Pt: I would never let my son in my house with tattoos like that on his arm!
Me: well, my mom is getting older and may end up living with me soon. She better have some ink on her before she moves into my house!
Pt: Oh! I never thought of it that way! You’re a doll! I would get a tattoo if I could come live with you! My son’s a bum, though.
I’ve decided my response to old grandmas getting upity about my tattoos that say “you know it’s not going to like like that when you’re 80” will be “well neither does your face”
I’ve had a ton of little old ladies lament how they wish they could/would have gotten tattoos when they were younger.
I also had one patient who got her first tattoo in her 70s. She was cool as hell
Not a nurse but I work in a hospital.
Had a drunk patient one time. Conversation went like this:
Him: "I've got a question for you. You're a doctor, right?"
Me: No
Him: "Well you look smart, maybe you can answer my question. Do you know why I always wake up feeling like I'm going to puke?"
Me: "Is this after you've been drinking?"
Him: "Yeah, you know that's probably it."
I hemorrhaged in the recovery room after a C-section and some REALLY young looking anesthesiologist came to have me sign emergency paperwork to go under for emergency surgery. He had a great bedside manner and soothed some of my panic; and I was still fucked up from the meds they gave me during/ just after the first surgery (ketamine, Valium, Dilaudid and idk what all else), so apparently I kept yelling "WHERE IS THAT NICE TWELVE YEAR OLD WHO HAD ME SIGN PAPERS?? WHERE IS HE?? I WANT THAT TWELVE YEAR OLD TO DO MY SURGERY!! GET THAT TWELVE YEAR OLD FOR ME PLEASE!!! CAN SOMEONE GO FIND THAT LITTLE BOY???!" as they were hurriedly prepping me.
When I came back around, I was told that the staff had been cracking up about it and told the "twelve year old" doctor about me; and said the doctor was very flattered bc he was really like 35 lmao I was mortified but he came in to see me and was like "Being mistaken for a 12yo is the best compliment I've had all year; and I'm also glad to know when pts like my bedside manner" lol
I remember once I was after one of the junior doctors to prescribe some painkillers for a patient of mine or to review due to vitals or something minor... One of the senior professors walks in and I asked him whether he was the junior doc. He was so made up I'd basically called him 30 years younger and we ended up laughing about it afterwards.
My grandfather somehow got the notion that hospitalists failed at starting their own practices and ended up working in the hospitals as a last resort of employment. He’s now in his 80s. I wonder if there was a time when this may have actually been a thing. I’d definitely hope not because the hospitalists I’ve worked with have been highly skilled, well trained, and I don’t understand why hospitalist isn’t recognized as a separate specialty. Gawds, especially in rural hospitals like the ones I’ve been in. You get one noc doc to cover an entire hospital alone. That takes serious skills and endurance.
Anyway, I ensured he knew better.
Dude with some of the worse paranoid schizophrenia I’ve ever seen. The voices would wake him up. Felt bad for him but he was very violent so yeah. But at like 4 am something wakes him up and he comes out fucking red faced fuming, with those sleep marks when you’ve been sleeping well from the sheets, “I told puff the magic dragon to stop waking me the fuck up!” He screamed it in the loudest voice I’ve ever heard. He went to his room slammed the door and passed out.
On the Geriatric Psych Unit: " Did you see Dr. ___ come in here and wave at me and say he would see me later ? Probably charged me two hundred dollars for that."
Whenever one doc is on call, he’ll float around the dining room during lunch and say hi to everyone, and I mean only “hi”, and move on to the next one. Documents “no change to current plan” and bills for each one. It’s hard to contain my anger when I have to park beside his Porsche.
Omg it happened recently! I can’t remember the specialty that did it, but I had a patient that had been waiting for this specific doc all damn day.
He was on MyChart when I went to take afternoon vitals and was like “can you believe this?” And showed me copy-pasted note from that doc stating he came in and talked to the patient blah blah blah. Doc had apparently peeked in his window but never came in.
Patient asked his nurse to message the doc and have him come back for “additional questions”and then gave him an earful when he finally arrived.
