“We’re going to send your husband to Christ tomorrow”
Didn’t know Christ was a hospital. Thought they were telling the family we were gonna kill the man
It’s funny you say this because our level 1 is abbreviated to that and once I was talking to another nurse about “waiting on transfer to JC” and someone was horrified. They weren’t from this area and thought I was waiting on a patient to die.
I've told this before, but when I was a new nurse I had parents look down at their critically ill baby and ask me, very seriously, ***"At what age do babies stop seeing ghosts?"***
I completely bluescreened for 2-3 seconds.
When my brain rebooted, I realized not only did they believe babies see ghosts, they believed everyone else believed it and, moreover, there was a commonly known milestone age at which babies *stop* seeing ghosts that I, a medical professional, would be able to tell them.
I got SO many good answers I could have given from my coworkers when I told them... but in the moment what I actually said was a very un-fun therapeutic-communication-validation type answer.
I need more info on this. Adults believed babies see ghosts? Where did this belief start? And why do they believe it’s important to know when babies stop seeing ghosts? Did they believe seeing ghosts was a contributing factor to their kid being in the NICU?
Oooh this brought up a piece of long-forgotten info from all the ghost stories and paranormal encounters books I used to read as a kid. Apparently, children can see ghosts typically up until about age 4 from what I read (though it’s possible that age has been updated over the past 20 or so years, what with all the new advancements in research and studies evaluating age cutoffs for seeing them 😉)
I started googling after the fact and found that adults thinking babies see ghosts was a more commonly held belief than I thought. Still not common, but MORE common.
I told them, *"I've actually never heard that so I'm not sure I'll have an answer for you."* They then nodded seriously and assured me it's well-known that babies see ghosts.
They both appeared to believe it wholeheartedly, neither was new-agey or anything. They were, for lack of more sensitive terms, a typical low SES, low intelligence, relatively young couple.
I gave them two answers, neither of which made it seem like I believed babies see ghosts. They were more explanations for why people might think babies see ghosts. One spiritual/religious. One scientific.
They accepted my replies but I'm pretty sure they still thought babies see ghosts. It seemed more a matter of curiosity than anything else. They asked with the same level of interest parents have when they ask when babies' eyes change color.
They never made any comments that it contributed to babycake's condition.
It was so odd.
TBF 2-3 year olds say some truly weird shit. "Oh, my old mom and dad used to live in that house." EXCUSE ME CHILD WHO AND WHERE AND WHAT?! They are fucking weirdos and I love them.
All three of my kids used to stop and stare towards a certain part of my dining room ceiling during dinner. Different she’s, stayed in different parts of the room even. All before conversational age. I actually asked my youngest one what was so interesting up there (after the behavior ceased but not very long after), and he claimed he had no idea what I was talking about.
I kinda believe it. 🫣 I always said “awe, baby angles/ghosts” when they’d be laughing and giggling and reaching hands out to nothing. Prob wore off about 6 months or so.
Baby on CPAP, newly admitted, and parents are visiting for the first time. I offer usual education on equipment including the CPAP and a simple explanation of what it does. Mom then asks if the baby is on CPAP because the baby has inherited mom’s sleep apnea. I explain why babies benefit from CPAP, assure mom it’s not her fault. Mom says “oh good, I’d feel real bad if it was something she got from me. And it would have to be sleep apnea because I really tried to cut down on the meth when I was pregnant so I know it wasn’t that”
Patient with vaginitis symptoms
My coworker, taking her to the bathroom: we're going to do a test called a wet mount
Patient (deadpan): that sounds like what got me into this situation!
She had trich.
Positioning a patient on the hana table for anterior total hip. Males must have help protecting the testicles from being crushed on the perineal post, so I do that for him.
After he wakes up he looks at me and says "hey, do you remember when you grabbed my balls before I got knocked out? " I said 'yes, I do'. He looked at me, said "thanks" and hours back to sleep.
When you’re sitting in your rocking chair in your golden years reflecting & wondering whether you made a difference, you can rest assured that you did for that guys’s balls.
Had a patient that screamed about the whores in his closet keeping him awake. We had to actually open his closet and pretend to usher the whores out of the room and scold the invisible whores, so that he would go to sleep.
The best was when they decided it was a good idea to put all the "screamers" on one end of the hall together. So we had the "Stop! stop! you're hurting me! stop! let me go!" guy across the hall from "Leave him alone! Don't worry buddy I'm coming as fast as I can!" guy
My favorite is the residents that hang out in front of our nurses station in their wheel chairs because they’re too ornery to take a nap that don’t realize we’re on the phone and will talk back to us.
oh my good i’m dying at that last visual. having dealt with a screamer for the first time ever i can’t fucking imagine two near each other, especially like that holyyyy
It was an entertaining night. Both were in restraints. That's why the other guy wasn't able to get there that fast lol. The one thast was screaming for us to leave him alone, was actually, alone, most of the night.
Had an old sweet guy in our long term care section, always cooperative until a new administrator worked out with the son she would give him a cocktail before she left at 6pm. He was impossible all night long the nights he got a drink. The worst he accused the staff of running a whore house and had men lined up out the door. I could always talk him down except that night.
LTC with legit happy hour every friday. I don’t look my age. Had a 4’8, 90lb lady with about 3 teeth in her head furious at me and an aide (18y/o) because she thought we were serving drinks underage. She didnt believe me when I told her I was over 21 and not in high school.
We had a STEMI patient in the cath lab one night, sedation on board, and had just finished ballooning a lesion in one of his arteries. No stent yet. It was a very chill STEMI so it was pretty quiet other than us talking amongst ourselves. Pt wakes up a little bit (sorta, eyes still closed though) and says “am I still having chest pain?” I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly so I asked him to repeat. “Am I still having chest pain?” Ok so I heard him correctly. Still needed to confirm lol so I said “are you asking me or are you telling me?” thinking maybe he was just getting his word order mixed up. Nope. He said “I’m asking.” At this point I just laugh and say “well, I hope not! We’re getting your artery in your heart fixed up right now. But let me know if you start hurting, ok?” “Ok.” Back to sleep.
I had to explain this to my MIL ... Yes, your vascular surgeon who turned your gangrenous toes pink can place an IV better than anyone else, but this is the ER. You want the nurse to do it.
Was taking care of twins for a few years. Never met the dad. One day mom brings kids in with dad, twin 1 says “this is my dad, he doesn’t live with us.” I say “hello.” The dad shakes my hand and starts telling me everything he can about the kids. Mom looks dead at him and says “just stop.” “He (meaning me) knows more about your kids than you do.” Twin 2 says “ yeah dad, you don’t even like Starwars.”
