Things Patients Have Taught Me NOT To Do

chicagonurse · Jan 13, 2005

This thread is hilarious :rotfl:

Don't drink a 12 pack of beer on lunch and go back to your construction job. Being a quad is a terrible thing.......

Don't stick pencils in your urthrea they may end up in you bladder.....

Don't ever come to work when you can't pee and ask one of the other nurses to cath you because all that rough sex caused your urthrea to swell shut. that is too much information.............

If you insist on caring for your obese demented grandmother at home, god bless you but take care of her. Don't show up at the ED because she has gaping sores under her breasts from sticking tissues under them and you can recall the last night she got a bath.................

Don't write the hospital a letter saying I was unprofessional when I restained you after finding you climbing over the siderails first night post op from double knee replacement surgery. I guess when I charted that you stated you were at home and I was trying to kill you I was the one who was mistaken................

Mommy2Katiebaby · Jan 13, 2005

OMG these are cracking me up...

Never, ever wear dangly, shiny earrings when working in a dementia ward (friend of mine)

Do not try to empty a bedpan in the dark, lest you end up wearing the contents

A quadriplegic with severe diarrhea who is placed into a Clinitron bed (those ones with the sand) will eventually turn said bed into a giant litter-box

Do not forget to carry a change of clothes on your home health job. When the sheet pops off the aforementioned bed, and the patient disappears into the sand, you will have to crawl in to retrieve him before he drowns and you just *might* need to shower at a truck stop

Do not place a suction canister filled with pseudomonas drainage on any shelf higher than your head (see Truck Stop Shower above) - you will never enjoy guacamole again

If you are visiting a patient in a roach-ridden, rat infested home, and he suggests you go look for something in a closet, DON'T DO IT!

nurscee · Jan 13, 2005

This is one I read about a very large woman quite a few years ago:

Don't masturbate with an empty pop-bottle. It can create a vacuum and get sucked inside!

anniesong · Jan 14, 2005

When living an a largely Polish-speaking area and going to a hospital with a number of Polish-speaking staff, do not threaten an entire floor, including two security guards, with irreperable harm, in Polish, and then act surprised when they actually understood you. After having done this, do not act so surprised when you are put in 4 point leather restraints.

When your evening tech/aide comments about the number of gloves missing from the box in your hospital room, you might want to tell her what you did with them rather than wait until night shift comes on and attempts to change you... only to find 10-20 gloves poking out of your orifice.

When you have a relative in the hospital and want to show your appreciation to the staff, label the different boxes of Dunkin' donuts you bring in for all three shifts, or else by the time evening shift shows up there will not be a crumb left.

If, after drinking go-lytely, your patient declines to use the bedpan (??? :uhoh21: ???) and then procedes to literally launch feces through the air and off the bed and THEN starts to shake uncontrollably, so not assume that he is in trouble... he may just be laughing.

apaisRN, RN, CRNA · Jan 14, 2005

I LOVE this thread! I'm still giggling about the mad cow disease and having to cut off the kid's head to diagnose it.

I don't know how you folks get all these great stories - I've been a nurse in med/surg and medical ICU for three years now and I don't have anything more interesting than a developmentally delayed man who put a pen up his butt. Subsequent xrays showed his grandmother's bracelet in his bladder. OWWW!

Are most of these stories from the ER?

FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I · Jan 14, 2005

When your evening tech/aide comments about the number of gloves missing from the box in your hospital room, you might want to tell her what you did with them rather than wait until night shift comes on and attempts to change you... only to find 10-20 gloves poking out of your orifice.

Hmmmmm, wonder what sensation the patient was looking for????Love it.

anniesong · Jan 14, 2005

Hmmmmm, wonder what sensation the patient was looking for????Love it.

Well, perhaps some people take their universal precautions a little too seriously? :rolleyes:

hypnotic_nurse · Jan 14, 2005

Never to escape from a locked inpatient psych unit, run to the all night bus station, accost a number of tough young men of a different race and tell them things which can only be described as grossly sacreligious...end result was NOT pretty.

xmaxiex · Jan 16, 2005

Never laugh heartily at this thread and think you are safe cuz you work in LTC . The gods of fairness will see to it your very next day at work will be spent sifting through fecal matter to recover a pts partial plate at the request of the pts family ! Who all of us know who work in LTC , we can never say no to a pts family !!!!!!!!

And again I ask myself why did I not just stay at my secretarial job?

buggnat · Jan 16, 2005

sorry if this might be repetitive. I didn't read all 300 responses before replying but anyway...

Never play a drinking game(the one where your friend tosses the bottle cap in your drink and then you have to drink your drink.) .....don't forget to take the bottle cap out before you swallow it hole and it gets stuck in your esophagus!!

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jan 16, 2005

if your husband, the patient is stuporous, do not wait until the nurse leaves the room and then try to feed him a turkey sandwich. if he's not awake enough to answer you when you ask him how your hair looks today, he's probably not going to do well with chewing and swallowing, either.

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do not, under any circumstance, sit on the toilet for four days and four nights. especially not if your reason for sitting there is to look for god.

if you live with a close relative who is sitting on the toilet for four days and four nights, looking for god, do not bring him vodka and valium on a regular basis. do not crush up the valium, mix it in the vodka and squirt it into his mouth with your turkey baster.

while said close relative is sitting on the toilet in his search for god, do not use the bathtub as an alternative toilet. the feces or the toilet paper will plug the drain, the tub will overflow when you take a nice, long shower and the downstairs neighbor may call someone to investigate.

when close relative is admitted to the hospital for a butt debridement and sepsis, please do not bring all your friends to the icu so you can so them all his perfectly toilet-shaped a$$ decub -- especially after the nursing staff has just packed the decub with five or six rolls of saline-soaked kerlix for a wet-dry dressing.

yes, you can die from a "sore a$$"!

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do not sneak your yappy little dog into the icu to see "mama", then drop her on mama's roommate's bed for safekeeping while you and mama engage in some heavy petting. yes, she's a lovely dog but mama's roommate doesn't like dogs and didn't appreciate fluffy urinating on her!

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if you encounter a patient in a posey vest strapped to a geriatric chair trying to pry open the door to the stairwell, do not helpfully open the door and hold it for him.

if you are stupid enough to do the above, do not walk to the nurse's station and ask to speak to the charge nurse and then blushingly admit "i may have made a little mistake."

and if you are so foolish as to do both of the above, do not then admit that you are a harvard medical student.

if your patient is in a body cast and strapped to a geri chair, do not tie him to a sink to avoid a repitition of the above. the flood excites the other patients and annoys both the housekeeping staff and the plumber.

if you encounter a patient in a body cast strapped to a geri chair dragging a sink down the hall, your first response probably ought not to be to tie him to the handrail along the hallway, especially if that handrail isn't attached to anything any more permanent than drywall.

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a foley catheter is not a funnel.

or a popsicle.

or an exciting "male enhancement."

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don't read this thread while drinking a coke unless you have plastic over your keyboard. (fortunately, i do!)

ruby

hypnotic_nurse · Jan 17, 2005

oh, Ruby, I just laughed SOOOO hard!