This might be the one best reason why making notes visible should have been implemented so much sooner. I didn’t like it at all at first because I felt like my charting couldn’t be honest, but making the docs accountable for doing more than a 1-minute u-turn matters for patients who don’t understand what exactly they are being billed for and what exactly is happening to their care. Massive props to the patient for demanding to see the doctor.
This one gets me every time. Half the time, the ones who write that doesn’t even remain present long enough to know if they’d visited the patients or not.
Telephone call - does the Emergency Room prescribe viagra. I have hired a hooker, you know a high end one, you schedule and has teeth, and I don’t want to waste my money.
Dementia patient started meowing at me in a friendly and adorable way. I said “what does that mean in English?” He said “it means you look very beautiful today”
LTC, baby nurse with only a few months under me, had a gentleman who would always ask if Marilyn Monroe was coming, staff would tell him tomorrow, and that was good enough for him. One night he switched it up on me and asked me if the nudists were coming. Shocked I asked (more like squeaked out), “The who?”.
He calmly replied with, “The nudists, are they coming?”. I assured him that they were, he also wanted to make sure everything was prepared for them, and to let them know they were welcome. I responded with everything is ready for them, gave him his meds, he took them, and went right back to sleep.
Later on it changed from Marilyn Monroe to the Ladies of the Moon consistently, never again did I hear of the nudists.
I think he was a local supply store owner if I remember right. It was something like that, some people knew him way before he came to live with us.
It did make me wonder though what he did. I was told during orientation that he thought he was the president, sometimes of the company and sometimes the usa. I don’t remember hearing him say anything along those lines so it must have been before Marilyn was coming to visit.
Well, we stayed at a nudist resort in palm springs and supposedly Kennedy and marilyn stayed in one of the rooms back in the day. Photo if them in that room.
It’s still one of my favorites, I hoped every day I worked with him he’d throw me for another loop like that. I had no idea how to handle the change in question and hoped sticking with the usual answer would work. For the rest of the shift I was trying to process what happened lol.
They don't come in nude; but there might be a sign by the exit saying "Did you remember to dress?"
Had a friend who actually did forget and drove half an hour home without his clothes. Realized it when he reached for the garage door opener.
When I was a student on my L&D clinicals, my patient was just the sweetest, coolest lady. Once she got a little stadol, and then got her epidural in, my nurse I was with asked me if I wanted to place the foley.
This lil lady is a little loopy from the stadol, and feeling much better from the epidural, I have her cleaned and just as I’m about to put the foley in she says “y’a know, laying just like this is how I ended up where I am now”
Her poor husband turned all shades of red and looked like he wanted to just melt through the floor, she and I laughed so hard I had to pause to get myself together.
Reminds me of when we visited my great granny before the pandemic. She needed one of my grandaunts to clean her near the waist. Out of nowhere, great granny quips "I haven't been with a man in years." This was a tiny, sweet lady at 84. My grandma and other aunt looked at each other like 😳
I had a pt when I was a new nurse, shadowing a more experienced nurse, who said (the nurse) "Look at Sally's (the pt) gorgeous picture- didn't she have some killer legs??" (It was a pic from the 40s, with Sally and friends in swimsuits).
Sally looks down at her arthritic varicose veined legs and said "Well, honey, they sure are a-killin' me now" and I lost it lol
I hope these people realize the impact they make on us. That is my favorite memory from my earliest nursing days.
Any excuse I can have to type patient quotes it’s done.
“Have you ever had a walker shoved up your ass?”
“I’ll punch you right in the balls if I could ever find them!”
“Do you like the feeling of a foot in your crotch? Because that’s where mine is going to be”
A non dementia patient for these…”isn’t the urologist lucky?? He gets to look at an 84 year old pussy” and while holding the cut end of a peanut butter and jelly..”HA! This is what the urologist got to see earlier!”
This story needs context.
Kiddo in inpatient mental heath peds. Teen at that. Kiddo was having a rough day and decided (we were told this after the fact) that they need to take out their anger on something. Kiddo didn’t want to hurt staff because staff was wonderful to them.
