Share Your Funniest Patient Stories...

[Trvln Nurse]

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.

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!!!

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?

[abbaking]

babyjr said:

I also have this funniest moment at the CCU. I have a patient who is very thirsty. We can't give him water because he was on NPO. All we could offer was to wet his lips with cotton balls soaked in water. Eventually, he can't take it anymore. And to my surprise, he drank the suction bottle full of secretions!! It was very disgusting! We ran towards him to stop what he's doing.

Gag! I can taste the bile.....I almost vomited with that last part.....Vile and Nasty - But very disturbingly funny

[KinshuKiba]

Working the ER at my last hospital, they put me out in triage. "Advice" calls were often sent out there, under the assumption the triage nurse was less busy than staff. So, the phone rang and I scooped it up and ran through my little script. A little old woman, who sounded like she was about 80, says, "Honey, I was at a family reunion, and I got a little too much sun; now I have this bad sunburn, and I was wondering what I could do for it." I gave her the usual list, aloe vera apps, vinegar soaks, and encouraged her to seek medical attention if she was concerned. She replied, "Well, okay, that sounds fine, but I was wondering about putting butter on it." I told her that was probably not a good idea, explained the increased risk for infection, and reiterated my earlier advice. When I was done, the woman was silent; you could have heard her thinking in the pause. Finally, she asks, "Well, what about margarine?"

[LPN_thts_M3]

When I was LPN school I did one of my clinical rotations in a Wound Center. Alot of the pts were those with necrosis on their feet and legs from diabetes. Well this one particular day a gentleman came in for tx of his leg. He had bandages over the bottom half of his leg. Well I volunteered to cut the bandage off. Now as a student I was always nervous of being too rough and he could see that all over my face.

I get halfway down his leg when he lets out the loudest scream that scared the holy $%^ out of me. I jumped back, scissors dangling from his leg and said OMG I am soooo sorry:eek:....he then looks me dead in my face and busted out laughing. I didnt hurt him at all:no: He said that he could tell I was nervous and he was just trying to loosen me up...So not funny at the time but he got a laugh out of me and when I returned to class that Monday of course the whole class had heard and thought it was the funniest thing ever invented:rotfl::rotfl:

[teeniebert, LPN]

YngNursNtrng said:

I get halfway down his leg when he lets out the loudest scream that scared the holy $%^ out of me. I jumped back, scissors dangling from his leg and said OMG I am soooo sorry:eek:....he then looks me dead in my face and busted out laughing. I didn't hurt him at all:no: He said that he could tell I was nervous and he was just trying to loosen me up...So not funny at the time but he got a laugh out of me and when I returned to class that Monday of course the whole class had heard and thought it was the funniest thing ever invented:rotfl::rotfl:

There was a lady my class took care of in LTC clinicals; she was in for rehab after foot surgery, A&Ox3, and had a wicked sense of humor. She knew that we were learning and that some of us had never done blood sugars/insulin injections before. The day I did her insulin, as soon as the needle hit her skin, she went, "ow, ow, ow" and started crying...When I looked up she stopped, put a completely blank expression on her face, and said, "what?" We both laughed our heads off, but my instructor laughed most of all.

[OB Nurse Andrea]

I am currently an RN on a Labor and Delivery unit but I spent about 4 years as a care giver in a locked Alzheimer's unit before I got my nursing license. I can't think of any long hilarious stories but lots of funny moments.

While working in nursing homes, I encountered on a regular basis residents voiding or defecating on/in objects thinking they were on the toilet (trash can, drawer,laundry basket, chair, you name it). However, the one that takes the cake was the night an elderly very confused gentleman wandered into the family kitchen and had a bm in the open dishwasher. That sure wasn't fun to clean up but gave several of us a good giggle.

One day a little old lady resident could not find her dentures and was accusing me of stealing them. I said "I have all my real teeth, what good would it do me to steal your dentures." To which she replied "You could put them on your hand and use them to bite someone in the a**." She and I both had a good chuckle over that one and afterward she said "Well help me remember where I put them then."

One day on the Alzheimer's unit, someone was doing the hourly check to make sure every resident could be accounted for and alerted the staff that *Mary was missing. We looked everywhere we could think of but could not find her. Finally someone called out and we all came running. There was *Mary, sitting on the shower seat, in the dark, behind the shower curtain, happily talking to herself about things that didn't make sense (she was known for occasionally making sense, but usually speaking word salad to no one in particular). Mary did not appear upset in the least and seemed a little bewildered about what all the fuss was about.

I am surprised at the number of women who really think that they pee from their lady partss and that if something is inserted there that they will not be able to urinate.:icon_roll

I sometimes must stiffle surprise at the number of different words patients/significant others use for "lady parts"

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

lyndamic said:

Years ago, I was working LTC and had to administer a rectal suppository for a very confused LOL, at 3am. She resisted me, but I tried to explain what I was doing and persisted. Finally she relaxed and allowed me to insert the supp, saying, "You men are all the same!". Extra funny since I'm obviously a woman!