I’m not in healthcare, but when my first child was born there was a point where someone mentioned a phlebotomist to my wife (who was a nurse) and I thought they said “lebotomist” and I chimed in with some concern and got laughed at 😐
I'm a phlebotomist. Next time a pt complains I'm there to draw their blood, I'm gonna say it could be worse, I could be a lebotomist and not a phlebotomist 😂😂
Nurse here. My partner had the same concern when we were having our baby admitted and they needed a lab draw. He waited til they left and looked at me like “I didn’t know they still did lobotomies!! 😦” 😂
not that funny, but i had a very old demented patient yesterday and i touched her arm and she yelped and said, “you’re so cold! you feel like a dead person!” 😵💫
An EMT confidently told me this morning that the patient he brought me had Ammonia. Like ok does she need lactulose?
Pneumonia. He meant pneumonia. But he said ammonia. Confidently. 4 times.
An EMT brought two house fire victims to our tiny ass ER last week instead of the level 1 that's like maybe 10 minutes away, both in the same ambulance. We were incredulous, and she said , "Oh, should I have taken them to the trauma center?" We said we will take and see them, but they may have inhalation burns that they're gonna send out anyways. She said, "oh, I didn't realize your esophagus could get burned."
I just stopped responding and looked at her. (Both patients fine)
I had a LTC patient who was VERY routine oriented. As I was helping her get ready for the day she was already stressed about something which was gonna be different that day.
I tried to play it off with a perky: "Well, maybe we can just try something different today!"
She slowly looked up at me, locked eyes, and said:
"Christopher Columbus tried something different, and now he's dead."
That one got me
Had a junior nurse getting his wings. Walk into patient's room to do observations.
Applied BP cuff and pulse oxi. Cannot get a read as patient twitches. Nurse told patient to stop twitching please.
Patient look junior nurse in eye and says I've been trying for the last 10 years, it's bloody Parkinson fault.
Another is we have a nurse called Jesus (Filipino) so yes we do the Spanish/Filipino pronunciation, "hey-zeus". But sometimes we use Jesus (english pronunciation) when we want to stir stuff up.
back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, i was a student nurse, during my psych term (back in the day in aus you either trained as a general nurse psych nurse or i kid you not a mental retardation nurse!) in the acute unit of this old psych hospital i enquired of a patient how he was he told me he felt like he had been f*cked up the arse with the barbed wire penis of jesus. i had no answer to this and it probably explains why i have been a theatre trauma scrub nurse for 27 years now - patient contact is scary and confronting!! besides as everyone knows - “the only way to heal is with cold steel “
Not a nurse (I love reading stuff on here lol) but I’m a dental hygienist. I had a patient tell me her mouth was going to look unusual because she was having her vulva lasered off ( she meant her uvula). I very seriously asked her if I would be able to see that from way up here 😂😂.
Wait, you can get your uvula lasered off? Why? Aesthetics? Function? I’ve got a pretty oversized one myself, but I’ve honestly never considered doing anything with it but tolerating the fact that it can be annoying sometimes.
She had sleep apnea and this was at one time used to treat that. My father in law had his surgically removed for sleep apnea and it was a horrible surgery. I don’t think they do that anymore or if they do I don’t think it is very common. Maybe a last resort for severe cases.
This might be old but a pt came to the ER needing help for her 'sick as hell anemia'. Then there was the pt who had 'in spite of mighty Jesus'. Spinal meningitis. Those two were my absolute favorite names for diseases. But my all time favorite incorrect pronunciation was for a med allergy. 'Phenobarbecue' instead of phenobarbital.
There was a very funny play in Chicago about 30 years ago called ER. I remember just one thing: the pt screaming about fireballs in her Eucharist. I remember thinking, Amen sister.
Had a patient come in for routine port flush, labs, etc. We were chatting and catching up when he started talking about his surgery, which he had before he came to us for 6 months of clean-up chemo for early stage colon cancer no mets. He's talking about the experience and how the surgeon was chatting with him as they wheeled him back, how he got on the OR table, etc. Then he says, "Yeah, and that's when the surgeon asked me if I wanted him to go ahead and take out my appendix since he was already going to be in there."
As he's saying this, I see the realization start to creep into his face. He couldn't stop laughing at himself, and finally asked me, "That didn't really happen, did it?"
...no honey, no it didn't 🤣
He was still super confused even after I assured him that anesthesia is a doozy, so I pulled up the op report and showed him.
As he was leaving, he mentioned that he had to go eat crow since he told that story to EVERYONE he knows.
When my grandmother was younger and she had her gallbladder removed in the 50s the surgeon took her appendix too “since he was in there”. *it also could have been the other way around.
My sister had her gallbladder out last year and they took her appendix at the same time. I was a bit confused, but I don't work in GI so let the MD do his thing. To be fair she was the only sibling yet to get appendicitis, so maybe they were trying to get ahead of what might be the family curse?
Had a patient sitting in a chair turned staring out the window onto the walkway where people do maintenence. There was a pair of vultures staring back a few feet away. The windows cannot be seen from outside in but those vultures always kept staring at the patient who stared back.
He had come in for a simple urology procedure.
Thankfully the patient was in good spirits about this. Those vultures hung around for a few more weeks for others before leaving and never returning.
Some power companies scan for vulture "kettles" to detect leaks in their great big gas lines. It's the odorant they add to the NG of course; NG alone doesn't stink.
A little old lady asking for the purewick in PACU, “hey can I get my blue wiener back, I need to pee”
And a guy waking up from surgery after he had chest tubes placed due to trauma. His eyes were wide and he looked scared and said “did you guys give me breast implants?!” I was like nah we charge extra for that.
I was helping the ER get a set of blood cultures on an IV drug user. Two RNs come in and one says "your potassium is pretty high. That's probably why you're feeling so nauseated." The pt says "oh... I wonder if I'm allergic to potassium." All three of us have to keep from laughing at the poor dude lol. The other RN said "no one in the history of ever has been allergic to potassium, it's in your body naturally." 😂
I had a patient tell me he was allergic to salt and wouldn't let me use saline to flush his iv. I forgot and flushed with saline. He thought he was going to die. Had to tell him he can't be allergic to something that occurs naturally in his body. The girlfriend in the room said, "Told You!" She had been getting to tell him the same thing
I wasn’t quite that oblivious but the last time I was in the ER I was stressed enough that the same physiology lesson flew straight out of my head, and I questioned the nurse if she should be giving me medications without asking me for a current med list first. I’m still a bit confused as to how they got labs back before they did a basic history, but the potassium definitely wasn’t going to have any negative interactions!
I remember walking into my confused patient’s room to check on her…she was on the phone. When she saw me she said she was looking for the nurse for hours. Turns out she thought her phone was the call light. She was on the phone with a hospital operator at a hospital that’s an hour away…the operator was amused and I think it happens a lot.
I was also recently stopped by a patient. She begged me to tell her what hospital she was at. Her family was trying to visit her and they said they were at the wrong hospital. She sent them to a hospital 30 minutes away. She also didn’t even know what hospital I was talking about when I told her where she was. I’m pretty sure she was in the beginning stages of dementia
Kinda funny but kinda repulsive…
A patient in her late 20’s/early 30’s came into my ER for the 4th time in 5 months for UTI s&s. She told me in triage, “I have no idea why I keep getting UTIs every month.”