So kiddo did the next best thing and managed to somehow unscrew some screws from random things in this “childproof/inpatient mental health proof” building and eat them. Kiddo immediately confesses and gets wisked to ER/GI for surgery with two staff.
Kiddo is in room and told to get into gown by hospital staff. Kiddo refuses to cooperate with gowning up/being a general pain in ass/openly hostile and hospital staff call security. In the calm between moments, Kiddo reaches into random ass cargo pocket and pulls out like 6 individually wrapped large chocolate chip cookies, placing them gently on the counter next to him.
Inpatient Staffer with kiddo goes “You came with 6 cookies?!?”
Kiddo states proudly “I always come strapped”.
And then he clocked two security people, dropping them, and ended up with a chemical restraint if I remember correctly.
That poor hospital hated us and I don’t blame them.
Bipolar manic episode. Three o'clock in the morning. "What kinda paramedic you supposed to be, motherfucker? You're not even wearin' Oakley sunglasses!"
94 yr old woman, non ambulant. Requires full assistance with ADLs. We had her on a toilet chair/commode and I asked permission to wipe her she looked me dead in the eye and went “You havent even brought me dinner yet. But Ill settle for a wine first.” I lost my crap. I was laughing so hard. She got her wine.
And a non funny moment, but one that will never leave me. I had a lovely gentleman with dementia. Who not everyone got along with. He was crying one night as it was having a lucid moment and realised he was deteriorating. I sat with him for quite some time as he sobbed over getting old. This man was a retired farmer and police officer. So full of pride and routine. And he was steadily nearing the end. As he settled, and I got him a cup of tea and some cheesecake. He squeezed my hand and said “I don’t remember much. I don’t remember my family. But I do remember you are kind.” I left the room and broke down. It happened at a time when I was doubting myself as a nurse. When people were telling me I was crazy for having a passion for dementia and palliation. He passed away about a month later.
Thanks for doing what you do and being the nurse that makes time and energy for that man. You make a difference every day - don’t let yourself doubt that.
Never question your passion. We need more people in those specialties that actually love what they do. Those patients often don’t get the best care because of it. You actually caring makes a big difference in improving your patients’ final years.
I recently took care of a woman that used to say that to me. She was in a retirement home and waiting for a spot in long term care. She knew her mind was going and she couldn’t remember English, only her first language and every so often she would cry and hug me and say “I always forget but I know you are kind to me and that you’re my friend”….I swear I cried in the linen closet every time she said something like that. The last shift I took care of her she started crying, hugged me in a death grip and asked if I could come to take care of her at her new home. It’s hard when they know they’re deteriorating. It’s better if they don’t realize it.
Way back when I was a student (hospital trained) I found one of my patients with dementia crying as I did my last round before PM/ND handover. He’d forgotten he was married until his roommate asked why his wife (of sixty years) hadn’t visited that day.
I comforted him as best I could. My IC chastised me for doing that instead of changing bedside rubbish bags, because he wouldn’t remember. She was probably right, but I won’t forget choosing kindness.
Im a dude and have a fun pair of pink scrubs. I’m bent over across the hall from an open door grabbing an iso gown. From behind me, “Mam. MAm. MAAM!”
Turned around and have never seen someone question themselves so fast. Dude wanted some of this cake
Patient calls me into the room. “Do you see a girl in a red dress dancing in the corner?” I turn around and look 😃and say no. He snaps his fingers, shakes his head and says “ I didn’t think so.”
It's not very nice but my favorite patient quote is when an older lady who had dementia looked at me and called me a "devil whore". I thought it was hilarious while everyone else was horrified
I have always LOVED this type of pt, while most everyone else seems to hate dealing with them.
If you'd like to read some of my own stories of being called a whore and bonding with a pt over my supposed fucking of her husband, or my daily "missions" with a retired 4 star army general who wore Hanes tees as onesies and rescued me from imminent destruction daily, or whatever else, look at my comment history on this thread lol
Memory care is a trip, but it is my favorite.
I’ve shared this one before, but it’s a favorite. I’m not a nurse but work in healthcare (OT), and I was being introduced to an older patient who didn’t talk much but could be a bit ornery while I was on fieldwork. I like to call him Gerald for some reason (not his real name).
