whats the worst or funniest item family has snuck in to your pt?

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i have been a nurse a long time & familys can make or break your day.

was wondering what items you have seen family sneak in to pts?

i have had candy for diabetics, shavers with blades for cutters (omg), marijuana for grandpa...even had one man bring heroin in for his buddy........

what about you??:bugeyes:

Specializes in critical care.

I had a patient with VRE and C-diff. A friend came in, pulled up the dirty linen container using the lid as a table, opened his chinese food and started eating before I could stop him...So much for the isolation sign.

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Specializes in Stroke Seizure/LTC/SNF/LTAC.
I had a patient with VRE and C-diff. A friend came in, pulled up the dirty linen container using the lid as a table, opened his chinese food and started eating before I could stop him...So much for the isolation sign.

Ewwww! G-R-O-S-S!:barf02::barf02::hdvwl:

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Specializes in Trauma & Emergency.

1) Pt swigging cough medicine out of the bottle that she had stashed away in her nightstand. When I caught her she proceeded to roll it back up in the paper towel she had it wrapped in. We were trying to figure out why her sugar was spiking into the 300's sometimes..I guess we figured out the cough medicine was not the sugar free kind.

2) Pt family sneaking in Percocet..she was taking double the dose. Order read every 4 hours and she wanted it EXACTLY every four hours. Needless to say after giving her the Percocet at 10 am she would take her own stash of 2 more percocet at 12 then we would give her more at 2 and she would take her own at 4..this process repeated over and over until one of our nurses caught the family member diverting her the drugs. They won't be visiting anymore I suppose.

3) The man on dialysis whose creatinine clearance is 9 ml/min eating salt and vinegar chips.

4) My personal favorite: the woman who just came back from the hospital for aspiration pneumonia and is on a chopped mechanical diet-->her daughter bringing her a nice turkey sandwich because her mother just doesn't like the chopped food.

Oh these all are wonderful memories.

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When I worked on Inpt Psych, I had a 19 year old female who was there for Heroin detox have her father bring her in a box of tampons with cigarettes stuck in between the tampons. Talk about family dynamics and having Dad enable her by bringing in contraband to a locked Psych unit.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
When I was still working inpatient, one of our patients, who had a prosthetic leg, had a friend who snuck him cigarettes:smokin:, matches, and some BIG nails...prior to his admission, he had somehow drilled holes in his prosthetic leg, and he was hiding the smokes, the matches, and the nails in the holes. When we discovered this cache, we did a 'shakedown' on the leg and confiscated the items. At that point he got really mad, took off his leg, and threw it at me...at THAT point, I confiscated his leg because he tried to use it as a weapon:D...He spent the next 2 days scooting around our unit in a wheelchair.

The guy's a genius! The smokes and matches I are a no-brainer, but what I can't figure out....why the nails??

'

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Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
The guy's a genius! The smokes and matches I are a no-brainer, but what I can't figure out....why the nails??

'

Perhaps to make holes in the prosthesis for his cigarettes?
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Specializes in Perioperative, ACU, Hospice.

Had a patient's girlfriend bring him chicken mcnuggets and feed them to him once. The only problem was that HE WAS IN A COMA! I caught her putting them in his mouth and then moving his jaw up and down to "chew" them. The best part? He was supine!

Sometimes I think that I should get a T-shirt that reads, "Please try not to give your nurse a heart attack!"

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Specializes in Psych, med surg.

Well, this doesn't exactly fit, but it was such a dreadful situation, I just have to chime in.

I took a lap appy post-op about 2300. The patient was Loatian, about 30, and didn't speak any English. We didn't have a Loatian translator on staff, and neither did our language line. When the patient got up to the room there were a number of family members with him, including a wife and, I think, a nephew. The nephew spoke perfect English and, with no other options at the time, we were having him translate while we oriented the patient and got him settled for the night.

I went to check on my other patients and returned about a hour later to check on the appy. He was sleeping comfortably, as was the little girl in the room with him. Um, hello, I said to her. Hi, she replied. Um, where's your family? They went home. Really?

They had left this girl, who was 8-10, on her own at the hospital overnight to look after my patient and translate for him, if necessary.

It got worse.

He'd had a foley in surgery, and he couldn't pee. :banghead: So here I am, trying to communicate with the poor man about how I need him to try to urinate (please please please be able to pee). Of course, he can't and I'm going to have to straight cath him. But I am unable to explain all this to him and the ONLY ONE THAT SPEAKS LAOTIAN IS HIS FEMALE, MINOR RELATIVE. I don't know all that much about Laotian culture, but I'm pretty sure that talking about an older, male family member's member and what you're going to have to stick down it is a little taboo.

Frantic calls to the language line and the House Supervisor to produce a translator are futile. After hemming and hawing for about two hours, I finally wake up the little girl, bundle her down to the lounge, and explain the best I can with hand gestures re: what's about to happen. Of course, I can't get the foley in. I grab an old battle axe nurse (please, nobody take offense - I LOVE old battle axes and would be lost without them) and she can't get it either. We try again. Still nothing.

Thankfully, by this point my shift is over and my manager says I can't stay to finish the job - no overtime. I found out later that they got it on the third try with a cuday foley. I don't know what happened to the little girl.

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Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
I grab an old battle axe nurse (please, nobody take offense - I LOVE old battle axes and would be lost without them)
I had an old battle axe nurse once. She told me her name was Mud.
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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.
A big jug of spring water from his property. No one minded until the water was tested and found to be the source of his illness! (I wish I could remember what they were treating him for...)

orificenic poisening?

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

We had one of our CNA's bring her new puppy up in a infant carrier one day. She wanted to show her off. Cutest little pup, but we got caught by the house manager.

We were giving a pt yogurt down the peg for C.diff and the wife saw it in the room, and gave it to him (mind you the pt was trached and pegged). The day RN quickly suctioned it out of his mouth. This pt's wife and daughter tried to play nurse to help us out. The wife said to the RN "he made this funny face when we gave it to him. I don't think he liked it".

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Specializes in Women's health & post-partum.
orificenic poisening?

No, it was something infectious. Not cholera. Typhoid? Something else? I just can't remember:confused:

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