks. Meanwhile, we were prepping the patient for surgery (bath, consents, teaching, etc.). The daughter continued questioning her mom and filling in the blanks. The patient seemed tolerant of what was happening. She seemed used to this type of inappropriate behavior from her daughter.

So the daughter tells us she had completed the will but she needs three RN witnesses to make it official. So, now we're approaching 10:30 at night and I told my charge nurse that we needed 3 RN witnesses for the signing of the will. She calls the House Supervisor who calls our Risk Management team, who finally tell us we need three nurses and a notary. We gather together all the RNs (pulled them away from their patients) and the notary, and it turns out the Will wasn't filled out correctly. We were in the room for 30 minutes while the daughter made the corrections. But, alas, the patient didn't have her picture ID with her. The notorization couldn't happen without it. So the daughter drives to her mother's house over an hour away. She finally returned at 3am with her mother's driver's license and wakes her up. We again gathered together all the necessary people and the notary finished officiating the will.

This behavior was so inappropriate; I didn't even know how to handle it as it was happening. I just can't believe there are really people out there that would behave like this.

Had a pt's family member who brought her huge dog to our inpt hospice and kept it in the pt courtyard. She left it there all day, every day while she was at work. She asked mgmt if the nurses would pooper-scoop after her dog, and mgmt told us to do it! We didn't.

Her rationale was that she had to come straight from work to spend the evenings with her mother at the unit, so she couldn't go home and let her dog out first.

Another facility shared the courtyard with us and complained to our mgr that some of their pts had gotten dog poop on them, and our mgr reluctantly told the visitor to take her dog home. The visitor then called whining on the phone complaining that her dog had pooped in her apt and now she had to clean it up.

I wanted to say "Well, it's your damn dog, lady!"

I work in long term care, so I have had many times that the families all gather around grandma while she is passing. It is kind of like they are all on "death

watch". So sad when they all cry and grieve for grandma, even though they

live 10 minutes away, yet have not seen her in months. This just makes me furious. Had one family, 4 sisters, all had a "pronounced" opionion for each

other. Could not stand to be in the same room with each other. And each one

had a differant way which they wanted mom to be cared for. One wanted "everything possible" done. One wanted her to go out to the hospital if she

as much as sneezed. One wanted her to only go out if she really needed to. Forth wanted nothing done at all. They fought on the phone with each other

constantly. One actually had been writing down everything she had done for

mom for the past months, to prove she loved her the most.

When mom finally did come to the point of passing, they all came together.

They were fighting over who was going to get mom's rings, who was going to

get her afghans she had made, EVERYTHING!!! It was like the most morbid

show of "Let's make a Deal". My CNA's informed me that they were practically

beating the snot out of each other. I promptly went in and ordered each and

everyone of them out of the room, so the mom that they all professed to

love so much could die in peace and quiet.

I told this before on another thread, but it is still my favorite...

Had a pt that pooped allllllll down the hallway. I literally had poop in each hand as I desperately tried to clean it up as quick as possible when a family member was stupid enough to approach me...

To get her and her family... a Pepsi.

Ermmm, sure. I'll crack the bottle open for you RIGHT NOW!!!

+ Add a Comment