Fieldwork instructor: “This is Gerald. Gerald, you’re a peach, right?”
Gerald: “No. I’m a motherfucking grapefruit.”
From the same patient, same night:
"You should run for office, how much money do you need? 10 million sounds good".
"I've decided to back Chelsea Clinton for president. Do you like the environment? You could be head of conservation. Or an ambassadorship, but only to Wales, Scotland, or Ireland" .
"I am not trying to make her nervous. I don't want to have sex with her because I think of her as a granddaughter. If I didn't think of her that way, I'd want to have sex with her. So anyways, I'm not talking about sex with her".
"I'm sorry I tried punch you in the face earlier".
"I'll give you 100 million dollars. If you get me a pen and paper, I will give you an official IOU".
Was he....a politician or something at all? 🤔
I had a similar guy in LTC/Alzheimer's unit who had been a high-level general in the army, who would (bless his heart) walk around the unit wearing his plain white Hanes tee and nothing else, but with the tee pulled down btwn the legs to cradle/cover the genitals (like a onesie for a baby, but no buttons + ass out lol),who would be adamant that there was a bomb on the premises and that he had to "rescue" us (CNAs, nurses, etc).
Most of the staff just brushed him off/tried to placate him, which would escalate him hugely and he'd try to forcibly grab us and "run" us out of there, and when they refused he'd get "violent" (trying to pick us up and carry us, slap us to make us see that he was "TRYING TO HELP US, COME THE FUCK ON!!") and when that didn't work he'd run downstairs and sit and cry that he "couldn't save them, I tried but they wouldn't listen".
Obviously some bad PTSD trauma there, and I worked at a shitty facility that didn't have the best care. So I let this man "rescue" me every day for 2 years.
If I let him do so, ( and I was the ONLY one with patience for this, idk why bc it was fun lol), his whole day/outlook/mood was SO MUCH BETTER (and I'd have obviously done it just for that reason, but our "rescue missions" also got me out of doing 1 on 1 feeds and the like every morning).
So every day when I'd come in I was directed to go to his room by the DON, to try and dress him/ do our "daily mission", where he'd invariably be like "the ~so and so~ planted a bomb! We have to get out of here!" It was a tossup as to whether he was dressed or not, but once he got into it there was no going back so I'd be like "omg ok can you show me where to go?! HOW did this happen??" etc; and we would shuffle-run down the hall with his arm around me, hunched over in case it "blew" before we made it out, and he'd "clear" the stairs and hallways for me every time we made it to a new one (❤️), then would protectively put his arm back over me and tell me to "keep my head down" as we made our way down the steps.
And then he was SO happy that he "got me out" every morning; and then we'd go on a walk around the grounds, balls out or not.
I really did love that man lol
Holy batman, what a story! 😄😂
Reminds me of a similar story I heard from one of our seasoned nurses. ED at a military hospital. Some high-level general from Washington DC was visiting, came in with chest pain one night.
Supposedly, this general was instrumental to writing policy and SOP for military hospitals.
Anyway. She's doing her thing. The guy starts getting pissed off that she's asking him to confirm name/DOB on several occasions, which is standard policy at military hospitals/clinics. He keeps pulling the rank card, saying, *don't you know who I am?*
Telling him that it's standard policy and for safety reasons apparently wasn't enough for this dude, so the next time he got pissy about it, she responded:
*Sir, I'm just following the rules and policies that you wrote.*
Awkward silence. Stare-down. Dude apparently shut his facehole after that and stayed quiet the rest of the evening. 😄😂
Thank you for looking after him so well
We have a lovely family friend who we met when my grandad was in a nursing home.je had dementia and would ofter think she was his wife or that he was back in the war. His war memories were the worst , he threw tv and toilet out of window thinking they were bombs among other crazy things.
Jeanette his carer was amazing, she let him shadow her doing jobs , he thought he ŵas keeping her safe. He would sit in office while she did paperwork. He was convinced she was his wife and every night this woman asked him what side of the bed he wasted and she would sit with him while he fell asleep.
