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?

Specializes in ICU, medsurg/tele.

During nursing school I worked as a CNA in an ICU. We had one elderly patient who was very confussed. One night she was very upset about something and when i was walking by I saw her slamming her call bell into the side of her bed. I went in to ask her what was wrong. She said she was very upset because she just gave birth to her babies and they would not stop crying. (the call bell was one of the babies) I explained to her that she is in the hospital and there are no babies in her room. She told me I was wrong. We had this conversation a few times and no matter what I did she would not calm down. So I finally gave in and asked her where the babies were now. She pointed to the foot of the bed. I asked her how many there were and she said two. So I picked up the "babies" and told her I would take them to the nursey, feed them and put them to bed for her so she could sleep. She smiled at me and thanked me for helping her. She slept for the rest of the night :lol2: I know you are supposed to reorient the patient, but sometimes you just have to realize that no matter what you say you will not be able to reorient them. Sometimes going along with it turns out better for you and your patient.

Specializes in Emergency Medicine.

It was my first year of nursing school, and we were still cutting our teeth on nursing home rotations. Because the nursing homes were relatively small, a lot of us got patients that other student had previously taken care of. The third or fourth week of second semester, one of my friends pulled an elderly diabetic female who was a bilateral AKA, and had terrible dementia. Having taken care of her the previous semester, and knowing what a handful she could be, I gladly offered my assistance. In addition to all her other problems, the poor thing had a decube the size of my fist on her coccyx, which required almost constant redressing, due mostly to her incontinence. We were elbow deep in the cleaning process, when she opened her eyes, looked directly at me, and asked, "Are you an angel?" (I should point out here that our school uniforms were solid white.) 20 years old and completely tenderhearted, I teared up. But before I could reply, she shook her head and said, "No, you're too ornery to be an angel." My fellow student looked at me and added, "Wow, she really has your number!"

My word! I had the same experience!!! I had a pt that was post op CABG, doing great and was delined, extubated, and planned to TX to tele the next am. Gave him ambien and 45 min later, he was stark raving CRAZY!!!!! He had hold of his chest tubes and had a wild look in his eyes, took numerous meds and 1:1 care to get him safely through the night. Needless to say he bought 24 more ICU hours prior to going to tele. Not so fond of ambien----weird thing is, he was

Specializes in Occupational Medicine, Orthopedics.

ok, this was from a couple years ago when I was working at a nursing home.

One of my cute residents would wheel herself up to my med cart every morning and say: "Can you tell me where my room is?" in a very southern drawl. Each and every time I would say: "you bet Mrs X, I'll show you in just a bit, can you wait right over there for me?" She would say: "Well, alright dear... I'll just wait over here". A few minutes later: "Can you tell me where my room is?" She was so cute.

Another lady, let's say Mrs. Y would continually ask me: "When is this train going to stop, I think they passed up my destination". I would say something reassuring like: "Don't worry Mrs. Y, your stop will be coming up." Then I'd pass her in the hall a little later and she would grab my arm and say: "Don't you think someone should find the conductor, I think we've gone too far... I need to get off this train."

Well on this particular day, I'm getting my cart ready when the two ladies happened into each other. They were within my ear shot, and here is the conversation in all its glory:

Mrs. X wheels herself up to Mrs. Y and asks: "Can you tell me where my room is?" (in her wonderful southern drawl), at which Mrs. Y answers: "Are you kidding, I don't even know where this train is going, I need to get someone to stop the train!"

I was having the best little giggle while getting my cart ready that day!;)

We had this guy who'd been trached and on the vent a long time. One day he was really agitated and kept grabbing at my clothes. Suctioned, still agitated and waving his arms. Was about to get himself Ativaned. But, no, he had something important to say. I said, "What do you want, Mr. B?" Handed him the pad and he very laboriously wrote in great big letters: A BIG MAC!

I was in my second semester of nursing school completing my mental health clinical rotation in a local inpatient unit. It was the beginning of the shift, around 7 a.m., and I was completing my morning vital signs. I walked into a patient's room and proceeded to tell her who I was and what I was about to do, as any nurse, and especially nursing student, should. After waking her from her slumber, I began to take her vital signs when I could not for the life of me remember her diagnosis. I figured I would complete her full assessment and then refer back to her chart to obtain this information while I was documenting. So, I continued my assessment on her when she started to really wake up and begin holding conversation with me. After about five minutes of conversation, she very politely and calmly tells me, "You have a very good bedside manner." To ANY nursing student, this is the ultimate compliment, and needless to say, I was absolutely thrilled to receive such a compliment! Although this happiness was very sincere and very much appreciated, it did not last very long. As soon as the compliment left her mouth and I proceeded to tell her "thank you," she immediately and very seriously asked me, "Do you see these worms coming out of my nose?!" I literally died inside; I couldn't decide to laugh or cry! She ended up being schizophrenic and having serious hallucinations, which not only completely negated my ultimate compliment but also forced me to look up this woman's nose to try to find these "worms" to which she was referring! Although I did not get the true compliment I had hoped for, I did get to spend some time with this outstanding patient, and she ended up being one of my favorite and most memorable patients. This particular day ended up being one of the best days I had had throughout all of my clinical rotations!