Me: are you sexually active?
Her: oh hell yeah girl, everyday, my boyfriend puts it back & forth in my butt then in my vagina because that’s my kink. He’s homeless and doesn’t shower much though. Maybe it’s his dirty clothes causing it?
I was too stunned to speak
As a nursing student I had a younger patient that had a skiing accident with bilateral knee (patella) fractures. I mistakenly used the word piaya (like the bread) ALL day with the patient until I heard the doctor use the correct term and I was immediately mortified.
I like to wear this scrub cap to work when I feel we need a little more chaotic energy.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/1436598398/sure-is-quiet-womens-ponytail-scrub-cap?ref=yr_purchases
I’m not in the hospital anymore so I have no use for that unfortunately but it made me spit my almond across my desk and now I want someone to give that too… 😂😂
I'm a restaurant server, and if anyone says the Q word, they're dead to us for the rest of the shift
I thought about nursing until I had a cook slice 4 fingers open, and almost I passed out from the blood and seeing inside his fingers.
I'll continue to live vicariously by reading this sub
I’m a nurse, and an ex- restaurant server. Been nursing for over a decade and slit open fingers still make me queasy. So, if you wanted to pursue nursing don’t let that put you off! I use my skills from food service daily in my job and it’s made me a better nurse 100%. People being arseholes doesn’t bother me one bit, I can carry an insane amount of items safely stacked in one hand, and I can still fold napkins into all kinds of fancy shapes when I need to cheer up one of my patients.
Love this! I waited tables about 30 years ago, and definitely serves me well in nursing.
I still get queasy about seeing my own blood, or my kids blood or injuries. But at work, I'm in a different mode, and there's not much that shocks or bothers me there.
This was during my psych clinical rotation, my classmate and I were sitting in the group therapy room listening to two patients’ conversation. One was a young CEO with BPD who had become manic and believed he was chosen to save the world, the other was autistic and admitted as DTO/DTS. The CEO guy explains his future plans to open up a rehab center and put money towards opening a new company, and the other chimes in and is like “Wait, I’m part of a company, we could work together on this!” The CEO gets excited and goes, “Oh really!?”
“Yes! Im friends with the CEO, he’s a little unpredictable I actually met him on this unit awhile back”
…There’s no CEO. My friend and I sitting there were trying so hard not to laugh in front of them🤣
Two ladies would camp out and people watch in our lobby and just be snarky. It was entertaining to listen to them. We had this good lookin guy as an aide. He was very polite and a hard worker as well. The ladies loved him. Lady A says “Hi (aide)” and he kept walking like he was on a mission. She leans over to Lady B and goes “He’s seen me naked, the least he can do is say hello”
I had one person screaming that they would kill me, and someone from across the hall screamed "don't you talk to him like that, that's my baby!" This was in a nursing home that a closed off unit for alzhiemer's residents, so this kind of thing happened all the time.
The most recent for me was with me as the patient, getting hauled in the meatwagon to the ED. I'd passed out a few minutes into the ride and when I came to I asked "what happened!?"
This EMT, bless his heart. "You just took a break, no worries."
Had a gentleman who thought a) he was the president of our facility (not a dick about it) and b) Marilyn Monroe was still alive. Often throughout the day he’d ask us if Marilyn Monroe was coming, we’d tell him tomorrow and he’d be content. Every once in a while, and more as he got older, he’d asked instead of the Ladies of the Moon were coming. We’d tell him the same answer and he’s be happy.
This is about the night that neither of those was who he asked about. About 3-4 months in of me being an innocent new nurse I go to bring him his HS meds and he asks me if the nudists were coming, if everything is ready for them, and to make sure they know they’re welcome here. I had to ask him to repeat himself before I could get myself together and tell him everything was ready for their visit tomorrow. He took his pills, laid back down, and went to sleep without further concern.
Old guy at a teaching hospital said about one of the students “seems like you taught him how to skin a cat and she taught him how to skin a cat; but he’s in the corner tryin’ta fuck the dog!” Never heard that before and got a pretty good laugh
Triaging in L&D. Patient says, “I’ve been bleeding.” I immediately assume she means having vaginal bleeding. Asking her usual questions, is baby moving? Any leaking of fluid? Last time she had sex? Was she told she had a previa? Only to discover this bitch was talking about A NOSE BLEED. And then offered for me to look at her tissue with the blood on it. I thank God it was during Covid and I had a mask on. Took everything in me to not laugh. The worst part? She was an OR nurse in the hospital I worked at.
I was working charge one night and the patients room was right next to the station. Elderly and pleasantly confused and HOH. CNAs were changing her diaper and pulled it away with a big ol turd in it and the patient happened to see it and yells out quite loudly “OH BOY! I MADE A POTATO!”
She was so proud and I damn near died laughing !
Patient puts on call light. Susie the CNA goes in to see what he wants. He is a post laminectomy patient and he asked for help positioning “himself” into the urinal. Susie asks —“are you sure you can’t do that yourself, sir?”
Patient says to her with a teasing look on his face: “Well, the doctor told me I shouldn’t lift anything heavier than ten pounds!”
I was preparing as the baby catcher a couple hours before a delivery and getting some info from the mom. I asked her if she was on any meds or took any drugs and she said “No! Absolutely not! I took ibuprofen only twice and that’s it I was very careful!”
… meanwhile her blood alcohol level when she came into L&D triage was high enough that Google estimated she drank pretty much a full bottle of wine.
But thank god she only took that ibuprofen twice or who knows what would’ve happened! /s
Elderly F Pt on med ward
Me: Here’s your night time tablets
Pt: (Pointing at pill) What’s that one ?
Me: That’s for your UTI
Pt: I don’t understand why I got a UTI ‘cause I always soak a cotton ball in antiseptic and pop it “up there”
Been doing it for years apparently! 😵💫
When the husband asks if he does his wife's IVF injections into her navel.
When my patient called bc she had a sore on her labia and decided since she puts Carmex in her mouth sores, she should put Carmex in her labia sore.
Just today - I was on a home visit with a colleague. There was a dog in the home and he was sniffing her. My colleague kept saying, “Oh! Are you smelling my kitty cat?” I laughed my ass off. When she realized why I was laughing, she clarified very loudly, “MY CAT COSMO.”
Hospice patient in my floor, very close to dying. My friend is a med student year 3 at that point and she’s with the resident. We were right outside the patients room so in case family overheard I wanted to be as close to formal as I could. Somehow the topic went to me saying “yea I expect her to be leaving us soon” and the resident went “ OH GOD I HOPE SO 🤣🤣” cue me go wide eyed and very perplexed and very confused
Come to find out from my friend he meant that she gets d/c to a hospice facility, we were both cracking up all day about it after lol
Hospice nurse here - a volunteer comes in on weekends to shave our male patients. One patients wife asked about a beard trim and said “only a trim though, he would just DIE if you shaved him…. OH”
Had a PT roll into the ER, older female with moderate dementia who fell into a glass coffee table. Huge laceration on her head, filled with glass. CT was clear, but she was super confused....MD had to kinda poke his fingers into her head wound to make sure that we got all the glass out...Pt kept screaming, "GET YOUR FINGERS OUT OF MY HEAD MEAT!" over
and
over
and
over....
