Share Your Funniest Patient Stories...

wanttofly94 · May 15, 2008

This is hilarious...Thanks for the laughs. I to worked in OB for 14 years and it would amaze us everyday what people have tatooed on their body and where their piercings are.....don't they get embarrassed? Obviously not!!!

Thanks

lyndamic · May 15, 2008

Years ago, I was working LTC and had to administer a rectal suppository for a very confused LOL, at 3am. She resisted me, but I tried to explain what I was doing and persisted. Finally she relaxed and allowed me to insert the supp, saying, "You men are all the same!". Extra funny since I'm obviously a woman!

Another time, I needed to do a dressing change on this same LOL, again in the middle of the night. I turned on the minimum of lights so as to disturb her as little as possible. She woke up and got a look at me, and said "You look tired. You look like the walking dead". I replied that I WAS tired, but certainly not dead. She then scooted way over in the bed, up against the side rails, and said "You better lay down here with me for awhile. You're going to scare people, walking around looking like that".

This same lady hit the doc with her cane on another occasion, and told him that he didn't have the sense God gave a bean seed. She also routinely expressed disgust in the dining room over the other residents' lack of manners, then would shout "SHUT UP!", when someone would point out that that wasn't very nice. I loved that lady - I attended her funeral when she died. Her kids told hilarious stories about her, and said she had been a wonderful mother. Apparently she'd always had that "tell it like it is" attitude.

dina77 · May 21, 2008

I used to work on what they called a geriatric ward. One day this little old very confused lady was in the dayroom being fed by the nursing sister who was very staight laced. In rushed one of the male nursing assistants who happened to be very camp holding a cup of tea on his way to his dinner break. The old lady shouted very loud "Are you going to **** her?!!!" and the nurse replied so casually "Oh no not now Mary i haven't time i'm on my dinner break!" we all just fell about laughing. What was more funny was this nurse would not interupt his break for nothing or no-one!

light4j · May 24, 2008

lyndamic said:

Years ago, I was working LTC and had to administer a rectal suppository for a very confused LOL, at 3am. She resisted me, but I tried to explain what I was doing and persisted. Finally she relaxed and allowed me to insert the supp, saying, "You men are all the same!". Extra funny since I'm obviously a woman!
Another time, I needed to do a dressing change on this same LOL, again in the middle of the night. I turned on the minimum of lights so as to disturb her as little as possible. She woke up and got a look at me, and said "You look tired. You look like the walking dead". I replied that I WAS tired, but certainly not dead. She then scooted way over in the bed, up against the side rails, and said "You better lay down here with me for awhile. You're going to scare people, walking around looking like that".

This same lady hit the doc with her cane on another occasion, and told him that he didn't have the sense God gave a bean seed. She also routinely expressed disgust in the dining room over the other residents' lack of manners, then would shout "SHUT UP!", when someone would point out that that wasn't very nice. I loved that lady - I attended her funeral when she died. Her kids told hilarious stories about her, and said she had been a wonderful mother. Apparently she'd always had that "tell it like it is" attitude.

That's hilarious! I think every LTC facility has a LOL like that who regularly cracks everyone up. At the SNF I'm currently doing clinicals at there's this itty bitty confused lady who wheels herself around in her wheelchair all over the place, and you never know where you'll find her. She used to live in the assisted living part of the facility that's upstairs from where she is currently. I had to laugh the other day, because as we were leaving for the evening, a staff member I didn't recognize was wheeling her back down the hall with an exasperated look on his face (and she looked very disgruntled at being caught). I asked him where he'd found her, and he said she'd gotten upstairs through the elevator and was trying to get into her old apartment :). One of my fellow students made the mistake of picking her for a patient, and spent most of his time wandering around looking for her .

light4j · May 24, 2008

This isn't quite a "patient" story, but I couldn't decide which funny thread to post it under, so put it here. I'm sure this won't be as funny if you weren't watching it, but it was the best laugh I'd had in a long time, so I can't resist posting it.

I'm finishing up my first year in community college RN program. Yesterday we had a SIM lab with our clinical group. It was a 5 hour lab, where we'd been given three patient scenarios to prep on, and we split up into groups of two to take care of the patient...who was the high tech "dummy", or SIM man. Anyway, the rest of us sat in a classroom next door watching the pair whose turn it was take care of the patient on video, so we could talk amongst ourselves about how it was going, etc. So, the "patient" (who's being voiced by one of our wacky instructors) immediately starts complaining that he wants his foley taken out. The Dr. has okayed the DC of the foley, so Mark (not his real name), one of our few male students, starts getting ready to take it out. He tells the patient what he's doing to do, puts a towel underneath him, and starts getting ready. Well, we notice right away that he doesn't have a syringe with him to deflate the bulb. We of course are assuming he just hasn't gotten it yet, that he won't possibly try to take it out without deflating the bulb. But no, he's so flustered and stressed with the way the scenario's been going so far, he does indeed go to start pulling on it without deflating the bulb :no: . We all start yelling at the screen, but he goes on pulling...and pulling, until it's pulled taught as a rubber band- by this time of course we're all hysterically laughing and crying :rotfl:- and of course the "patient" starts yelling (actually had a very delayed reaction in my opinion). He realized what he was doing before it actually popped out. He turned beet red, and said, "Oops, that's my bad" and went and got a syringe and did it the right way. Thank God he didn't actually do this to a real patient!!!! We know he'll never forget how to properly remove a foley now! I know this isn't as funny if you couldn't see it, but like I said, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.

