We all have lots of stories to tell. I thought it would be fun if we shared a few of our funniest patient stories with each other.
Here's mine...
I keep remembering a particular incident a few years back. It wasn't even my patient.
I was heading down the hallway on the CCU unit in which I worked. I was minding my own business, heading down the hallway and I just happened to glance into a patient room...
I couldn't believe what I saw...
An older gentleman, who clearly was having some post-op dementia after open heart surgery....
he was sitting up in the middle of his bed and with knees bent and feet braced at the bed rail for extra support....
With both hands...
HE WAS PULLING on all of his CHEST TUBES with ALL OF HIS MIGHT!!!
Needless to say, I sprang into action along with all the surrounding nursing staff. It took security along with all of us to restrain this man so he wouldn't hurt himself. Though it wasn't funny at the time....I can't get this picture out of my mind and find it amusing to remember.
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
When I worked in a LTC facility many years ago, there was a woman named Mrs Tubert. A bat got inside somehow, and nobody could catch it. Since Mrs Tubert walked with a cane, she waited until it got close to her, and then WHAP! she went with her cane. She killed it with one swing. After that she got the name, "Dead-eye Tubert" She seemed to like it too.
72 yr old day 2 postop CABG PT "kEITH' presented himself to the nrsg station when overheard a page for the narcotic keys "keys to the desk please" how did he get OOB on his own, poor thing
my neighbour nursed about 100 years ago. there was a not nice staff man who passed out at an Xmas party. they casted his leg. he came to, they told him he fell. wore the cast for six weeks! showed him someone else'e XR.haha
I had a patient on my unit that has a relatively new colostomy and still needed teaching. She had been given a laxative the day before for a procedure and was still feeling the effects of it on that day. She spent a large part of the day off the floor having various tests performed. When she arrived back in her room I went to assess her colostomy thinking it must be filled to bursting. Being that she had a room full of people, I just patted the front of her gown where the bag should be and told her that it felt very full and we should empty it now, asking for some privacy by having the family members move. I really thought it was filled to bulging and wanted to get started right away. The patient turned to me and said "that's not my bag your feeling, that's my breast!!"
Specializes in Psychiatry, Case Management, also OR/OB.
Oh I give up, Ihave to add one more from my Geri Psych days. We had this little couple admitted from the community, both demented, wife more so that hubby. Came in on a police hold/pending guardianship. Came from the East Coast, back in the old days in Jersey and New York. Couldn't understand of course, why they couldn't leave. So every afternoon, precisely at 1500, Mr. would come out to the desk with his little hospital sack and possessions ready for the door to be opened, so he can go home. By now their home is condemned, and ready for the wreckin'ball. Any how that particular day he became more and more insistant that he needed to go. Myself and the wife and one of the LPN's were sitting at the pt lounge table.She shakes her head finally, and says. "I don't know what to do with him (rolls eyes). He's not right I don't think. Should I take hime to a Doctor. or what?? What do you think?" Had to turn my head away, bless her confused little Italian soul, so delightful.
Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg- Risk Mgmt.
we just got new rectal tubes that cost $500 each. they are for patients with horrible diarrhea and they can stay in a long time. i had bonded with a sweet dying man and his family. we prayed together, cried together etc. :uhoh21: :uhoh21: i started the morphine drip and we were on our way to the comfort care floor. i couldn't figure out why my motorized bed wouldnt drive and was dragging a wheel on the floor. when we (me, patient, bed, family) all got to the elevator, the bed just dead stopped and wouldn't go. i looked down and the dang rectal tube had gotten wrapped around the bed wheel a bunch of times, like an umbilical cord around a baby's neck. the family laughed, i laughed and was really a sight on my hands and knees cutting this very expensive rectal tube apart. it took a good 10 minutes and fortunately for the patient 1. he was asleep on morphine 2. the tube wasnt pulling on him and 3. his diarrhea had slowed to a trickle. the family was wonderful and we all agreed this would someday make a great story. wow.
Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg- Risk Mgmt.
we just got new rectal tubes that cost $500 each. they are for patients with horrible diarrhea and they can stay in a long time. i had bonded with a sweet dying man and his family. we prayed together, cried together etc. :uhoh21: :uhoh21: i started the morphine drip and we were on our way to the comfort care floor. i couldn't figure out why my motorized bed wouldnt drive and was dragging a wheel on the floor. when we (me, patient, bed, family) all got to the elevator, the bed just dead stopped and wouldn't go. i looked down and the dang rectal tube had gotten wrapped around the bed wheel a bunch of times, like an umbilical cord around a baby's neck. the family laughed, i laughed and was really a sight on my hands and knees cutting this very expensive rectal tube apart. it took a good 10 minutes and fortunately for the patient 1. he was asleep on morphine 2. the tube wasnt pulling on him and 3. his diarrhea had slowed to a trickle. the family was wonderful and we all agreed this would someday make a great story. wow.
Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg- Risk Mgmt.
My friend had her critically ill patient in a bed, hypotensive with pressors and trendelenberg position. He was on a ventilator. He got really agitated so finally she gave him a paper and pen. He wrote 'CALL 9-1-1', and gave her the paper. She told him "this is 911" and we all about died laughing.
Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg- Risk Mgmt.
My patient had pericardial effusions and a big fever. She was young and very very ill. Every day the cardiologist did a subxyphoid drainage of her pericardium. The day I had her, I gave pain med and Versed first then we got started. The cardiologist got the catheter in place and as white fluid came back said quietly " it's *****" (purulent). The patient woke up and said "What's the matter with my *****??" and the doctor nearly lost it right there with the catheter in her pericardium. I leaned over and reassured her that the doctor had only meant she had a little pus around her heart. She went to sleep again and we tried really hard not to howl.
Specializes in Critical Care, Med-Surg- Risk Mgmt.
My best friend in nursing school came to work at the same place I did. This is her story. She had 2 babies and got up every morning by 6. She worked PM's so was always tired.
One day on the medical floor she was really busy. She had 5 patients, gave blood, ran around and thankfully had a man in a coma with NG feeds, IV, Foley and all she had to do was turn him.
At 11PM she heard a crash. The man in a 'coma' was awake, on the floor and covered in urine, feces, blood and missing his foley, NG and IV's. My friend started to cry, put her head on the doorjam and said "this is the WORST day of my life!" The man on the floor then looked at her and said slowly, "ME TOO". I never get tired of that story.
muffie, RN
1,411 Posts
a student nurse told me about a fellow student wrapping a bp cuff around an enormous breast- couldn't get her bp!!!!!!