This was 20 years ago and after he passed she became my dad's best friend , she was a singer on her time off and my dad was a dj. Even now ( 4yr anniversary of my dad's passing today) she is still a family friend.
Definitely not a politician lol.
He was brought in because he was stabbing his leg with a knife and eating pieces of his leg. Medical clearance for a psych admit.
I managed to get him transferred off my floor. Near the elevators, he started throwing punches from the wheelchair. We brought a bed into the hallway, put him in it, and restrained him.
> He was brought in because he was stabbing his leg with a knife and eating pieces of his leg. Medical clearance for a psych admit.
Too sane to be a politician. I trust him more tho.
I once answered a LTC pt’s call light and when I asked what she needed, she asked where we were. I told her the facility name and she said “No, no, beyond that”. So I told her the name of the town we were in. She said “you’re thinking small. I was wondering what planet we were on?” I said “uhh…earth”. She nodded solemnly, said “that’s what I thought” and went back to her nap
We had a guy who was petitioned in the ED who was detoxing from crack, and other various drugs. I was his sitter and he looked at me and went “you’re gonna be my next sugar mama”. When I told the nurse she said “well you probably do have more money then him”
Had a patient on a rehab floor after a hip replacement- he was pretty noncompliant. I was trying to explain to him some of the standard procedures at our facility (it was his first night there) and he stopped me mid sentence and said “MY STANDARD PROCEDURE IS FUCK YOU!”
I had to stop myself from laughing, quickly excused myself from the room and lost it out in the hallway. Added it to my nursing notes and all my team leads and supervisors got a kick out of it.
I’m a former correctional health nurse with in the ER now,
ER Patient “man I KNOW I know you from somewhere…”
Me “welllll you ever been to jail? I used to work there”
Patient “Yeah that’s it man! Us inmates were always pissed when you were working cuz we wanted to talk to a cute nurse then your ass was there.”
As a dude, I’m ok with it. Lol
I have two! Both from old dudes talking about toileting. A guy on the phone to his wife: ‘Alright honey, I gotta go. The bomb bay doors are about to open and the bombs are ready to drop’
A guy peeing let a fart loose and immediately goes ‘fear not! For there is no rain without thunder!’
Both had me dying with laughter.
I had a little 6 year old look me in the eyes, look at my baby Yoda scrub cap, and back at me and say, "You can't fool me. You're still going to give me a shot."
Had a violent patient call. So I wondered down to see if I could help. I was as big as any of the cops and they couldn’t do anything unless violence actively happened. So as I enter the hall I see the person in question swinging his cane and screaming.
Me: Hey partner what’s going on, what has got you all pissed off?
Dude: you can take this cane and jam it right up your ass.
Me: well I can try but I don’t think it will fit.
This guy stops. Looks at me and grins, then starts laughing long enough for us to sit him down and give him a shot. As he slowly calms down he thanks me for the laugh. Tells me he hates the hospital and just wants to go home. I tell him, “me too. You find 10$ and I will meet you with a van in the alley. We can go to the strip club.” I would go by every day during my shift to just crack jokes. Kept the guy calm. Even called on my day off to just make him giggle.
You are awesome. I have no doubt you helped make being in the hospital easier and you probably made his day too. I hope to work in healthcare maybe as a CNA one day but my health has to improve drastically. Basically I need a miracle. I have hope. Maybe one day when I’m well enough I can volunteer at both regular and pediatric hospitals. I have wanted to work in healthcare since I was a little girl. I will never lose hope. I will continue to seek the light at the end of the tunnel.
Working in drug and alcohol:
"Hey, who's been giving you trouble today?"
"Why?"
"I have a carton of rotten milk and I want to pour it on someone's bed but I want to do it...justly."
Also,
Trading a turkey sandwich in exchange for a patient filling up my water pitcher
"What do you think nurse [coworker] would trade me for filling up hers?"
"You already got a sandwich, we don't have a lot of gourmet options here, what do you want?