Another time, I needed to do a dressing change on this same LOL, again in the middle of the night. I turned on the minimum of lights so as to disturb her as little as possible. She woke up and got a look at me, and said "You look tired. You look like the walking dead". I replied that I WAS tired, but certainly not dead. She then scooted way over in the bed, up against the side rails, and said "You better lay down here with me for awhile. You're going to scare people, walking around looking like that".

This same lady hit the doc with her cane on another occasion, and told him that he didn't have the sense God gave a bean seed. She also routinely expressed disgust in the dining room over the other residents' lack of manners, then would shout "SHUT UP!", when someone would point out that that wasn't very nice. I loved that lady - I attended her funeral when she died. Her kids told hilarious stories about her, and said she had been a wonderful mother. Apparently she'd always had that "tell it like it is" attitude.

My kind of personality. I would love to meet someone like her. :redpinkhe

[lovinthebabies]

ruby vee said:

remember geriatric chairs? we used to posey our wanderers into a geri chair for the day. only ours didn't have brakes, and one old guy named juan used to be able to push himself around the unit with his tippy toes. backward. we'd put him out by the nurse's station on busy days, and everyone would sort of keep an eye on him -- even the house staff who all knew him well.

one particularly busy day, there were two codes going on at once and everyone was involved with one or the other of them. juan scooted himself off the unit in his geri chair, and was found at the doorway to the firestairs trying to get the door open. the nursing supervisor brought him back. the next time, a patient's family member went to get the unit secretary, who pulled an na out of a code to bring juan back. the third time, a harvard medical student encountered the nice old man posey'd into a geri chair trying to open the door to the stairs. I'm sure he thought he was being helpful when he opened the door for the juan and held it for him.

the next day when I came back to work, juan was poseyd in a geri chair wearing a cast over his entire torso and both shoulders. the toes still worked fine, though. I was determined not to have a repeat accident on my shift, so the na and I poseyed juan into the chair, and tied the chair to the sink in his room. the first sign that that may not have been a wise choice was when there was a loud crash followed by the sounds of gushing water and a flood pouring out of juan's room. by the time I got there, juan was propelling himself backward out of his room, dragging the sink. the housekeepers were not amused. nor were the plumbers!

after that, we tied the chair to the handrail in the halls -- you know -- the ones patients are supposed to hang on to as they ambulate in the halls. another poor decision. the rail wasn't attached to anything but dry wall . . . and following another loud crash (and some excited shouting) we found juan propelling himself down the hall dragging the railing and a large chunk of dry wall. the carpenters were not amused. nor was the couple in the room on the other side of the dry wall . . . they were engaging in some long-postponed marital relations when juan's removing a chunk of drywall exposed them to the entire unit!

sadly, juan's trip down the stairs backward ultimately caused his demise. he got a pressure sore under his cast, became septic, went into septic shock and arrested. we couldn't saw him out of the cast fast enough to start CPR in a timely fashion . . .

that is a hilarious story although it ended up sadly. I can't believe he was strong enough to do those things even in a cast.

[NurseNinaFla]

I remember one night I went into the clients room and the (elderly)CNA had put the clients hand mitts on the (clients) feet! She looked like a human platypus!

It was too funny!

[NurseNinaFla]

Back in the days when we used poseys,one particular client who was posied in the bed declared "I will never come back to this hotel again!"

[NurseNinaFla]

So many funny things to tell over the years

One particular evening I noticed a residents hair looked all fuzzy and out of sorts

I asked the lady if she just got a new perm or something,she said yes and that they took her in the shower and washed it and after that they used the "blowtorch" on it! needless to say I was laughing about that the rest of the night and still chuckle when I think about it!

[Lucina11]

Probably not hilarious...but at the end of shift, it was almost more than I could do to keep from laughing.

CNA in the nursing home. One elderly lady with Alzheimer's was known for getting crotchety some nights when her legs hurt her. This night, she refused to take her meds, and was really cranky. She wanted to be in a nightgown, but didn't want to go to bed. She was restless and kept wheeling herself into other resident's rooms, causing call-lights to go off like mad.

After the about the seventh time of us gently reassuring the others and redirecting this lady back to the hall or her own room, she calmed down and took her pain pill. At about a quarter til ten, right before shift change, I was restocking the laundry cart, and she was creeping along silently behind me everywhere I went. Occasionally I would talk to her, but she wouldn't answer. Just crept along. I finished up and was about to try one more time to get her in bed, when she goes " Psstt...come here."

She was holding the skirt of her gown up like it was full of something. When I got to her, she showed me her empty lap.

" Would you like a COON EGG?" she asks.

" A coon egg? "

" Yes. That's what I SAID! "

" No thank you, Ms. D."

" Well, dammit! I've gone and found about a hundred of them in that room over there, and I just don't think I can eat them all!"

I've never in my life heard of coon eggs, but for a week, whenever we asked if her if she wanted a snack, she swore she wanted a coon egg sandwich. She had to settle for plain old chicken eggs though.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

The blowtorch and the coons eggs are hilarious. Thanks for the laugh!!!