With some of the things patients say, Nurses sometimes wonder if they are on a hidden camera TV show! Weird, wacky or even touching, those phrases stick with us. Think of your favorite thing a patient has said, submit it in the comments below and you'll be entered to win a $250 amazon.com gift card!
Winner will be announced May 16, 2017
UPDATE June 5, 2017
The winner of the $250 amazon.com gift card for favorite thing a patient has said from allnurses.com is user jndmj30 for:
I was admitting a lady who had a very extensive list of ailments. She started reading off all her surgeries and stated she'd had her prostate removed. I said No maam you did not. She says, "How in the world would you know?" I explained that as a female she didn't have a prostate to remove. She pondered that for a minute then she says "Well, maybe that was my husband."
In a skilled nursing facility, a patient I visited during my rounds replied to my question-- "Do you feel safe and happy here?"
Patient: "Yes, of course... I know I lost everything and everyone I had in the past. I know anytime I will leave this world, and I am ready. But do you know why I'm always happy and thankful-- and I still wanna live? It's because of you. I still wanna see you smiling at me. I still want to hold your hand while we are talking... I still want to be with you. That's why I like it here-- because you are here."
"I don't want to talk to any of those doctors. None of them have any idea what is going on. You nurses are the only ones who have shown they give a **** and actually know what's going on around here." Of course I blushed, chuckled, try to give her some assurance in her doctors, but walked away proudly.
I had a patient who had CHF and was diabetic. Needless to say, the patient and her daughter began to fight and yell at each other over BACON! The daughter is screaming, "Maa, you ate the Smokey Joes, that has all the salt in it! You were supposed to eat that OSCAR MAYERS!! You ate the WRONG BACON" (as if she's supposed to have bacon at all). Then the patient began to cry repeating "Its all my fault, I didn't know about the Smokey Joes!!" Then the daughter goes on about how in the Smokey Joes, you could apparently "taste the salt" (as if you couldn't in all bacon...). It was definitely a wild situation
When I worked in dialysis, we had a patient come in severely fluid overloaded. She insisted she had not gone over her fluid restrictions. Being around the fourth of July, we questioned her on foods such as watermelon. Her response was, "I didn't know watermelon had water in it!"
Carrying out pressure ulcer risk assessment on 90 something yr old lady in her own home. Totally with it mentally and very sweet. Offer to order her a pressure relieving cushion which she declines stating "no thank you, I think they're for old people, I'll have one when I get old.
"Is it okay to breastfeed before I go to the gas chamber?" (I work in nurse triage and live in a military community so this question is actually legit! This person was going thru military training and part of it was entering a gas chamber)
sevensonnets
975 Posts
I was admitting a lady who had a very extensive list of ailments. She started reading off all her surgeries and stated she'd had her prostate removed. I said No maam you did not. She says, "How in the world would you know?" I explained that as a female she didn't have a prostate to remove. She pondered that for a minute then she says "Well, maybe that was my husband."