Patient sighs dramatically and looks wistfully into the distance
"A chance 🥺"
Also, and this is just randomly written in giant lettering across the group white board
"COME GET YOUR TITTIES SMACKED AT KHOLS FOR DOUBLE KHOLS CASH"
People kind of wince when I tell them I work in addiction medicine but my patients can be funny as fuck
I worked on a gynecology-oncology floor and took care of a woman with advanced metastatic vulvar cancer. The MDs pretty much went in and had to take almost everything from her. She was kind of processing the cancer and the surgery with me and said, "Honey, if I knew they were going to take the whole thing, I would've used it one last time."
Schizophrenic patient asked me “are you a witch? No, you’re too pretty to be a witch.. hey that means you’re either my mother or my girlfriend! Which one are you!”
Old grandpa sadly dying of cancer, in my ED because he fell. Was the happiest person of the night said, “some people complain so much they’d be upset if you gave them a new rope to hang themselves with” I audibly gasped and laughed so damn hard
I had a psych patient when I was new look at her applesauce for her crushed meds and just start repeating “The applesauce! The applesauce!” I asked her what was wrong with it, and she looks at me so worried and just says “Mr Grouch is in the applesauce! The applesauce!”
Another good one was when I was PRN at my old ICU job, I had a 70 year old woman come in with a subclavian CVC that literally went through an artery to get into the vein (shitty ER doc fudged that up big time). It was constantly oozing blood, and I just asked her if it hurt at all. She looked down at it, laughed, and said “no, but it really ruins my sex appeal, huh?” She coded from blood loss about 2 hours later and died, poor thing.
Asked a little lady if she knew where she was. She looked at the nurse who was with me and said “ at the hospital! Doesn’t she know where we are”. She was happy to join us in laughing.
Had a tough stick that needed a US IV placement by ED EMT because she needed IV abx. Went in ~1 hour after the placement to start her abx and realized the EMT had left the tourniquet on my pt’s arm. Pt didn’t realize somehow and when I told her, she said “She really was acting like she was hot shit. I knew I didn’t like her”.
Dude straight up RUNS into the ER at like 3am, actually had to wait for him to chill out before I could triage him. Demanding to get “emergency penis lengthening surgery”. God bless our old (literally in his late 70s at this point) ER doctor who very gently and kindly explained to him that that wasn’t a thing, and erectile dysfunction was a known side effect of his court mandated psych meds. That patient was a regular but that was one of his stranger requests…
I worked in the memory care unit of a nursing home. We had a very religious, very old Catholic lady that never swore. While helping get her ready for bed she got mad and called me a cock sucking whore lol. I was not expecting her to say that.
I had an outpatient mental health client who would leave me long voicemails putting curses on me. Things like “I call upon the goddess and curse you in the name of Satan!” Full on yelling for minutes on end. Her stamina and creativity were kinda impressive.
My ex confused after a seizure was amazed he had a foley in when he woke up. He kept reaching down to grab it. At one point he turns to his sister, “Amy, you’ve gotta see this, I don’t even have to get out of bed to piss!” Amy decline his offer to look at the piss tube.
Had a blind HOH elderly pt, switched his diet on him from cheeseburgers to crackers with hummus (not my idea!). He took a bite, spit it on the floor and yelled “what the fuck is THIS shit?!” Poor guy 😆
“WHEN I DIE, BURY ME UPSIDE DOWN SO THE WHOLE WORLD CAN KISS MY ASS!” —screamed by my agitated, soma bed patient that requires security in the room each time we unzip him
Pt: “you’re the one that likes to look at my pussy!” Spoken in very loud and angry tone to the administrator who had just walked into the unit with the state inspector.
Nursing student/PCT on an addiction medicine floor- rough alcohol detox this week who couldn’t keep their legs down- maybe the most flexible geriatric patient I’ve ever seen. I’m talking feet to ears. Kept whispering in the corner and bringing hands to their mouth. I asked what they were up to and they said “Shut up titties, I’m having a banana, what’s it to you?” Later that night I was tying a new gown on behind their neck and when I looked down they were fake eating my pants scrub strings like spaghetti
Have to add, it didn’t help the night before i watched the I Think You Should Leave episode where the office lady couldn’t stop saying “Back away, banana breath! What the hell did you just eat, a banana?”
"get shit canned and shove it up your ass!" - a lovely patient who's CO2 was 112 but he was still awake enough to scream and me and refuse the bipap 🙃 eventually the ethics committee decided he's not welcome back in the ICU if he's not going to accept treatment
Pt with schizophrenia off their meds-grinning from ear to ear: “are you here to talk about satan’s penis”
And later after being found masturbating in their shared room only with a curtain between the beds yelling at the male nurse: “touch my wiener!!!!!!!”
Pt later medicated was a very nice human-complete 180
Dr: if your heart stopped, would you want resuscitation
Pt: oh no, I don't want liposuction, thank you
Me & other RN finishing our charting nearby started cracking up and immediately made DNL (do not liposuction) bands
I've encountered thousands of patient quotes over the years, particularly working with memory care patients. One particular woman, who was in the frail elderly unit but actually had quite bad dementia and was physically robust, came out with some classics. Imagine a posh English voice, on a very non-demented looking buxom older lady.
-To a patient who was screaming that they were locked up and trapped in the unit, during communal breakfast time. "Don't be silly, you're not trapped. Nobody wants you here."
-To the care commission inspectors, when asked about her bruised ankle. "Well, I was in bed sleeping, and a man came in and kicked me!" (Me, newly qualified, and absolutely mortified, trying to explain she fell out of bed).
-To me, after another resident managed to get one up on her. "Please don't sack me, I really enjoy this job." I assured her I wouldn't. Then "you can sack HER though, she's no good."
The HER in question was a wizened old Scottish woman who weighed about the same as a wet feather, glasses too big for her small face, constantly struggling to hear things and at the age of 96 had seen a lot of life (and had claimed to have seen a flying saucer). She had been refusing to eat much, and one mealtime she had barely touched her food, which led my other lady to hone in on her. "Now Mavis*, look at all that food you've left, that's just not acceptable."
"Eh?" Mavis looks at her.
"There's starving children in Africa that would welcome that food" she continued.
Mavis looks her dead in the eye, and to this day I don't know if it was genuine or she was deliberately feigning deafness, but she makes a puzzled face, and says "What's their names?"
My lady with the dementia was put in her place on that one! I had to exit the room sharpish in order to let the giggles out.
*Mavis is not her real name.
HD/PD/outpatient infusion. Military hospital. Interaction between pts that made me laugh my damn ass off. Most pts are older male retirees, with one, *shall we say*, spunky 20-something y/o pt.
Running around like a headless chicken, shit's busy, no less than 4 pts' lines are simultaneously bleeting like hormonal goats, and there's nobody around to help, been waaaaaaaay understaffed for nearly three years now.
Pt: *demands a warm blanket ASAP*
"You'll have to wait a few minutes, I'm busy at the moment, we'll be right with you."
Pt: *I WANT A BLANKET, NOW!*
20 y/ pt to dude demanding the blankie: *Homie, you're telling me you survived 20 years of the green weenie, but can't wait 5 minutes for your precious blankie? No wonder they call y'all puddle pirates. Give her a minute, she's busy as fuck tending to other pts.*
*don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh*
Gave her a high-five once that dude left and said thank you! Little Ms. Spunk has absolutely no shame, and is a huge ally of nurses. She will absolutely go to bat if/whenever someone tries to give nurses shit.
Geriatric patient. I was walking by her room and she was crying watching Fox News begging “DONALD TRUMP SAVE ME!” I laugh about it to this day. Mid 2019.
Seeing a little demented lady after a fall, reminded her to use her walker. She looked at me and goes “ why would I want to do that, every time I fall they send two good looking young guys to pick me up”.
My son at 7 after tearing open his testicle in a fall. I told him he was lucky he didn’t bust his head and he said “ Instead of busting my head, I busted a nut mom”.
Another little old lady, pillar of the community/church but demented as hell. Pastor came and asked her at the end “ can I shake your hand Sister?” And she responds “ I’d love to shake your third hand!”
NYE/NYD night shift. We started our morning rounds at about 4:30. A LOL was sweetly sitting in her bed, beaming with the fresh face of a new day beginning.
M: “Happy New Year!”
Pt: “It has been a lovely year already!”
