Strangest thing you've heard a co-worker or patient say?

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Today, from a charge nurse, after he evaluated a patient's lung sounds (and let me listen; "textbook wheezes" with some crackles): "It sounds like her lungs are playing 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia!'" ;)

Specializes in SICU.

I had a 16 year old male patient who had just had a hemicolectomy. My unit secretary tells me that my patient just called and asked to have his "surgical socks" taken off. As I am walking toward my patient's room I realize that he is probably talking about his SCD's. So I go into the room and ask my patient "Did you want help taking off your SCD's?" He gets this terrified look on his face (oh by the way, his mom is also in the room) and says "What are you talking about? I don't have any STD's!" I explain to him that I was talking about his sequential compression devices aka SCD's, to which he replies "Oh yeah, I wanted those taken off." I managed to keep a straight face in the room but practically fell on the floor laughing once I got out into the hallway! So funny!

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How about waking up a patient introducing yourself as the nurse and being asked in return, "What tribe do you come from?:p"

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Specializes in Long Term Care, Peds with special needs.

This was before I started working at my current facility, but the older nurses were telling me about 2 lil elderly ladies who were roomies. One night they could hear a lot of commotion from the room. As the entered they saw B bed pt standing over A bed pt coaching her to "Have Her Baby". Both residents are there to this day and I smile everytime I have to go in there.

One of my residents kept asking for "bigger titties" so I found a sheet rolled it up and put it under her gown. Resident was very happy except "I dont have the crack in the middle". It took me a lil bit of time to figure out she wanted cleavage. So I grabbed a rubberband and made her cleavage. I have never seen someone so excited. I could not fill her other request, that was for "bigger hips, to get a man". I loved that lady.

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I had a 16 year old male patient who had just had a hemicolectomy. My unit secretary tells me that my patient just called and asked to have his "surgical socks" taken off. As I am walking toward my patient's room I realize that he is probably talking about his SCD's. So I go into the room and ask my patient "Did you want help taking off your SCD's?" He gets this terrified look on his face (oh by the way, his mom is also in the room) and says "What are you talking about? I don't have any STD's!" I explain to him that I was talking about his sequential compression devices aka SCD's, to which he replies "Oh yeah, I wanted those taken off." I managed to keep a straight face in the room but practically fell on the floor laughing once I got out into the hallway! So funny!

ahhh so that is what they are called. I always call them the squeezy boots. :lol2:

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So this is not a co-worker or a patient but one of my doctors who I had never met before. I saw a neurosergeon on friday, I said that I had not had an MRI of my head of years (used to have them yearly). His response, I know, the MRI I was looking at you had 2 eyes. You see January 2007 (last year) I had my right eye removed. He had NO clue before I walked in there that my eye was gone. lol.

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Specializes in Med-Surg, ED.

I had a confused patient once climb up on a chair in the dayroom unbeknownst to me or the rest of the staff and subsequently fall off. After we got him back up, he seemed fine. As I was charting the incident, he came up to the nurse's station and announced to me "Well, I broke it good. I guess its time to bury the body now."

I asked him what body.

He pointed to himself "This one. Its no good anymore now that I fell. We need to get rid of the body" The poor dear had a history of abdominal surgery and thought that for whatever reason, his insides had been all rebuilt, and that his fall off the chair had broken what he referred to as 'the doctor's fine handiwork'.

I reassured him that he wasn't dead, and he was much happier.

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I was in a patients room once changing an IV bag... my patient was a SUPER confused little old lady about 85trs old. I was standing next to her bedside table and knocked over the chart I had with me. She says, "What was that?!?" I said, "Ma'am, you just farted" and she says, "Oh my! I'm so sorry!"... I ran out of there laughing sooooo hard! Isn't that horrible of me? But it was sooooooooooo funny! I went to the nurses station and told everyone... everyone was rolling on the floor!

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Specializes in Hospice.
I was in a patients room once changing an IV bag... my patient was a SUPER confused little old lady about 85trs old. I was standing next to her bedside table and knocked over the chart I had with me. She says, "What was that?!?" I said, "Ma'am, you just farted" and she says, "Oh my! I'm so sorry!"... I ran out of there laughing sooooo hard! Isn't that horrible of me? But it was sooooooooooo funny! I went to the nurses station and told everyone... everyone was rolling on the floor!

:nono: :eek: Shame on you!!

(But still I will admit somewhere deep inside I laughed a little bit... Shame on me!!)

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Specializes in CST in general surgery, LDRs, & podiatry.

i used to scrub for a podiatry group (12 dpms) at the outpatient surgery center operated for the whole group. the vast majority of the cases were done under "mac" anesthesia (monitored anesthesia care - heavy sedation monitored by an anesthesiologist). the patients were generally sedated to the point of sleeping with no ventilatory assistance while the dpm used a quantity of local anesthetic to numb the area to be operated on. after the numbing was done, which would have been extraordinarily painful to do without the sedation, the patient's anesthesia level would usually be lightened up until they were just groggy. the surgery would continue and the patient had no pain, and thanks to versed, no memory of the whole thing, even for the ones who acted like they were awake and aware.

on more than one occasion, we would have a patient who insisted that they absolutely had to be completely asleep :sleep:for the whole thing, and if their prevailing medical status would allow it, the anesthesiologist generally made sure they were heavy sedation (we called it "big mac") for the whole thing. then they'd turn off the diprivan iv at the end of the case, and the patient was wide awake in a minute or so.

the fun came when the patient would awaken to a point of groggy awareness, and not expect to be that aware of their surroundings (remember the versed - they didn't recall any of it later) and would generally ask something like "am i awake?" of "am i supposed to be this awake?" or something along those lines. after getting used to the routines, and assisting the surgeon with one hand and passing with the other, i got comfortable to the point of being conversant with sedated patients, and one doc let us have a little harmless fun with them to lighten up the room once in a while. my favorite response to their question would be to answer "no - you're not awake. you're still sleeping, and we are in your dream." (i know - my bad. :chuckle)

the puzzled look on some faces was enough to generate a few giggles from the rest of us, and the reassured look on others left them comfortable enough to put their head back down and doze back off to sleep for the rest of the case! :yawn: :zzzzz it was fun to watch and see what kind of reaction we would get - nobody remembered a thing, and it made the day go a little faster with some humor in it! :lol2:

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Specializes in Med/Surg and now Palliative care.

I was floating one day and came upon a middle aged, sound minded lady sitting on a commode chair behind her curtain. I asked her if I could help her and she said " I'm just waiting" of course this was followed by "waiting for what?"...."My autopsy" she replied.....I told her she might have to wait a really long time for that but offered to help her with her suppository. Very hard to do without laughing....

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Specializes in med-surg.
I was in a patients room once changing an IV bag... my patient was a SUPER confused little old lady about 85trs old. I was standing next to her bedside table and knocked over the chart I had with me. She says, "What was that?!?" I said, "Ma'am, you just farted" and she says, "Oh my! I'm so sorry!"... I ran out of there laughing sooooo hard! Isn't that horrible of me? But it was sooooooooooo funny! I went to the nurses station and told everyone... everyone was rolling on the floor!

That's terrible!:nono:

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I was helping a nurse shave a pt's leg for surgery on his ankle. He was in his late teens, and his mother and grandmother were in the room with him. The nurse made a joke with him about his hairy legs. The mother said (and I quote), "If you think that's hairy, you should go up a little bit more."

Poor guy. He turned blood red and yelled "Thanks mom."

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