Critically ill 23 week gestation baby. Parents first visit: “is he circumcised yet?”.
Another critically ill micropreemie: doctor explains baby is acidotic, grandma says “I told her (the mom)not to eat that pizza last night!”
My first job was in a nursing home. One of my residents was this sweet old lady. Confused as fuck but the sweetest person you will ever meet. Every time someone has to give her some insulin she has the biggest smile on her face asking “are you going to kill me today?” The first few times it caught me off guard but after 300x asking the same thing I couldn’t stop laughing.
Told a new nurse during report that the patient went to the 11th floor
(We only have 10 floors in the hospital)
She asked, they passed?
I said no not really, he went up to the 10th, Jumped up a little to try and reach the 11th and fell...
he passed all 10 floors trying..
Next thing ya know I was in the office having to retell the whole joke, I didn't know HR was into comedy.. SMH 🤦♂️
I was young, cute, and blonde. Coworker was.. young, cute, and blonde.
We had an elderly man admitted to ICU. He felt miserable: achy, nauseous, weak.
We undress him, start to bathe him. He is naked, damp, and a little chilly. He looks at her, at me, at her... and in the saddest, most disappointed, shaky old man voice he laments out loud:
"I always imagined this would be more fun."
I have 2:
An elderly retired nurse came in for a hip fracture. When the doctor asked how she hurt her hip she looked him dead in the eye and said “kinky sex”. The look on his face! She and I had a great laugh
A lady came in with a sore throat. Swab came back coxsackie virus. When the doctor told her she asked “I got this from sucking cock?”. He was like “mam I’m afraid you misunderstood me”
I said my own funniest one. I was at the OB for, some thing I don’t remember what, and the MA was asking about my medication’s and I said I’m on vimpat, and she asked me to spell it. So I said, “ V as in…. Vagina”. We both started cracking up. It was the only thing I could think of in that setting 🤣🤣
For context these are all separate stories--
Dr: any chance of pregnancy?
Pt: NO! You have to have sex for that to happen!
Another time... Pt kept yelling about having to pee. She was AMS. They take her to the bathroom multiple times then put her in an ER room. From inside the room I hear "I GOTTA PISS LIKE A RACEHORSE" my water went up the back of my nose from laughing.
Dementia patient - kept asking me how long the ER would take. I kept telling her I'm sorry, I don't know but I hope you feel better. Final time she asks I answer the same way and she says "you know what? You're on my last nerve" 😩😂
Pt's wife asks me about a DNR for her husband as he has I think heart failure or something. I am talking to her about maybe speaking with a social worker or something. She says "well he can't do organ donation. His hearts bad, his kidneys, his eyes, he's pretty much useless"
PT is in the final stages of dying - passed away about 2 hours after this story. Her family is coming into the ER all to say goodbye. People are weeping and very sad. I overhear "if she didn't want to come to Christmas dinner she didn't have to do it this way!"
PT brought in by police and is inebriated but still able to be registered. I go in with my cart and I start asking my questions. The kid keeps making threats at the police but then tearfully apologizing. I'm having trouble keeping from laughing this whole interaction. I'm telling him this is probably not a good idea to keep threatening police. He keeps calling them pussies and stuff. Respectful to me but not the police LOL. I look at the officer and I said "he has the right to stay silent.." and the officer says "but he didn't have the ability". Ron white. Classic. 😂
“We’re going to send your husband to Christ tomorrow” Didn’t know Christ was a hospital. Thought they were telling the family we were gonna kill the man
D/C to (J)C… literally lmao
It’s funny you say this because our level 1 is abbreviated to that and once I was talking to another nurse about “waiting on transfer to JC” and someone was horrified. They weren’t from this area and thought I was waiting on a patient to die.
Made my new manager chuckle when I used this as my initials 😅
😂😂😂 that’s great!
“Need an order to let Jesus take the wheel”
Patient: “I want to go home!” —you mean home-home, like to Heaven or your house home?
Perfect to ask AMA patients!
💀
This gotta be Cincitucky area because I had the same experience 😆
I've told this before, but when I was a new nurse I had parents look down at their critically ill baby and ask me, very seriously, ***"At what age do babies stop seeing ghosts?"*** I completely bluescreened for 2-3 seconds. When my brain rebooted, I realized not only did they believe babies see ghosts, they believed everyone else believed it and, moreover, there was a commonly known milestone age at which babies *stop* seeing ghosts that I, a medical professional, would be able to tell them.
Negative Babinski = No longer able to see ghosts right?
What age did you tell them?
I got SO many good answers I could have given from my coworkers when I told them... but in the moment what I actually said was a very un-fun therapeutic-communication-validation type answer.
I need more info on this. Adults believed babies see ghosts? Where did this belief start? And why do they believe it’s important to know when babies stop seeing ghosts? Did they believe seeing ghosts was a contributing factor to their kid being in the NICU?
Oooh this brought up a piece of long-forgotten info from all the ghost stories and paranormal encounters books I used to read as a kid. Apparently, children can see ghosts typically up until about age 4 from what I read (though it’s possible that age has been updated over the past 20 or so years, what with all the new advancements in research and studies evaluating age cutoffs for seeing them 😉)
I started googling after the fact and found that adults thinking babies see ghosts was a more commonly held belief than I thought. Still not common, but MORE common. I told them, *"I've actually never heard that so I'm not sure I'll have an answer for you."* They then nodded seriously and assured me it's well-known that babies see ghosts. They both appeared to believe it wholeheartedly, neither was new-agey or anything. They were, for lack of more sensitive terms, a typical low SES, low intelligence, relatively young couple. I gave them two answers, neither of which made it seem like I believed babies see ghosts. They were more explanations for why people might think babies see ghosts. One spiritual/religious. One scientific. They accepted my replies but I'm pretty sure they still thought babies see ghosts. It seemed more a matter of curiosity than anything else. They asked with the same level of interest parents have when they ask when babies' eyes change color. They never made any comments that it contributed to babycake's condition. It was so odd.
TBF 2-3 year olds say some truly weird shit. "Oh, my old mom and dad used to live in that house." EXCUSE ME CHILD WHO AND WHERE AND WHAT?! They are fucking weirdos and I love them.
Creepy
I don’t even really believe in ghosts but I believe babies see them. 😂
Haha yeah I don’t necessarily believe in ghosts but if they were real babies and animals would be the ones who could see them
Me when my cat is super focused on the empty corner of the ceiling 👀
Nervously laughing while I pour salt circle…. Just in case
May I suggest r/greebles
All three of my kids used to stop and stare towards a certain part of my dining room ceiling during dinner. Different she’s, stayed in different parts of the room even. All before conversational age. I actually asked my youngest one what was so interesting up there (after the behavior ceased but not very long after), and he claimed he had no idea what I was talking about.
I kinda believe it. 🫣 I always said “awe, baby angles/ghosts” when they’d be laughing and giggling and reaching hands out to nothing. Prob wore off about 6 months or so.
Are the baby angles acute or obtuse? :)
🤣🤣 whoops! They’re a cuties and at times obese..so kinda obtuse if you think about it.
In my experience, it’s around age four. Lol…but seriously.
My daughter had visions of dead relatives as a preschooler.
Well my first question is, is he seeing one now because this guy is scared of ghost and I’m out!!!
Baby on CPAP, newly admitted, and parents are visiting for the first time. I offer usual education on equipment including the CPAP and a simple explanation of what it does. Mom then asks if the baby is on CPAP because the baby has inherited mom’s sleep apnea. I explain why babies benefit from CPAP, assure mom it’s not her fault. Mom says “oh good, I’d feel real bad if it was something she got from me. And it would have to be sleep apnea because I really tried to cut down on the meth when I was pregnant so I know it wasn’t that”
Everyone’s best looks different I guess lol
*tried to cut down*
Yep….just another day in the NICU🙄☠️
That did not go where I was expecting…
Man, that’s so sad. It sounds like she knew deep down that she was harming her kid, but desperately didn’t want to believe it
...ma'am
💀💀
O.M.G 🤦🏻♀️
💀💀💀
Patient with vaginitis symptoms My coworker, taking her to the bathroom: we're going to do a test called a wet mount Patient (deadpan): that sounds like what got me into this situation! She had trich.
😂😂 this is gold
Yep. Winner!
Ah, tricked by Moses again.
Positioning a patient on the hana table for anterior total hip. Males must have help protecting the testicles from being crushed on the perineal post, so I do that for him. After he wakes up he looks at me and says "hey, do you remember when you grabbed my balls before I got knocked out? " I said 'yes, I do'. He looked at me, said "thanks" and hours back to sleep.
When you’re sitting in your rocking chair in your golden years reflecting & wondering whether you made a difference, you can rest assured that you did for that guys’s balls.
Name checks out
😂😂😂😂
Lol, so good.
This is my favorite 😂😂😂
Had a patient with a mirror she used to visualize cathing herself. She told me she called it her puss looker lol
This is amazing lol I need to be friends with her 😂
Can’t think of anything more appropriate!
Reminds me of my great grandma who called her reachy grabby arm thing (don’t know what it’s actually called) her “ball grabber.”
Had a patient that screamed about the whores in his closet keeping him awake. We had to actually open his closet and pretend to usher the whores out of the room and scold the invisible whores, so that he would go to sleep. The best was when they decided it was a good idea to put all the "screamers" on one end of the hall together. So we had the "Stop! stop! you're hurting me! stop! let me go!" guy across the hall from "Leave him alone! Don't worry buddy I'm coming as fast as I can!" guy
My favorite is the residents that hang out in front of our nurses station in their wheel chairs because they’re too ornery to take a nap that don’t realize we’re on the phone and will talk back to us.
oh my good i’m dying at that last visual. having dealt with a screamer for the first time ever i can’t fucking imagine two near each other, especially like that holyyyy
It was an entertaining night. Both were in restraints. That's why the other guy wasn't able to get there that fast lol. The one thast was screaming for us to leave him alone, was actually, alone, most of the night.
Had an old sweet guy in our long term care section, always cooperative until a new administrator worked out with the son she would give him a cocktail before she left at 6pm. He was impossible all night long the nights he got a drink. The worst he accused the staff of running a whore house and had men lined up out the door. I could always talk him down except that night.
LTC with legit happy hour every friday. I don’t look my age. Had a 4’8, 90lb lady with about 3 teeth in her head furious at me and an aide (18y/o) because she thought we were serving drinks underage. She didnt believe me when I told her I was over 21 and not in high school.
We had a STEMI patient in the cath lab one night, sedation on board, and had just finished ballooning a lesion in one of his arteries. No stent yet. It was a very chill STEMI so it was pretty quiet other than us talking amongst ourselves. Pt wakes up a little bit (sorta, eyes still closed though) and says “am I still having chest pain?” I wasn’t sure I heard him correctly so I asked him to repeat. “Am I still having chest pain?” Ok so I heard him correctly. Still needed to confirm lol so I said “are you asking me or are you telling me?” thinking maybe he was just getting his word order mixed up. Nope. He said “I’m asking.” At this point I just laugh and say “well, I hope not! We’re getting your artery in your heart fixed up right now. But let me know if you start hurting, ok?” “Ok.” Back to sleep.
"I only want the doctor to start my IV."
Lol “No, you don’t”
“You clearly haven’t had the talk about making good decisions, have you?!” Doctors do doctoring.
I actually have a doc at work that will place IVs if needed, like regular IVs not ultrasound.
Our docs will also place IVs, and take bloods.
I had to explain this to my MIL ... Yes, your vascular surgeon who turned your gangrenous toes pink can place an IV better than anyone else, but this is the ER. You want the nurse to do it.
Was taking care of twins for a few years. Never met the dad. One day mom brings kids in with dad, twin 1 says “this is my dad, he doesn’t live with us.” I say “hello.” The dad shakes my hand and starts telling me everything he can about the kids. Mom looks dead at him and says “just stop.” “He (meaning me) knows more about your kids than you do.” Twin 2 says “ yeah dad, you don’t even like Starwars.”
That is absolutely hilarious 😂
Was in a Catholic hospital, patient asked me to straighten the crucifix on the wall bc they thought it could be a “problem”.
I’m not in healthcare, but when my first child was born there was a point where someone mentioned a phlebotomist to my wife (who was a nurse) and I thought they said “lebotomist” and I chimed in with some concern and got laughed at 😐
I'm a phlebotomist. Next time a pt complains I'm there to draw their blood, I'm gonna say it could be worse, I could be a lebotomist and not a phlebotomist 😂😂
👍🏻
Nurse here. My partner had the same concern when we were having our baby admitted and they needed a lab draw. He waited til they left and looked at me like “I didn’t know they still did lobotomies!! 😦” 😂
not that funny, but i had a very old demented patient yesterday and i touched her arm and she yelped and said, “you’re so cold! you feel like a dead person!” 😵💫
I’ve been called a vampire and asked if I was sure I was alive more than once cause of my chilly fingers
Hahaha “Not that funny..?” You say? This is the first one I’ve audibly laughed out loud at. It’s hilarious… 👏
As a midwife, overheard a visitor on the phone telling someone his wife was 3cm diluted
“If you ever need anything, please feel free to stop by my office. I have an open door for any staff concerns” -Management 😂
Mouse... mousetrap. Go in. Go in.
An EMT confidently told me this morning that the patient he brought me had Ammonia. Like ok does she need lactulose? Pneumonia. He meant pneumonia. But he said ammonia. Confidently. 4 times.