FINALLY!!!!! a bed alarm with a sense of humor!!!!!

We have these new motion sensor bed alrams........and LMAO they play the theme to Crime Stoppers!!:lol2: :yeah:

Originally Posted by lovemydeano

A few years ago, I was working on a rehab floor and we ended up getting a quite elderly woman, I'll call her "Greta." One day the CNA who was assigned to her came out of her room with a look of horror on her face and said, "Mary, there's something wrong with Greta, there's a weird thing bulging between her legs, it looks like a......" I told her I would take a look at it, but knowing her history, I knew it was her prolapsed uterus. Being the jokester I am, I decided to take it to the max with the CNA. After looking at Greta, with the CNA in the room, I said "Oh, that's her uterus." The CNA was shocked and asked why it was on the outside of the body. I said, "Well, whenever you have a baby, eventually your uterus falls out. Everytime you cough, sneeze, pas gas, laugh, it will fall out." She asked me does this happen to all women (oh, how gullible!) Yes, I said, usually by about 40 or so, and if you can't afford the surgery to put it back in place, you have to wear special underwear to keep it in place. She said that must be very inconvenient. I said, think about what it's like to have sex!! I eventually told her I was joking, I really had her believing me for a few minutes.

LMAO!!!! one of my CNAs was telling the first time she experienced this, she went running down the hall yelling for the nurse and saying, "Call 911 Mrs X is crowning, shes crowning!!!!" We were all laughing so hard several of us ended up doing the peepee dance to the bathroom. :lol2:

Specializes in Emergency.

Very drunk patient in the medical tent at music festival: "I am super intelligent you know."

Me (thinking 'the evidence would indicate otherwise"): really?- do you know what you're IQ is?

Him: Yeah- its 45!

Specializes in Emergency.

In the mid 1980's, while working in a small, remote hospital, the three most senior nurses carried pagers when off duty because the hospital was so small that there was only 1 RN and 1 EN per shift, so if there was an emergency extra hands would be required.

One evening I was just starting to cook tea when my pager went off. I rang the hospital and was told there was a cardiac arrest in Casualty.I told Mark, my husband, that he had to drive me to the hospital quickly, and explained why.

Right in the middle of an exhausting rescuscitation someone answered the phone and called out to me that Mark was on the line and needed to speak to me. We all paused momentarily, and everyone looked at me. They told me later that I instantly went white as a sheet. What on earth could be so important that Mark would ring me in the middle of a cardiac arrest? It had to be one of the kids. Oh my god, something REALLY bad has happened to one of the kids. Someone grabbed the vent bag out of my hands and said "Go- quickly!"

I flew to the phone. "What is it?" I quavered.

"Well, I was just wondering", said Mark. "Did you want those carrots cut into little sticks, or little circles?".

He got quite offended that I hung up on him.

We had a patient at a LTC facility that could not speak but would verbalize in loud moans and body language (which once you worked there for a while you would learn to interpret). He could get pretty loud sometimes, especially when he laughed and you could hear it throughout the halls of the nursing home. One of the nurses must have asked him to be quiet because the state was there for their inspection. When I came in for my 2nd shift he was putting his finger in front of his lips (in a shush type of motion) and trying to stifle a laugh. Just seeing this, I started laughing hysterically and that started him laughing. We must have laughed for a good 15 minutes! It was absolutely hysterical and I was laughing so hard that I thought I would wet myself! :rotfl: It is a good thing I got there early for my shift!

Working Geri-psych on a night shift I had a psychotic woman who was fixated on babies and sex. One night I was sitting at the nursing station and heard some inappropriate moaning (like she was having sex) I didn't check her because all of the other patients were sound asleep and frankly did not WANT to know what she was doing in her room. Then she started yelling,"Oh my God, oh my God!" I went in to see that the problem was. She stated that she was in labor with twins and with eyes the size of lemons stated, "Didn't they tell you, I am having twins." She then asked the tech to take her to the bathroom. After almost 1 hour of the non-ceasing yellingand the PRN psych med wasn't working-I got an idea! I went and got the baby doll from the storage room and gave it to her. She instantly quieted down and stated, "I did it, I had my baby". She slept with the baby doll in her bed the rest of the night. When I gave report in the morning, I was laughing so hard telling the day nurse how this woman went from conception to deliver in less than 1 hour! The day nurse laughed so hard she had to excuse herself and go to the bathroom! :rotfl:

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