Odd interactions

Angelicpurl · Oct 20, 2015

Did you work with me once?

I had a lady like that too!

Angelicpurl · Oct 20, 2015

Hey, if it works....we had a former nurse on our dementia unit. She had her own "book of notes" that she wrote on each resident. The doctor even humored her by "reading" them and making suggestions.

But we swore a resident was hallucinating down on another unit. She saw spiders & snakes. Truth was that there really WAS a snake IN her bed and the cupboard was INFESTED with spiders! She have a room that freaked a friend of mine out....if she saw someone on the floor in the mirror, look out! They WERE there in the mirror if you looked. Maybe just not IN her room, but someone fell elsewhere in the building (usually within 15 minutes of her calling out!). Creepy!!! We learned to start doing fast checks when she rangets out someone was on the floor beside her bed. The night she died, someone DID fall beside her bed. A confused older man from down the hall. Who died the next week....

NurseMikki · Oct 20, 2015

Years ago on nightshift l had a cute little Bil AKA lady that apparently sundowned. She used her bedside phone to xall the vols saying we were holding her against het will. The police HAD to come to the unit to investigate. After they left we decided to move her closer to the station and gave het a dummy phone not plugged into the wall. Only for her to sweetly ask for her craft bag and we thought, "great! She'll entertain herself until shift change." Sigh, she used her craft scissors to cut the wires on her tele bix so it looked as she went asystole. I really earned my salary that night.

NutmeggeRN, BSN · Oct 20, 2015

And somehow I (a person who can do all their own ADLs and everything) am still single. Sigh.

Yup, I hear ya!

Pumpkinn · Oct 21, 2015

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."

She was HANGRY

CloverPark, BSN, RN · Oct 21, 2015

One of my favorite stories ever, although more funny than odd:

Back when I was a tech at a hospital, I had a patient who was in his early 20s, alert, oriented x3, walkie talkie. At that hospital, patients needed an order to be able to shower, so most got bed baths, or in the case of the walkie talkies, would be given a basin and supplies to wash up. When I went to his room to give him washcloths and towels, etc. he insisted that he was unable to wash himself, even after I explained how most patients usually did it, and then I even filled up the basin and set everything up for him. Being that he had absolutely no physical limitations whatsoever, I asked him why he believed he couldn't wash himself, and he started with some story about feeling "weak," and unable to move his arms enough in order to wash himself. The strangest part of all of this was that his girlfriend was right there and even started crying. It was so awkward. Even though I wanted to slap him, I very politely offered to help him wash his back, but stated that he should be able to do the rest himself. He kept insisting that I needed to do his "entire body." He then ripped off his hospital gown, and while sitting at the side of his bed, closed his eyes and spread out his arms as if to say "wash me." The girlfriend then cried even more.

I excused myself, stating there was something I needed to go do, and I went to the male nurse who was on that shift and told him the story. He decided that HE would go in there and offer to "help." Now this nurse was probably about 6 1/2 feet tall, on the heavy side, and had a handlebar mustache... I was DYING with laughter! When he went in the room, I hovered near the doorway to listen in.

Male nurse in his big deep voice: "Hello, I heard you needed some help washing up."

Patient: "Where did that girl go?"

Nurse: "I'm afraid she's busy, and I'm the only one here who can help you."

Patient: "Man, bring that girl back here, I don't wanna get washed up by a dude."

Nurse: "I don't understand why you can't wash yourself. What seems to be the problem?"

Patient: "Well, I can't reach here, and here..." as he points to those places.

Nurse: "Well it looks like you just did."

Patient: "Oh screw this BS, I'll wash myself."

Nurse: "I thought so. Have a good day."

The tears were pouring down face and my stomach hurt so bad from laughing! That nurse was awesome!

JerseyTomatoMDCrab, BSN · Oct 21, 2015

Okay, folks. Here's a couple for you.

My old job had an outpatient sickle cell clinic. My floor was the go-to spot for the clinic patients when they were in crisis so the Dilauded was a-flowing! 10, 12, 14mg q2H. On the dot. With IV Benadryl. The most I gave was 16 but that's beside the point.

Anyway, we had this patient who came relatively frequently. Outside the hospital walls, she was a totally normal, functioning person. Job, kids, out and about in the community. Once that Dilauded hit her veins? Game. Over.

She was like a completely different person. Once, we walked into her room and she was flinging baby powder all over the room. Just waving the open container all over the room. It looked like Christmas.

Another time, I found a pork chop in her bed.

