Things Patients Have Taught Me NOT To Do

deToxTech · Dec 24, 2009

after the 58th "suicide attempt" don't be suprised if the nurses don't take you as serious as you'd like.

If you're gonna buy a gun to kill yourself, don't wait til you get home to realize you don't have any bullets.

If you're gonna hotwire your mom's car and go joy riding without a license, learn the difference between brake and gas for when you see that cop parked on the side of the road.

don't call your nurse a fascist @$$hole and then expect them to have your medication ready for you 30 minutes before call.

nialloh, RN · Dec 26, 2009

If your 96 year old father is on his last legs, don't take him to Hospital and then go on vacation. He might not be there when you come back.

ThrowEdNurse, BSN, RN · Dec 26, 2009

Sometimes it's okay to interrupt a church service. For instance....death. When you find that the guy next to you isn't a sleep but is dead, don't take the time to assimilate a team to carry him off to a quiet room to initiate CPR. I think God would understand the chest compressions during the sermon.

Goldenhare · Dec 26, 2009

Don't expect me to believe you and your tearful girlfriend that you are afraid of needles when I can hardly find a patch of uninked skin to begin an IV!

rph3664 · Dec 26, 2009

Sometimes it's okay to interrupt a church service. For instance....death. When you find that the guy next to you isn't a sleep but is dead, don't take the time to assimilate a team to carry him off to a quiet room to initiate CPR. I think God would understand the chest compressions during the sermon.

Before Discovery Health became the Multiple Pregnancy Channel, they had this show about paramedics, and one time, they came to a church during the service because a man in the choir was having chest pain and difficulty breathing.

They got a standing ovation as they wheeled the man, who was fully conscious, out. :yeah:

NelletheNurse, ADN, BSN, MSN, APRN, NP · Dec 29, 2009

WHOA!! You've learned more than me!!
Never...NEVER..get off the top bunk with an erection, and slip, hitting your manhood on the bed post! :imbar

OMG!!!! lol

Madison09 · Dec 29, 2009

I absolutely love this thread:)

Never have your pacemaker recharged under consious sedation and go home the same day and then drink heavily for the next three days and wonder why you end up back at the ER due to severe dehydration.

KenzzzxzzyRNBSN · Dec 30, 2009

When you buy a motorcycle, the first time you ride it is advisable that you wear a helmet and that it preferably not be raining - however the rain does make it more exciting (as does not wearing a helmet) - it provides for good leg fractures
We used to refer to those crotch rocket motorcycles as "Donor-cycles"....Erin

i also like to call the helmet a "brain bucket"

nialloh, RN · Jan 3, 2010

Don't rip your new pacemaker out, and cut the wires, then go to the Dr's office and say "I found this." You might end up with MRSA in the wound, and be stuck in hospital for 3 weeks waiting for the infection to clear up to get a new one.

This is the second time something like this has happened that I saw. The other one I also posted on this thread. (I looked it up)

If you trip and cut your pacemaker site on a branch, it might fall out. Don't wait for the wound to nearly close before telling a Doctor. :icon_roll:icon_roll:icon_roll

The thing about this was, he had no infection to the site, and the pacemaker was still working fine. Just from outside the body.

chasemelony · Jan 12, 2010

Do not decide that your IV is a snake trying to eat its way into your arm and then pull out a lighter to burn it off. Do not sit there in bed after your IV tubing has caught fire and melted onto you, watching the flames spread over your linens and to the curtains hanging over the window. This is a bad idea.
Do not use your shared heroin needles to inject your diabetic body with insulin when you are homeless and living on the street. When you develop a boil that spans the entire upper side of your body and armpit, do not let your "hot" homeless stripper girlfriend lance it with the same needle. Do not let this open wound fester and rot for three weeks before going to the ER, unless you think having a tunneling wound that is deep enough for the MD to put his forearm into is "cool". Especially do not do this if you don't wish to have your arm amputated secondary to gross necrosis and infection.
And a few from the nursery (and you thought all we did was cuddle babies!):
Do not get two women pregnant at the same time. Especially do not let these two women be sisters. When they both go into pre-term labor, do not bring them both to the same hospital. At said hospital, do not leave and allow them to meet up in the nursery to cuddle your babies and discover that they share more than genetics in common. When you return, and they start slapping each other with a baby in their arms, do not cheer one over the other, or encourage ANYONE to "beat her ****ing fat ***", especially if the "her" you are referring to is the one who you are presently living with. Do not laugh when one of them hits the nurse and gives her a bloody lip as she tries to break up the fight.
Do not get HIV from your current partner and then get impregnated by your former partner without telling him that having sex with you is going to kill him. Do not have a baby then forget to tell the doctors that you have a deadly disease, allowing them to discover this in four months when it is too late to treat the baby effectively. Do not then let your former partner impregnate his CURRENT girlfriend, thus forming a sick quadrangle of HIV infection that only two people know about.
Do not wait until your NICU nurse has left the room so that you can whip out a rusty knife and begin sawing into your new baby's Morphine drip before she returns. Do not place your mouth anywhere near the newly-sawed IV tubing and begin drinking the Morphine. Do not, under any circumstances, pretend that you weren't doing this when the nurse returns, and absolutely do not claim that "that sh** was like that" when you came in.
Do not get so ****** off at the nurses that you decide to unhook your two pound preemie from his/her leads and put him/her inside your coat pocket and attempt to take him/her home with you.
Do not decide that your baby is hungry when he/she is on NEC precautions and, upset that we aren't feeding your baby, decide to sneak a Coca-Cola onto the unit and feed it to your child with a syringe you found on a supply cart.
When your baby has had open heart surgery and has his/her chest still open, do not put your finger "in there" because you wanted to "feel it".
Do not visit the nursery with a friend and, when friend begins to change her new baby's diaper, say one of the following phrases REALLY loud:
"Ooh, girl, your baby's cat is FAT!"
"How come your baby 'aint got no nuts?"
"Where the ***k is his ***k?"

Are those true stories!!!???

talaxandra · Jan 12, 2010

How did I miss NICU-Nurses's disturbing litany the first time round? Dear god, I love my lovely patients who've never done anything like any of those things.

meintheUSA · Jan 13, 2010

Are those true stories!!!???

You can not make stuff like this up, even with the best of the imaginations..... :eek: