Share Your Funniest Patient Stories...

Nurses Humor

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We all have lots of stories to tell. I thought it would be fun if we shared a few of our funniest patient stories with each other. :lol2:

Here's mine...

I keep remembering a particular incident a few years back. It wasn't even my patient.

I was heading down the hallway on the CCU unit in which I worked. I was minding my own business, heading down the hallway and I just happened to glance into a patient room...

I couldn't believe what I saw...

An older gentleman, who clearly was having some post-op dementia after open heart surgery....

he was sitting up in the middle of his bed and with knees bent and feet braced at the bed rail for extra support....

With both hands...

HE WAS PULLING on all of his CHEST TUBES with ALL OF HIS MIGHT!!!

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Needless to say, I sprang into action along with all the surrounding nursing staff. It took security along with all of us to restrain this man so he wouldn't hurt himself. Though it wasn't funny at the time....I can't get this picture out of my mind and find it amusing to remember.

What's your story?

I realize that a nurse can't control what patients will do but if you can't keep the "funny" stories on this thread clean, that is to say without bad language, then I will close my connection to this thread.

Just so you know where I stand.

Well the fact is we nurses have to have our shell-likes stuffed with cotton wool if we could not put up with the naughty words! On the district we once ahd a lovely old tramp--a real togue--whose language was very fruity. Each of us, unbeknown to each other, kept affecting great shock and saying we were (unmarried) vicar's daughters. He eventually called our bluss, saying there was rather a lot of holy virgins around!

When I first worked in psychiatry in the 1960s, a truly innocent young maiden then! I had a real baptism of fire--since then I have been unshockable! Midwifery was another case to block your shell -likes- and in geriatrics--as we called it then---a large number of--oddly--pillars of the church-ladies liked to bare all and come out with shocking expletives. I only hope that when I get Alzhiemrs or a stroke--or whatever--I wont get stuck in a "naughty groove".

greensister

greensister

mangb said:
I have 2 the first one was I had this little lady who had one of her legs missing aka and she had a prostatic we had just got done with her shower and had her dressed and in her chair with her leg on when we were going down the hall her leg got stuck behind the chair making it look like her leg was bent all the way back under the chair this maint man see's this and starts screaming about her leg breaking. her being the funny person that she was started screaming as well saying oh my God you tore my leg off

I just found this thread and read the above post!

I laughed so hard, imagining this scene, I almost peed on myself!

Nurses have to put up with naughty words when the patient isn't responsible for saying them and to some extent even when they are, but we don't have to propogate the habit in our own behavior.

Some people think dirty jokes are "adult" and funny; I don't, and I think it demeans nurses as I believe it demeans anyone to put low language or ideas in front of them.

And, by the way, I'm no prude or shielded from life, I just think we can be better than that. And I think I have a sense of humor.

One patient lived on a Medicare ward I worked, a young man, formerly a motorcyclist, now a quadraplegic requiring continuing care in the nursing home. He had some nurses or aides who brought him alchohol and other things. And since they thought, because of my faith, that I was an easy mark, they set me up one night in my care of him, to put something I needed for his care on top of his bare private parts. My professionalism didn't hide my embarrassment; I simply acknowledged that they "got" me and he still got his care.

Quite! We have to put up with all kinds of "dickipoggy words2--as we say in Yorkshire! What we dont have to put up with is disrespect and deliberate winding up. When you are a new nurse, especially if young and sheltered--if anyone is these days, but I was in the 1960s-----you are a bit wet behind the ears, but as you grow--hopefully fairly quickly! for purposes of survival, you learn where to joke, where to ignore and where to rebuke!

Maybe we sometimes get it wrong, but in 40 years I have only had a few "disasters" and looking back, I feel that although no Mother Teresa I have connected with all my patients pretty well, mostly positive and many times funny--the last we must qualify by stating that patients must never be wound up and baited--there was a bit of that in the bin by certain old "sylum 'tendants" which are related on my website but not allowed to be linked on here.

gs

Specializes in OB, critical care, hospice, farm/industr.