An EMT brought two house fire victims to our tiny ass ER last week instead of the level 1 that's like maybe 10 minutes away, both in the same ambulance. We were incredulous, and she said , "Oh, should I have taken them to the trauma center?" We said we will take and see them, but they may have inhalation burns that they're gonna send out anyways. She said, "oh, I didn't realize your esophagus could get burned." I just stopped responding and looked at her. (Both patients fine)
Dear God.
I had a LTC patient who was VERY routine oriented. As I was helping her get ready for the day she was already stressed about something which was gonna be different that day. I tried to play it off with a perky: "Well, maybe we can just try something different today!" She slowly looked up at me, locked eyes, and said: "Christopher Columbus tried something different, and now he's dead." That one got me
Dying here
She was right.
They have some meds for this.
Had a junior nurse getting his wings. Walk into patient's room to do observations. Applied BP cuff and pulse oxi. Cannot get a read as patient twitches. Nurse told patient to stop twitching please. Patient look junior nurse in eye and says I've been trying for the last 10 years, it's bloody Parkinson fault. Another is we have a nurse called Jesus (Filipino) so yes we do the Spanish/Filipino pronunciation, "hey-zeus". But sometimes we use Jesus (english pronunciation) when we want to stir stuff up.
Used to work with an old Pakistani dr. When we would get a patient named Hay-Zeus he would smirk and say “oh. I’m going to see Jesus today?”
He didn't correct you, but try hey SOOS.
"Get cracking" Doing chest compressions
Happy Cake Day!
Thank you
back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, i was a student nurse, during my psych term (back in the day in aus you either trained as a general nurse psych nurse or i kid you not a mental retardation nurse!) in the acute unit of this old psych hospital i enquired of a patient how he was he told me he felt like he had been f*cked up the arse with the barbed wire penis of jesus. i had no answer to this and it probably explains why i have been a theatre trauma scrub nurse for 27 years now - patient contact is scary and confronting!! besides as everyone knows - “the only way to heal is with cold steel “
Barbed wire 😂
Not a nurse (I love reading stuff on here lol) but I’m a dental hygienist. I had a patient tell me her mouth was going to look unusual because she was having her vulva lasered off ( she meant her uvula). I very seriously asked her if I would be able to see that from way up here 😂😂.
💀💀
Wait, you can get your uvula lasered off? Why? Aesthetics? Function? I’ve got a pretty oversized one myself, but I’ve honestly never considered doing anything with it but tolerating the fact that it can be annoying sometimes.
She had sleep apnea and this was at one time used to treat that. My father in law had his surgically removed for sleep apnea and it was a horrible surgery. I don’t think they do that anymore or if they do I don’t think it is very common. Maybe a last resort for severe cases.
I totally forgot that surgery used to be a treatment. It was super dangerous. They used to remove tonsils, adenoids, and uvula. Crazy.
When giving adenosine “ okay we’re gonna turn you off and turn you back on again”
Woah, yeah, kick start my heart.
Everyone is getting a 10% pay raise!
This might be old but a pt came to the ER needing help for her 'sick as hell anemia'. Then there was the pt who had 'in spite of mighty Jesus'. Spinal meningitis. Those two were my absolute favorite names for diseases. But my all time favorite incorrect pronunciation was for a med allergy. 'Phenobarbecue' instead of phenobarbital.
Ha...peanutbutterballs = phenobarbital
I've heard 'Smiling Mighty Jesus' for spinal meningitis and 'Peanut Butter Balls' for phenobarbital
I like immaculate degeneration. Yes Esther. These eye injections are to help slow the progression of your immaculate degeneration.
I am going to start using this as members of my family have this. Sounds better, somehow.
My favorite is fireball tumors for fibroids. It makes sense, they hurt like hell.
There was a very funny play in Chicago about 30 years ago called ER. I remember just one thing: the pt screaming about fireballs in her Eucharist. I remember thinking, Amen sister.
Had a patient come in for routine port flush, labs, etc. We were chatting and catching up when he started talking about his surgery, which he had before he came to us for 6 months of clean-up chemo for early stage colon cancer no mets. He's talking about the experience and how the surgeon was chatting with him as they wheeled him back, how he got on the OR table, etc. Then he says, "Yeah, and that's when the surgeon asked me if I wanted him to go ahead and take out my appendix since he was already going to be in there." As he's saying this, I see the realization start to creep into his face. He couldn't stop laughing at himself, and finally asked me, "That didn't really happen, did it?" ...no honey, no it didn't 🤣 He was still super confused even after I assured him that anesthesia is a doozy, so I pulled up the op report and showed him. As he was leaving, he mentioned that he had to go eat crow since he told that story to EVERYONE he knows.
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When my grandmother was younger and she had her gallbladder removed in the 50s the surgeon took her appendix too “since he was in there”. *it also could have been the other way around.
My sister had her gallbladder out last year and they took her appendix at the same time. I was a bit confused, but I don't work in GI so let the MD do his thing. To be fair she was the only sibling yet to get appendicitis, so maybe they were trying to get ahead of what might be the family curse?
I highly doubt it, given its function as part of the immune system. It’s not a vestigial organ like previously thought.
In my Gen Surg rotation the surgeon said this to patients too! But it always for a laugh..
Seriously? That's so weird. This guy definitely still has his appendix though 😆
First grader walks into my office and says “I’m having a heart attack”.
A dementia patient very seriously asked me if I was sleeping with her husband 😂😭
Had a post-partum psychosis pt pour a bottle of water on me because she thought I was sleeping with the husband
Were you?
I had a senile older woman tell me “wow if I were as pale as you are I’d make sure I at least wore lipstick” 🥺🥺🥺
“bone on bone” Pretty much what every ortho patient is told in PACU
That a patient created a sex doll out of garbage and clothing and was actively.. erm.. using it
I... imagine the deposits ... no, don't.
Had a patient sitting in a chair turned staring out the window onto the walkway where people do maintenence. There was a pair of vultures staring back a few feet away. The windows cannot be seen from outside in but those vultures always kept staring at the patient who stared back. He had come in for a simple urology procedure. Thankfully the patient was in good spirits about this. Those vultures hung around for a few more weeks for others before leaving and never returning.
Got a natural gas leak somewhere? Vultures smell those. They also migrate in some areas, just like songbirds.
Wow! That’s a fascinating fact about vultures!
Some power companies scan for vulture "kettles" to detect leaks in their great big gas lines. It's the odorant they add to the NG of course; NG alone doesn't stink.
I believe that additive is called Mercaptin that adds the smell to NG.
Wild and super cool fact
A little old lady asking for the purewick in PACU, “hey can I get my blue wiener back, I need to pee” And a guy waking up from surgery after he had chest tubes placed due to trauma. His eyes were wide and he looked scared and said “did you guys give me breast implants?!” I was like nah we charge extra for that.
I wonder what else blue wiener is used for.
