Odd interactions

Farawyn · Oct 17, 2015

One more for the "ick factor"
Young patient, about 18, in labor, taking a shower to ease her labor pains. Seemingly nice older guy (late 30s) in there with her. Mistook him for her boyfriend/husband. She was quick to correct me, "He's my UNCLE, not my boyfriend". Not sure if he was the father of her baby.....didn't want to go there at that time and she did not offer that information up.

Yea. Always so many concerned uncles.

Banaltracht · Oct 17, 2015

I once had an elderly resident with an imaginary boyfriend named Damien. The family claimed she had never known a Damien and had no idea how she came up with her "friend". This resident had long, frequent conversations with Damien....sometimes she would be laughing hysterically from jokes that he told her, sometimes there were arguments, sometimes she would slap imaginary hands away when he got too frisky. Damien was around for many years and it was common to hear someone mention that "Damien" was visiting. The inevitable eventually happened and this resident passed. Shortly after the mortuary left with the body a call light went on at the other end of the hall. When I went to answer it, the elderly woman in that room told me she wanted the man hiding behind her door to leave. I asked her what man and she replied, "He said his name is Damien and I don't want him here." Ya, you know that sense of ice water trickling down your back? It was like that. I swear I could almost hear him snickering at me. Anyway, I flipped on the overhead light, mustered my courage and informed Damien (still imaginary to my eyes) that it was time to move along. Apparently he did. My resident confirmed that he had left and thanked me. The episode still creeps me out and I can't help but wonder when I come across an elderly person having conversations with invisible, imaginary or long dead people.

annabanana2 · Oct 17, 2015

Saw a guy in the ambulatory clinic with a recently drained abscess to his hand. Given that 99.9% of our clients get their abscesses by using IV drugs I started to chat with him about where he gets his needles from, does he use a clean one every time, does he cook his drugs, etc.

He stopped me as soon as I mentioned drugs and went "oh, I don't use dope, come on" and I'm like "right... sure" (in a more professional manner, of course). And he goes, "no, I got this wound cause I was trying to breed a pigeon/rat hybrid. I was taking DNA from the rat and injecting it into the pigeon and I guess the needle slipped and I accidentally injected myself with the rat juice instead of the pigeon." He felt that it shouldn't be too difficult since people call pigeons "rats of the sky."

After a short discussion during which I tried to impress on him that a pigeon-rat hybrid would be terrifying (unsuccessfully, unfortunately - he is a scientist and who am I to try to stop the march of science?) he finally did agree to take the box of gloves and canister of Caviwipes I gave him and try to keep things as clean as possible.

SmilingBluEyes · Oct 17, 2015

I do NOT want to see that hybrid. OMG. yikes. LOL the things people say.

Oh'Ello, BSN, RN · Oct 17, 2015

Totally alert oriented and stable gentleman in the hospital to receive maintenance chemo. TON's of Intake... IV and oral. No output on night shift. I thought maybe he just doesn't urinate between the hours of 11 and 7, no biggie, not too weird at all. Until I went in to draw his labs and saw him drinking out of his urinal. I thought he was confused, neuro assessment was negative... patient still cooperative and oriented. I Finally get the courage to ask him, how long have you been drinking from your urinal and why?

"I did it accidentally a few admissions ago, it wasn't bad, so I just kept going with it" um... what? I asked if he was drinking his urine round the clock and at home too... he replied with a laugh "no no... I don't pee in a bottle at home, and I only do it at night." So casually, as if I'm the crazy person for even asking.

Documented, notified physician and casually walked away from that conversation.

chevygirl1987 · Oct 17, 2015

I once had an elderly resident with an imaginary boyfriend named Damien. The family claimed she had never known a Damien and had no idea how she came up with her "friend". This resident had long, frequent conversations with Damien....sometimes she would be laughing hysterically from jokes that he told her, sometimes there were arguments, sometimes she would slap imaginary hands away when he got too frisky. Damien was around for many years and it was common to hear someone mention that "Damien" was visiting. The inevitable eventually happened and this resident passed. Shortly after the mortuary left with the body a call light went on at the other end of the hall. When I went to answer it, the elderly woman in that room told me she wanted the man hiding behind her door to leave. I asked her what man and she replied, "He said his name is Damien and I don't want him here." Ya, you know that sense of ice water trickling down your back? It was like that. I swear I could almost hear him snickering at me. Anyway, I flipped on the overhead light, mustered my courage and informed Damien (still imaginary to my eyes) that it was time to move along. Apparently he did. My resident confirmed that he had left and thanked me. The episode still creeps me out and I can't help but wonder when I come across an elderly person having conversations with invisible, imaginary or long dead people.