Once, we had to place her with a roommate. We usually wanted her in a private but if none were available we had to subject a poor sucker to her craziness. Her roommate was an 89 year old deaf Greek lady in a neckbrace. It was ideal that she couldn't hear or turn to see the rest of the room because on this admission our Dilauded princess decided to wrap herself up in the curtain that divided the room. All while humming patriotic tunes and masturbating. God bless America, indeed.

meanmaryjean, DNP, RN · Oct 22, 2015

Had a hospice patient once whose daughter was sleeping in the room with her. Patient passed while daughter was sleeping. I removed her oxygen, and then woke up daughter to tell her. "I'll give you a couple minutes alone" Returned to find daughter back in bed, sound asleep AND the oxygen back on. Remove oxygen again, wake daughter again and ask for funeral home info. She rolls her eyes, gets up, opens her address book and lays it on deceased mother's chest while she flips through it. I get info, go to call funeral home.

Return to room to find (you can see where this is going)daughter back in bed asleep and the damned oxygen back on.

Now, this was literally the last room we had in the hospital. I once again wake daughter and tell her funeral home is en route and she will need to vacate. She is pissed "I was planning to stay through breakfast". (It's currently around midnight) Inform her no can do.

Funeral director arrives, and daughter brings two outfits on hangers out into hallway and asks us which she should wear to the viewing and which she should wear to the graveside.

Funeral directs beats a hasty retreat. Daughter then holds out her car keys and tells me I can put her luggage in her car now! I decline.

The CNA who was working with me that night lives in the same town as I do. Every now and then, we run into each other- and immediately burst into hysterics remembering this 'odd interaction'.

BDOGGRN · Oct 23, 2015

Good gosh, people never cease to amaze me with their bizarre behavior, responses, and requests! Every day presents something new...

sissiesmama, ASN, RN · Oct 23, 2015

I was trying to place a Foley in a "turtled" old man, and he grabbed my hand, looked lovingly into my face and said "You remind me of my granddaughter!"

Ugh! Where's the Phenergan when you need it!

Anne, RNC

annie.rn · Oct 23, 2015

Okay, folks. Here's a couple for you.
My old job had an outpatient sickle cell clinic. My floor was the go-to spot for the clinic patients when they were in crisis so the Dilauded was a-flowing! 10, 12, 14mg q2H. On the dot. With IV Benadryl. The most I gave was 16 but that's beside the point.
Anyway, we had this patient who came relatively frequently. Outside the hospital walls, she was a totally normal, functioning person. Job, kids, out and about in the community. Once that Dilauded hit her veins? Game. Over.
She was like a completely different person. Once, we walked into her room and she was flinging baby powder all over the room. Just waving the open container all over the room. It looked like Christmas.
Another time, I found a pork chop in her bed.
Once, we had to place her with a roommate. We usually wanted her in a private but if none were available we had to subject a poor sucker to her craziness. Her roommate was an 89 year old deaf Greek lady in a neckbrace. It was ideal that she couldn't hear or turn to see the rest of the room because on this admission our Dilauded princess decided to wrap herself up in the curtain that divided the room. All while humming patriotic tunes and masturbating. God bless America, indeed.

Your writing is priceless. I can picture this woman so vividly. Probably the funniest description of a patient I've ever read on this forum. If nursing doesn't work out, you could be a comedy writer :-)

cayenne06, MSN, CNM · Oct 24, 2015

ActualNurse said:

Well when I took my nursing diploma course many years ago at a Catholic hospital, we were told that sexuality is one of the basic "needs" and we should respect and recognize that. So masturbating patients are not an issue for me. I just view it as the patient fulfilling a basic need. No big deal. It is their body not mine.

I had a patient in nursing school with end stage pancreatic cancer. Semi-lucid, overall an agreeable patient. Sometimes, when a wave of pain would hit him, he would instantly reach for his genitals. I was like a deer in the headlights the first time it happened, but it was so clearly NOT sexual that I got over the shock quickly.

A very different situation happened when I was in orientation at my current CNM job. I had a male patient, and as I walk into the room he is vigorously going at his junk. He says to me, " I thought I should work up a stiffy so you can see where it hurts."

I had another patient recently who had a yeast infection or something similarly minor, and we were sitting across from each other as I am putting her RX into the computer etc. She's scrolling through her phone as we talk (all too common, sigh), and then all of a sudden holds up a picture of her boyfriend's member and starts telling me about how "unusually large" he is and could that be why she got this yeast infection? I just looked her in the eye and said his member looked perfectly average.

Once had a father ask me, literally minutes after his partner had given birth, when she would be able to "you know, do it."

Or the guy who asked if he could have "a few extra" RX's for the chlamydia infection he was just diagnosed with. Which reminded me of the patient who's boyfriend tried to get her to take some "vitamins" that were really azithromycin, because he didn't want to tell her he picked up chlamydia. I am all for expedited partner treatment and readily write prescriptions for my patient's partners, but COME ON PEOPLE.