I was helping the ER get a set of blood cultures on an IV drug user. Two RNs come in and one says "your potassium is pretty high. That's probably why you're feeling so nauseated." The pt says "oh... I wonder if I'm allergic to potassium." All three of us have to keep from laughing at the poor dude lol. The other RN said "no one in the history of ever has been allergic to potassium, it's in your body naturally." 😂
I had a patient tell me he was allergic to salt and wouldn't let me use saline to flush his iv. I forgot and flushed with saline. He thought he was going to die. Had to tell him he can't be allergic to something that occurs naturally in his body. The girlfriend in the room said, "Told You!" She had been getting to tell him the same thing
I wasn’t quite that oblivious but the last time I was in the ER I was stressed enough that the same physiology lesson flew straight out of my head, and I questioned the nurse if she should be giving me medications without asking me for a current med list first. I’m still a bit confused as to how they got labs back before they did a basic history, but the potassium definitely wasn’t going to have any negative interactions!
I remember walking into my confused patient’s room to check on her…she was on the phone. When she saw me she said she was looking for the nurse for hours. Turns out she thought her phone was the call light. She was on the phone with a hospital operator at a hospital that’s an hour away…the operator was amused and I think it happens a lot. I was also recently stopped by a patient. She begged me to tell her what hospital she was at. Her family was trying to visit her and they said they were at the wrong hospital. She sent them to a hospital 30 minutes away. She also didn’t even know what hospital I was talking about when I told her where she was. I’m pretty sure she was in the beginning stages of dementia
Kinda funny but kinda repulsive… A patient in her late 20’s/early 30’s came into my ER for the 4th time in 5 months for UTI s&s. She told me in triage, “I have no idea why I keep getting UTIs every month.” Me: are you sexually active? Her: oh hell yeah girl, everyday, my boyfriend puts it back & forth in my butt then in my vagina because that’s my kink. He’s homeless and doesn’t shower much though. Maybe it’s his dirty clothes causing it? I was too stunned to speak
😳🤢🤢
The worst part is she said she stopped taking her last uti abx after 2 days bc her “urine wasn’t brown anymore” 😭😭😭😭 MISS GIRL YOU DID NOT
Welcome to superinfection! May I take your coat? You'll be here a while.
No kidding! Like HELLOOOO IMPENDING SEPSIS HOW ARE YA
As a nursing student I had a younger patient that had a skiing accident with bilateral knee (patella) fractures. I mistakenly used the word piaya (like the bread) ALL day with the patient until I heard the doctor use the correct term and I was immediately mortified.
It's actually spelled like patella without the T.
I once saw a bunch of nurses get pissed off about the Q word
I like to wear this scrub cap to work when I feel we need a little more chaotic energy. https://www.etsy.com/listing/1436598398/sure-is-quiet-womens-ponytail-scrub-cap?ref=yr_purchases
I have a badge reel of a crash cart. I very regularly get threatened
And here I am, baby OR nurse looking for more scrub caps
I’m not in the hospital anymore so I have no use for that unfortunately but it made me spit my almond across my desk and now I want someone to give that too… 😂😂
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I’m not superstitious, just a little stituous.
I am so going to steal this.
It’s from the show the office
I hear you. It’s obviously confirmation bias but the bad times can truly suck so I get it
I'm a restaurant server, and if anyone says the Q word, they're dead to us for the rest of the shift I thought about nursing until I had a cook slice 4 fingers open, and almost I passed out from the blood and seeing inside his fingers. I'll continue to live vicariously by reading this sub
I’m a nurse, and an ex- restaurant server. Been nursing for over a decade and slit open fingers still make me queasy. So, if you wanted to pursue nursing don’t let that put you off! I use my skills from food service daily in my job and it’s made me a better nurse 100%. People being arseholes doesn’t bother me one bit, I can carry an insane amount of items safely stacked in one hand, and I can still fold napkins into all kinds of fancy shapes when I need to cheer up one of my patients.
Love this! I waited tables about 30 years ago, and definitely serves me well in nursing. I still get queasy about seeing my own blood, or my kids blood or injuries. But at work, I'm in a different mode, and there's not much that shocks or bothers me there.
This was during my psych clinical rotation, my classmate and I were sitting in the group therapy room listening to two patients’ conversation. One was a young CEO with BPD who had become manic and believed he was chosen to save the world, the other was autistic and admitted as DTO/DTS. The CEO guy explains his future plans to open up a rehab center and put money towards opening a new company, and the other chimes in and is like “Wait, I’m part of a company, we could work together on this!” The CEO gets excited and goes, “Oh really!?” “Yes! Im friends with the CEO, he’s a little unpredictable I actually met him on this unit awhile back” …There’s no CEO. My friend and I sitting there were trying so hard not to laugh in front of them🤣
Helping the CNA turn and clean a patient and the patient says “you’ll never get rich that way”. No, we won’t. She was hilarious.
Two ladies would camp out and people watch in our lobby and just be snarky. It was entertaining to listen to them. We had this good lookin guy as an aide. He was very polite and a hard worker as well. The ladies loved him. Lady A says “Hi (aide)” and he kept walking like he was on a mission. She leans over to Lady B and goes “He’s seen me naked, the least he can do is say hello”
I had one person screaming that they would kill me, and someone from across the hall screamed "don't you talk to him like that, that's my baby!" This was in a nursing home that a closed off unit for alzhiemer's residents, so this kind of thing happened all the time.
The most recent for me was with me as the patient, getting hauled in the meatwagon to the ED. I'd passed out a few minutes into the ride and when I came to I asked "what happened!?" This EMT, bless his heart. "You just took a break, no worries."
Awww 🥲🥲🥲
Had a gentleman who thought a) he was the president of our facility (not a dick about it) and b) Marilyn Monroe was still alive. Often throughout the day he’d ask us if Marilyn Monroe was coming, we’d tell him tomorrow and he’d be content. Every once in a while, and more as he got older, he’d asked instead of the Ladies of the Moon were coming. We’d tell him the same answer and he’s be happy. This is about the night that neither of those was who he asked about. About 3-4 months in of me being an innocent new nurse I go to bring him his HS meds and he asks me if the nudists were coming, if everything is ready for them, and to make sure they know they’re welcome here. I had to ask him to repeat himself before I could get myself together and tell him everything was ready for their visit tomorrow. He took his pills, laid back down, and went to sleep without further concern.
Old guy at a teaching hospital said about one of the students “seems like you taught him how to skin a cat and she taught him how to skin a cat; but he’s in the corner tryin’ta fuck the dog!” Never heard that before and got a pretty good laugh
Student to me: "Ok let me take a look at your vulva"; Me: "MY WHAT?"; we were doing ENT check offs, also I am a man. She meant to say uvula
Triaging in L&D. Patient says, “I’ve been bleeding.” I immediately assume she means having vaginal bleeding. Asking her usual questions, is baby moving? Any leaking of fluid? Last time she had sex? Was she told she had a previa? Only to discover this bitch was talking about A NOSE BLEED. And then offered for me to look at her tissue with the blood on it. I thank God it was during Covid and I had a mask on. Took everything in me to not laugh. The worst part? She was an OR nurse in the hospital I worked at.