rph3664 · May 24, 2008

When I was doing clinicals in retail pharmacy, I had to dispense a lady partsl cream to a rather crusty woman in her 80s. I asked her, "Did the doctor talk to you about how to use this?" and she said, "I've had this before", grabbed it out of my hand, and proceeded toward the door. She was with a woman in her 50s who was probably her daughter, and as they passed by the door, pointed her cane at the condoms and said, "They used to keep those behind the counter and you had to ask for them."

A few years later, there were a lot of commercials for "Hemorid, specially formulated for today's woman." An elderly man with about 5 teeth asked me about this, and I told him that it was probably because they put it in a pink box. He said, "They ain't gonna look at the box!" and purchased it. He later came back and told me that this preparation worked for him.

Kthale81 · May 25, 2008

When discussing this patient in report, nobody could keep a straight face.

This man, around 50ish. He was making koolaid in his kitchen. He had just gotten a cup of ice out of the freezer, he dropped a cube on the floor. He sat the cup down to get the ice off the floor. He ended up slipping on that cube of ice and he slipped, then fell out of the window and fell a few stories. He landed on his back onto a concrete slab.

He went to surgery and got sutures: top of head, neck, shoulder, leg, both arms. He broke some ribs, and ankle.

We all wondered what really happened to this man, since his story sounded it might have been made up.

Daywalker · May 26, 2008

Either that, or he's really that clumsy.... :bugeyes:

Babs0512 · Jun 4, 2008

During nursing school, (I should start this story with ... a long, long, time ago...) I had many opportunities to start a foley catheter on women, but never on a real man.

Approximately 6 months into my nursing career, I had an order to place a foley cath into an 88 year old gentleman. I was a bit nervous, but confident in my ability (although the prostate did concern me). Anyhooo, I collected all the paraphernalia needed, explained the procedure to the man, and daintely took his member in my fingers and began to insert the foley. He moaned a few times, and as I feard, I couldn't get past his prostate.

Undaunted, I tried a couple of more times, daintely and selfconciously manipulating his member to try to get the foley in. I was unsuccessful.

I went to the charge nurse and told her of my delemia, she said "come on, let's go see what we can do". So, with the charge nurse in tow, and a new catheter set, I tried again, unsuccessfully, to get the foley in. The charge nurse looked at me, while grabbing the mans member and deadpanned "for goodness sake, hold it like you know what to do with it!"

She got it in first try.

To this day, 15 years later, I think of this whenever I have to put in a foley in a man. It always makes me smile.

Jessiedog, RN · Jun 5, 2008

Babs0512 said:

During nursing school, (I should start this story with ... a long, long, time ago...) I had many opportunities to start a foley catheter on women, but never on a real man.

In Australia, nurses are allowed to catheterize females, but not males, because of the potential of damaging the prostate. As a paediatric nurse I am allowed to catheterize male children. (logic??) Anyway, was looking to pass an 'in-out' catheter on a boy with spina bifida, and couldn't find the right size. I decided to go one size smaller than the ones he used at home, rather than larger, and off I went. All went swimmingly, with said catheter easily entering bladder and urine draining well into the kidney dish. At that moment, said boy coughed, and the results were quite amusing! As the abdominal pressure increased, the urine flow out the catheter also increaed (naturally) but because the tubing was smaller than usual, and becuase the sphincter muscle was partially opened, urine spurted out around the catheter, in several different directions at once! This caused great hilarity in my child, and he proceded to laugh until his bladder was completely empty! :jester:

AussieTina · Jun 5, 2008

Jessiedog said:

In Australia, nurses are allowed to catheterize females, but not males, because of the potential of damaging the prostate.

In QLD I can catherterize males and females, so must be a state thing ?

leonogist · Jun 8, 2008

Not quite a patient but a visitor story.

Many years ago, when in first year of hospital based psych training (obviously many years ago) I was working in a ward for clients with a severe intellectual disability. I noticed a security guard I had worked with in my former employment come into the ward, escorting the accounts clerk with their weekly disbursement of funds. At a whim, I quickly ducked into the treatment room and grabbed some Nulax (a dark fruit based laxative for the uninitiated) and proceeded to mold a very good replica of a large stool. I grabbed a glove and a hitchen towel to put the stool in and proceeded into the charge nurses office, where they were doing the money business.

I greeted the deputy charge nurse and the guard and then said to the deputy "Look what I found on the floor in the dayroom". The deputy was very quick off the matk and called me over. "Give me a look", he said, then dipped his finger in and tasted it. "Hmmm, must be .......(a patient) ". I then offered it to the security guard to try. The look on his and the accounts clerk during this was priceless. I then left the room without explaining myself further.