I seem to be hearing more and more comments from patients and families that just leave me speechless. I can think of no good response except helpless laughter, which I can't indulge in, so I bite my tongue and say nothing at all.
Here's two from last night:
Family observing nurse use barcoder to give insulin (or rather, struggle valiantly to use the barcoder, since it malfunctions about every three minutes): "Aren't you glad that you won't have to worry about making so many medicine errors anymore now that you have a great machine to do your thinking for you?"
And from a patient who wanted the max in IVP pain meds and slept very soundly through one of the prn time windows: " You should have woke me up or at least have it all drawn up and been standing by my bed waiting for me to wake up." What in the world can you say to comments like those? :smackingf
I had a private care patient and while I escorted her to visit a GI specialist - she said: "Doctor I never felt sick until I visited you." He simple replied: "Your are the first sick patient I have ever had."
One that had me trying to pick my jaw up off the floor:
"I used to be diabetic, but I drink so much water now, I'm not anymore." And pt refused her blood sugars/insulin right into DKA.....Then after a trip to ICU and a nice insulin drip, threatened to sue all of us because we obviously weren't giving her enough water.
By the way...do you guys ever get weirdos asking you what's the worst thing you've ever seen? I've had a couple, but I had one guy that kept asking every time I came in the room to look after his comatose mom -- I'd demure and change the subject, but he just wouldn't stop -- it was creepy. Finally I looked at him and said, "a living brain has the consistency of half dried out toothpaste. Do you REALLY want to ask me any more questions?" He turned a little green, and thankfully for both of us, kept his mouth shut after that. Freak.
I had another guy who was completely creepy, spending the night with his wife who was basically a veggie from brain cancer. He wanted to know if we washed the bodies, and where we did it, and if the nurses did the autopsy, what we cut the pts with (I wanted to tell him, "oh, the autopsy aisle at Crate and Barrel has some nice bone saws...). Finally when he asked if we ever saw the ghosts of dead patients, and did we have seances. I mean, this wasn't the normal "addressing end of life" questions we get, this was just freakin' creepy. I told him, yes, we did have ghosts in the hospital, but they were only seen in one room, and finished what I had to do with the pt. I got to the door, he asked, (of course) which room, and I said, "this one" and turned out the light and closed the door. He came blasting out of the room about 20 minutes later, flipping, saying he was seeing orbs and dark shadows. Oh, yeah, I called the doc for him, and he had a nice trip to the psych unit...
And I had a visitor ask me one time (visiting his brother) if the stories were true and nurses knew more about sex than other people. I looked him dead in the eye and said, "only about sexually transmitted diseases, and what they look like." Yeah, he'd been in the back room of the video store one time too many...
Brother of an intubated, chronically critically ill 70 y/o telling me a) he didn't believe the patient needed to be here, the doctors were just trying to make a buck off of him. (me in my head: so... who prescribed you the nasal cannula you're sporting, cuz I know you didn't get it at dick's sporting goods).
b) Bro: So do you work here?
Me: Yes, (as I introduced myself when we first met....) I'm your brother's nurse today.
Bro: So you get paid to be here?
Me: Yes, I am a full time employee of this hospital.
Bro: Cuz you're not really doing anything. Don't you just think you should volunteer?
Me: ... That's a VERY interesting opinion. I've never heard that one before.
Specializes in acute rehab, med surg, LTC, peds, home c.
Brother of an intubated, chronically critically ill 70 y/o telling me a) he didn't believe the patient needed to be here, the doctors were just trying to make a buck off of him. (me in my head: so... who prescribed you the nasal cannula you're sporting, cuz I know you didn't get it at dick's sporting goods).
b) Bro: So do you work here?
Me: Yes, (as I introduced myself when we first met....) I'm your brother's nurse today.
Bro: So you get paid to be here?
Me: Yes, I am a full time employee of this hospital.
Bro: Cuz you're not really doing anything. Don't you just think you should volunteer?
Me: ... That's a VERY interesting opinion. I've never heard that one before.