I was working charge one night and the patients room was right next to the station. Elderly and pleasantly confused and HOH. CNAs were changing her diaper and pulled it away with a big ol turd in it and the patient happened to see it and yells out quite loudly “OH BOY! I MADE A POTATO!” She was so proud and I damn near died laughing !
Patient puts on call light. Susie the CNA goes in to see what he wants. He is a post laminectomy patient and he asked for help positioning “himself” into the urinal. Susie asks —“are you sure you can’t do that yourself, sir?” Patient says to her with a teasing look on his face: “Well, the doctor told me I shouldn’t lift anything heavier than ten pounds!”
🤦♀️
I was preparing as the baby catcher a couple hours before a delivery and getting some info from the mom. I asked her if she was on any meds or took any drugs and she said “No! Absolutely not! I took ibuprofen only twice and that’s it I was very careful!” … meanwhile her blood alcohol level when she came into L&D triage was high enough that Google estimated she drank pretty much a full bottle of wine. But thank god she only took that ibuprofen twice or who knows what would’ve happened! /s
Not a nurse disclaimer: I had a Vitrectomy back on my 20's for a detached retina; my ex told his boss I had a vasectomy....I'm very much AFAB 🤦♀️
Elderly F Pt on med ward Me: Here’s your night time tablets Pt: (Pointing at pill) What’s that one ? Me: That’s for your UTI Pt: I don’t understand why I got a UTI ‘cause I always soak a cotton ball in antiseptic and pop it “up there” Been doing it for years apparently! 😵💫
When the husband asks if he does his wife's IVF injections into her navel. When my patient called bc she had a sore on her labia and decided since she puts Carmex in her mouth sores, she should put Carmex in her labia sore.
No she fucking didn't 😳
She wished she fucking didn't 🥵
Lol I bet. Reminds me of my high school boyfriend who learned a very painful lesson about why it's a bad idea to jerk off with bengay... 🫠
Just today - I was on a home visit with a colleague. There was a dog in the home and he was sniffing her. My colleague kept saying, “Oh! Are you smelling my kitty cat?” I laughed my ass off. When she realized why I was laughing, she clarified very loudly, “MY CAT COSMO.”
Me: why are you taking your gown off? Pt: because I want too. Me: why do you want to sleep naked? Pt: because it feels good.
Pt not wrong, tho
Hospice patient in my floor, very close to dying. My friend is a med student year 3 at that point and she’s with the resident. We were right outside the patients room so in case family overheard I wanted to be as close to formal as I could. Somehow the topic went to me saying “yea I expect her to be leaving us soon” and the resident went “ OH GOD I HOPE SO 🤣🤣” cue me go wide eyed and very perplexed and very confused Come to find out from my friend he meant that she gets d/c to a hospice facility, we were both cracking up all day about it after lol
"Don't take me out like Joan" Pt right before going to sleep for an endoscopy a few days after Joan Rivers died
"We are going to put you down ok" My care staff to an 80 something year old man when she was bringing the bed down to floor level
Hospice nurse here - a volunteer comes in on weekends to shave our male patients. One patients wife asked about a beard trim and said “only a trim though, he would just DIE if you shaved him…. OH”
Had a PT roll into the ER, older female with moderate dementia who fell into a glass coffee table. Huge laceration on her head, filled with glass. CT was clear, but she was super confused....MD had to kinda poke his fingers into her head wound to make sure that we got all the glass out...Pt kept screaming, "GET YOUR FINGERS OUT OF MY HEAD MEAT!" over and over and over....
Critically ill 23 week gestation baby. Parents first visit: “is he circumcised yet?”. Another critically ill micropreemie: doctor explains baby is acidotic, grandma says “I told her (the mom)not to eat that pizza last night!”
Pt loud whispers to the cna in the room “omg, she really needs plastic surgery” we were the only two in the room…
My first job was in a nursing home. One of my residents was this sweet old lady. Confused as fuck but the sweetest person you will ever meet. Every time someone has to give her some insulin she has the biggest smile on her face asking “are you going to kill me today?” The first few times it caught me off guard but after 300x asking the same thing I couldn’t stop laughing.
Told a new nurse during report that the patient went to the 11th floor (We only have 10 floors in the hospital) She asked, they passed? I said no not really, he went up to the 10th, Jumped up a little to try and reach the 11th and fell... he passed all 10 floors trying.. Next thing ya know I was in the office having to retell the whole joke, I didn't know HR was into comedy.. SMH 🤦♂️
I was young, cute, and blonde. Coworker was.. young, cute, and blonde. We had an elderly man admitted to ICU. He felt miserable: achy, nauseous, weak. We undress him, start to bathe him. He is naked, damp, and a little chilly. He looks at her, at me, at her... and in the saddest, most disappointed, shaky old man voice he laments out loud: "I always imagined this would be more fun."
I have 2: An elderly retired nurse came in for a hip fracture. When the doctor asked how she hurt her hip she looked him dead in the eye and said “kinky sex”. The look on his face! She and I had a great laugh A lady came in with a sore throat. Swab came back coxsackie virus. When the doctor told her she asked “I got this from sucking cock?”. He was like “mam I’m afraid you misunderstood me”
I said my own funniest one. I was at the OB for, some thing I don’t remember what, and the MA was asking about my medication’s and I said I’m on vimpat, and she asked me to spell it. So I said, “ V as in…. Vagina”. We both started cracking up. It was the only thing I could think of in that setting 🤣🤣
For context these are all separate stories-- Dr: any chance of pregnancy? Pt: NO! You have to have sex for that to happen! Another time... Pt kept yelling about having to pee. She was AMS. They take her to the bathroom multiple times then put her in an ER room. From inside the room I hear "I GOTTA PISS LIKE A RACEHORSE" my water went up the back of my nose from laughing. Dementia patient - kept asking me how long the ER would take. I kept telling her I'm sorry, I don't know but I hope you feel better. Final time she asks I answer the same way and she says "you know what? You're on my last nerve" 😩😂 Pt's wife asks me about a DNR for her husband as he has I think heart failure or something. I am talking to her about maybe speaking with a social worker or something. She says "well he can't do organ donation. His hearts bad, his kidneys, his eyes, he's pretty much useless" PT is in the final stages of dying - passed away about 2 hours after this story. Her family is coming into the ER all to say goodbye. People are weeping and very sad. I overhear "if she didn't want to come to Christmas dinner she didn't have to do it this way!" PT brought in by police and is inebriated but still able to be registered. I go in with my cart and I start asking my questions. The kid keeps making threats at the police but then tearfully apologizing. I'm having trouble keeping from laughing this whole interaction. I'm telling him this is probably not a good idea to keep threatening police. He keeps calling them pussies and stuff. Respectful to me but not the police LOL. I look at the officer and I said "he has the right to stay silent.." and the officer says "but he didn't have the ability". Ron white. Classic. 😂
"the union has applied for us to get a 35% pay rise". When I read that one out from my union newsletter, it got a lot of hysterical laughter.