"dickipoggy" I love that! I have a new adjective!

Emmanuel, I know what you mean. I'm afraid I will be a horrible old trout if I ever get gaga. I'll be pinching the attendant's rear ends and cackling. My mother's worried about the same thing: she told me to write her an overdose of pills if she ever got so feeble she needed a home.

Augh! Jeez, Mom, just what I needed to hear....

Specializes in ER OR LTC Code Blue Trauma Dog.

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:)

Specializes in peds, med surg, ER, Home Health.

When I worked med-surg, we had an elderly patient whose scrotum was swollen to about the size of a melon. He needed to get on the bedside commode, so his nurse and 2 aides went to help him. They were having trouble getting him on the commode because his scrotum was too big to fit in it. The patient was very hard of hearing, so he always talked very loud, and he was getting frustrated with the people trying to get him on the commode, so he started screaming "PUT MY NUTS IN THE BUCKET!!!" over and over. He could be heard all the way down the hall, even with his door closed! :lol2:

I remember one night working in the ER of a busy hospital and we had em lined up in the hallway. We had an elderly female nursing home patient who fell out of bed and was brought in by the squad. I didnt triage this patient but after all the xrays and a few hours later the doc told me to get this patient up and get her walking. Her xrays were negative and the doc wanted her to walk before we sent her back. I didn't know her well so I went over to the stretchers in the hall and tracked her down. I told her that I was going to get her up and get her walking so she could go back to the nursing home. " I said, oK let me help you up...you are gonna walk...your xrays are fine and nothing is broken." She said in a broken shrill voice, "I'm gonna walllllkkkkk." I said, "Yes, you're gonna walk." She said in that shrill voice, "wowwww, I'm gonna wallllllkkk." I said it again, "Yes....you're gonna walk!" She said, "This is greatttttt...I haven't walked in 15 yearssss." Oh my god...I held back the laughter and told her to stay there till I come back......LOL....I went right back to the doc and repeated the story....we laughed so hard we almost wet our scrubs.....what a night to remember!

Ken:lol2:

Specializes in Home Health, Geriatrics.

Working in home health, I have had many experiences, some funny, some sad. Anyone who has ever filled out an OASIS form knows how tedious this can be. I was asking one patient if he had cataracts and his response was "Just the one out in the driveway." He had meant his cadillac! I've been chased by dogs and found out that I could run faster than I thought, actually got bit on the butt once and had to drive back 50 miles sitting on one cheek in the car (Now there's a visual for you!) I guess this is why I love home health so much.

Several years ago,first day back to work[on vacation],trying to wash some dried blood off of this comatose patients face,I must have been rubbing a little too hard with the washcloth,because his right 'eye' popped out,and rolled down his chest!!! I screamed,people came running,and the patient was totally unaware!No one had thought to inform me of his glass eye! Needless to say,I am a little leery of 'eye' things to this day! Samiebird:uhoh3:

Specializes in FNP, Peds, Epilepsy, Mgt., Occ. Ed.
samiebird said:
Several years ago,first day back to work[on vacation],trying to wash some dried blood off of this comatose patients face,I must have been rubbing a little too hard with the washcloth,because his right 'eye' popped out,and rolled down his chest! I screamed,people came running,and the patient was totally unaware!No one had thought to inform me of his glass eye! Needless to say,I am a little leery of 'eye' things to this day! Samiebird:uhoh3:

Something very similar happened to a doc I worked with, not long ago. He was trying to do neuro checks on this patient. The nurse was helping him, trying to hold the patient's eye open, when they eye popped out of the socket! The doctor and nurse both yelled. No one knew the patient had glass eye. I wasn't there to see it but wish I had been!

That's better, though, than the patient I once did checks on and couldn't get the left eye pupil to move. After about the third time I tried, the patient looked at me and said "glass eye." The thing was, the pupil had been "reactive" on the previous three days' neuro checks!!

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