Funny things patients say !

Nurses Humor

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While working in the emergency room I was taking care of a 90 year old lady who came in by wheelchair from a local rest home. Her complaint was right leg swelling and we found an obvious deformity of the femur but she denied any pain. An x-ray revealed a femur facture and the orthopedist was called. It was quite a long wait and I heard the patient call out "nurse come in here". I went to her and she asked me to get her up into her wheelchair, I explained to her that her leg was broken and she needed to stay in bed. She replied very seriously "only one of them is broken I can still scoot around in my chair now get me up out of this bed!"

Specializes in LTC, Palliative.

Working in LTC, I have so many stories to tell. Here's a few:

One man is in his early 70s with dementia. He was confused and telling one of our staff members about how he's known her for years and years (not true of course). So all she said to him was "Wow Bill I guess I just forgot" He replied with "Jeez you have worse alzheimers than I do!"

One other lady is very hard of hearing. You can try speak to her in a clear tone but sometimes it just doesn't cut it. So one day after trying to tell her the same thing about 3 times, I raised my voice a little. She says to me "Jeez not so loud! Don't be rude"

When I do 2200 rounds on my evening shift I always say to this one lady "Goodnight don't let the bed bugs bite" and she'd always say "and if they bite, squeeze them tight!"

Specializes in Long Term Care, Mass Immunization.

I worked in a long term care facility, and there was this 102-year-old woman who frequently self-transferred, knew how to turn off her chair and bed alarms, and liked to wander around our unit. One day, I came into another resident's room to find the woman in there, sorting through the other resident's things. I gently tried to explain to her that she was in someone else's room and offered to walk with her back to her own when she slowly turned her body towards me, threw her arms up in the air and cried "I am a heavenly servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and I shall do his bidding!", grabbed several objects and shoved them quickly into her bosom, and slowly inched through the hallway and back to her room with her walker.

Specializes in Oncology, Medical.

Nurse: (reminding him) You have Alzheimer's.

Patient: Who is she?

This is the same patient who took his roommate's glasses by mistake and bumped his way to the nursing station to say, "I'm blind! I can't see!", once walked out of his room wearing a shirt but his pants hanging around his neck, and often times refused to comb his hair, making him look a bit like Einstein.

Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
I worked in a long term care facility, and there was this 102-year-old woman who frequently self-transferred, knew how to turn off her chair and bed alarms, and liked to wander around our unit. One day, I came into another resident's room to find the woman in there, sorting through the other resident's things. I gently tried to explain to her that she was in someone else's room and offered to walk with her back to her own when she slowly turned her body towards me, threw her arms up in the air and cried "I am a heavenly servant of the Lord Jesus Christ and I shall do his bidding!", grabbed several objects and shoved them quickly into her bosom, and slowly inched through the hallway and back to her room with her walker.

I'm going to have to remember that quote, it might come in handy someday!!!:D

Specializes in Nurse Educator, Culturally Sensitive Nsg.

approx 30 min conversations w/ an Alzheimer's pt in a cardiac step down, who had just had a TURP...

"I need to pee"

"It's ok, sir, go ahead and go"

"Go where?"

"Pee"

(Tries to get up)

"No sir, you need to stay here. You just had a proceedure. You have a catheter in. You don't need to go to the potty."

"But I need to go pee"

"Go ahead and go"

(Tries to get up)

"Sir, you have a tube in your member. You can just go pee lying down."

"But I have to pee."

"Yes sir. Go ahead and go pee. See this tube here ?(etc....)Go ahead and pee"

(Tries to get up...)

You get the point.... :-)

actually took 30 minutes. sigh.

Specializes in Dialysis.
I walked up to get breath sounds on a sleeping elderly lady with dementia, thought I could get them w/o waking her. MISTAKE . . .

(Already had done introduction, initial assessment, it was after a resp tx.)

She grabbed my arm with a lock-tight grip, and the toothless darling went to town gumming my arm up and down like a corn-on-the- cob OR a frightened creature fighting for her life. It was my first week of Nursing on my own, years back.

THAT WAS THE SINGLE MOST WIERDEST FEELING THAT STILL KEEPS ME UP AT NIGHT WITH GOOSEBUMPS!!!!

I would have died right there on the spot from a heart attack! That is sSOooo funny!:lol2:

Specializes in Orthopedics.

So I work on ortho, so pain medication is available in leaps and bounds, and we don't hold back usually, except in cases such as this:

I had just started, taken report prior to starting my shift and received a pt with a TKR. She was...well flying high. She couldn't keep her eyes open but she had the PCA button in her hands with an iron grip. We got her into bed, and needless to say she's complaining of pain. After getting her settled, the nursing assistant tries feeding her jello. She couldn't remember it was in her mouth. The whole picture was hilarious. She was stable, but in joint replacements expectations are a painless fluffy cloud with beautiful servants at your beck and call wiping your tush with gold. So this was a nice reward. Anyhoo, I was giving her a reinfusion, and went to check her vitals, when she complained again stating "I WOULDN'T WISH THIS PAIN ON OSAMA BIN LADEN" and was fast asleep by the end of the sentence.

...When I flushed the finished reinfusion, she had the clamp in her hand, tubing twisted under her hand, as if it was the PCA button.

Best. Shift. Ever.

Rehab floor. Pt in her chair, high as a weather balloon on several meds. She dozes off for minutes at a time randomly. I was walking past her in her wc the other night, her eyes closed but shes reaching down like shes getting something off the floor.

me: What you reaching for?

pt: Something that isn't there.

me: So why are you reaching for nothing?

pt: (points at head) Cause thats not there either.

BTW: His drug screen only showed TLC... And, he wasn't driving, his brother had driven him...

Haha..I'm sure this was his TLC

Patient to nurse who was calling the doctor, "Are you looking for Dr. Whacky?"

Specializes in Pediatrics.

I had a 1 year old boy one night, having been admitted with fever. We take vitals every four hours and for some reason, he was up and wired at 4am. So I go to the room and start chatting with mom and then turn to start chatting with the boy, who was just as charming as they come. I had the handheld, big digital thermometer in my hand (was using it to count his respirations) and when I was done, I placed it on the crib, right next to him. I was writing the RR down when I look back and I see the boy pick up the thermometer; me and mom just watch and smile. He starts pressing buttons and then puts the thing to his ear, screen side up, and with a big smile says, "hello?"

Me and mom lol'ed quite hard.

Specializes in LTC.

Highly confused dementa patient, grossly overweight.

I walk in, and he's spread out all over the bed in all his naked glory... I asked him if perhaps he'd like some pants, and he said...

"No, No, I'm a modern work of art... let's pillowfight!!"

I died laughing- later he told me I didn't know what I was doing: I was full of orange flowers.

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