:angryfire
Unbelievable--This one even left me speechless. :no:
The husband of a patient gave me all the graphic details of how he contracted DM from a blood transfusion that had too much sugar in it.
I just heard this one the other day as well, luckily she said it in front of the doc also. We just looked at each other and he said "What? That's impossible! You have high blood sugars b/c you're overweight and inactive and refuse to follow the diet I've prescribed for you and take your meds...not b/c you got a blood transfusion forty years ago!" Glad he was there to say it.
I just heard this one the other day as well, luckily she said it in front of the doc also. We just looked at each other and he said "What? That's impossible! You have high blood sugars b/c you're overweight and inactive and refuse to follow the diet I've prescribed for you and take your meds...not b/c you got a blood transfusion forty years ago!" Glad he was there to say it.
What would be truly shocking is to have a Pt in our society actually take responsibility.
wife of an elderly dementia patient....she has left me numerous good ones!!
here are my faves:
#1. i want to know who ripped his wife beater/undershirt off him because i want to be reimbursed for this...we obliged and just replaced them!!
this occured numerous times until an aide caught him half-way thru ripping off another shirt!! she told him to wait she would help in just a second...then she went and got the don and charge nurse to observe him as he finished ripping it off!! then questioned him and he admitted to doing it!!
well here is the punch line....when we informed the wife he was ripping them!!
"why would he do that he has scissors in the night stand?..."
#2 the pajama thief....
this man had only a few pairs of pajamas try (3)!! at this time she was still insisting on doing all of his laundry!!
well one day she informed me that someone was stealing his pajamas because she took them home to wash them and they weren't in his drawers!!
i searched the room high and low!! then informed the don and charge nurse of the missing pj's...cause i knew the next obvious question to ask her is if she brought them back?? i didn't not want to be on the other end of that discussion...
of course the answer was thats preposterous!1 hours later returned with the pj's
#3 stop feeding him
if you will notice the recurring incidents with laundry..
he was admitted in january...up until then would walk 3-4 miles a day everyday... well heath deteriation eventually made it impossible for him to walk anymore!!
no more exercise and lots of snack and goodies and food at the nursing home his pants became to snug to button!! when we requested more clothes her response was...you guessed it!!
"stop feeding him so much"
what makes this ironic is she comes for every meal!! gets a complimentary meal for herself and then makes sure he eats every bite!!
I just heard this one the other day as well, luckily she said it in front of the doc also. We just looked at each other and he said "What? That's impossible! You have high blood sugars b/c you're overweight and inactive and refuse to follow the diet I've prescribed for you and take your meds...not b/c you got a blood transfusion forty years ago!" Glad he was there to say it.
To quote Forrest Gump, "stupid is as stupid does"!!
One of my favorites from when I worked nights. Call bell rings at desk. Patient says I haven't had a bm yet today. We look at the clock and it's only 5 am.
Okay this reminds me of a resident.... we had a new aide go in there for one of his numerous rants, screams, hollars....
He was confused and has some form of dementia...so we figured just the where are my keys or something...
She comes out and says umm...I need help he is being perverted!! This poor girl was only 16...and we were all confused cause hes never perverted...so in we go to investigate and observe!!
She asks "_____, what did you need?" He says "like I said before get in this bed...and tell your lil friends over there if they want they can join or watch...I know there is nothing there but it can get the job done!!"
I had worked there over a year and one never before or after heard him say things like that!!!
#2 Had to bite my lip to keep from laughing cause he was right....there is absolutely nothing there!!
The story I had been told was something like he had to have some surgery done when first admitted and they were over zealous!!
Specializes in telemetry, long-term care, oncology.
A little old lady asked why we keep putting "ivy" on her arm? She can feel it hanging there and tries to sweep it off. We told the doc, the pt isn't confused really....
:no: 
ozoneranger
373 Posts
The husband of a patient gave me all the graphic details of how he contracted DM from a blood transfusion that had too much sugar in it.