I have chills just reading this.

Perhaps "The power of Christ compels you" is a phrase that might come in handy.

whisperingsage · Oct 17, 2015

I think it would be a masochist.

RNJill · Oct 17, 2015

Oh my gosh...sooo many. Several years as an RN and now a short time as an NP has given me a wealth of odd encounters. And yes, I would agree with the previous poster who said that "odd" is the norm with patient interactions. LOL.

1) I had a patient once who was obviously withdrawing from a number of substances and ended up on my unit because of unaddressed complex medical conditions too (at this moment, cannot remember exactly what). She became increasingly agitated throughout the day, refusing a lot of treatments, pacing around her room, getting angry with her sitter...the usual song and dance. Of course during this lovely day I had an orientee with me who was understandably quite intimidated by this crazy lady. So finally, it's near the end of the shift and this patient has tried to light the toilet paper in her bathroom on fire with a cigarette lighter and I called the hospital police. The police tried to take a calm, hands off approach and the next thing you know the patient had slipped off her gown, tossed aside the cigarette lighter, and was parading around the halls of our small unit totally naked :no: Had an interesting conversation with the MDs that hey, this patient is actively leaving, naked, and apparently doesn't have the necessary psych hold papers in order to prevent this. Of course like every other patient on our half-circle shaped unit seemed to be looking into the hall as this spectacle occurred.

2) Just recently, a patient told me with a COMPLETELY straight face that "I have diabetes but I'm not a diabetic." What? I didn't even ask anything further because it was just too bizarre.

3) Speaking of diabetes, I also have a patient that has fairly poorly controlled diabetes and inexplicably continues to eat a pint of ice cream every night...and complain about weight gain in earnest. Seriously. The entire story is confirmed by her husband at appointments.

4) A random patient's visitor (as in, not my patient that day and I certainly did not know the visitor) called out to me as I was walking down the unit where I used to work as a nurse. A middle aged, fairly normal looking guy. Said he just wanted to tell me that I "had the perfect nose for a girl." Ummm...thanks??

5) When I was a charge nurse, I at times was summoned to patients' rooms to basically hear their complaints. I was talking to a patient who was providing a litany of complaints...she hadn't been helped right away when she came from PACU, her IV had beeped all night, this was the worst hospital, etc. I was patiently listening when dietary arrived. Patient exclaimed that she was hungry, starts shoveling in food. Tell her I'll come back to let her finish. Return and she's like, "Oh, I think I was just hungry. I'm good now."

whisperingsage · Oct 17, 2015

I have had a LOT of weird ones, but I'll give you one- working a lot of SNF's, a youngish Medicare pt, 30's- on long term care section but on Medicare, obese, spina bifida, self destructive, rude and nasty with nurses. Once found him having tied a knot in his foley cath line, with seixure, on floor, sent him to ER, many other times, having an electric wheelchair, he would leave the facility for hours at a time, like 4-8 hours to run the streets of Reno, NV. We suspected he was palming his meds and selling them on the street. He also was on dilantin and a lot of it,several times a day- suspected he was palming that and making himself have seizures for pity. When we tried to report him for Medicare fraud, nothing happened (it was in the rules at the time that Medicare pts would have very limited reasons and times for leaving SNF). He also endangered our frail elderly as he sped down crowded halls in his electric chair, we had him for about 6 months and admin and the DON refused to listen to our complaints.

WKShadowNP, DNP, APRN · Oct 18, 2015

Had a lady come by ambulance concerned about her blood sugar. She insisted her mother told she has diabetes and told her to call 911. Blood sugar was fine. Pt kept talking about her mom and it was soon revealed that her mother was long dead and the unfortunate patient was actually having hallucinations. Really nice pt but it was a confusing initial encounter.

nrsang97, BSN, RN · Oct 18, 2015

What would Brian Boitano do??

I suddenly have the urge to watch the South Park movie LOL. Brian Boitano would Blame Canada of course!

nrsang97, BSN, RN · Oct 18, 2015

What would Brian Boitano do??

Why do I suddenly want to watch the South Park movie? Now I can hear that song LOL. Brian Boitano would Blame Canada of course!