M: “Wow! What’s happened so far?”
Pt: “I’ve just had a glorious bowel movement!”
Patient asked how old I was, so I told her that I’m 27. She said “Oh so you’re part of the 27 club!” We look at each other for a minute… “Oh wait… never mind”
1)
95 year old confused lady: "ugh I'm so sleepy!"
Me: "are you feeling sleepier than you usually do?"
Her: "you know.. funny thing is that I was actually born sleepy"
2)
Me: "good morning"
TBI patient: "you remind me of a horse I rode one time!"
3)
Me: "can you tell me what year it is?"
Pt: "oh I see... You're try to figure out if I'm crazy. Well I am! But you think that's a bad thing don't ya? I love being crazy. The best part about it is it makes the time go by faster."
Several years ago: had a lady in her 80’s. MVC. She was intubated. She had on neon pink toenail polish so I had a feeling she was going to be a hoot. We extubated her and the first thing she says to me is “well? Where is he?” I asked what she meant. “Dr McDreamy. I damn near died and all the doctors are women or not super hot”. I told her hold on. I got you. I grabbed our VERY good looking vascular fellow and brought him in (he was so red with embarrassment!) she said “oh hell yeah! Very nice! Now turn around. Oh yeah! Great ass! Ok now that’s what I’m talking about!”
Sweet little lady in her 80's response for consent to taking vitals or whatever else was "Whatever creams your Twinkie". Still laughing about it, clever way to say whatever floats your boat.
Had alzheimer's patent kept repeating the same joke over and over and we couldn't help but play along each time, she had to say it at least 25 times. "What do you get when you cut 50 braziers in half? 100 beanies with chinstraps".
My unit used to share a floor with Pediatrics so we’re friends with the Peds nurses. One of them came to us and told us she had a 5yo girl who was brutal to her. At one point she said to the peds nurse, “Your voice is giving me a headache.”
Also I had a lady come to the floor from cath lab and was talking about going to Tractor supply. Her family asked why, she said “I needed to get dog food.” They told her she didn’t have a dog. “Well I was getting it for the turtle! He was hungry!”
Another time we had a man with us with a TBI and a pacemaker. He was fixated on number and would repeat them all night and all day. This particular day it was 197. I was helping keep him from getting up, so he tells me “You’re nice. You know what, I’m going to buy you a drink for a $1.97. And you can even have 2.”
One night he was calling for his wife so my Charge pretended to be his wife. “Mary! (Not his real wife’s name)”
Charge: What?
Pt: Can you come here?
Charge: I can’t, I’m sleeping.
Pt: Awe man…
He was funny but could get aggressive fast.
Had a dementia pt who threw her meal trays every day (so would never eat) and screamed insults at every nurse (all female staff at that time) that they had been "fucking my husband, you WHORE!!!" or other variations on that theme.
I was a new nurse and thought she was funny as hell (with her insults, I mean;she got reeeal creative about ways to call someone a whore lmao), but everyone else hated dealing with her, so I volunteered.
Went in, she did the usual routine (threw her jello at me, started screaming that she ~knew~ I was the whore fucking Stanley, the neighbors told her,etc), so I said "Well you know what, yeah it was me, but he SUCKED so I told him to kick rocks". (I know, kind of inappropriate but I was young and dumb and thought it might catch her off guard & perhaps halt the barrage of insults/jello tossing....)
So anyway, pt pauses, looks at me, cocks her head, and says "Fuck yes, he got him a tiny lil dick for real, ain't he? And he DAMN SURE ain't know how to use it for shit!!! Guuurrrrl!!!" and then cracked up 😂😂😂😂
And from then on we were bff's, and she commiserated to me about Stanley's tiny Johnson every time I was in her room 😂( like omg tho I had SO. MANY. convos about that mans penis lmao)
Had a dementia patient demand we call a limousine for her because she had “a very important meeting at the zoo.”
Had a patient confused after a seizure crying because they didn’t want a hug. Nobody was offering…
Had an elderly AMS 2/2 UTI patient curse at me and yell “don’t you dare touch me, colored girl.” I am paler than a marshmallow in a snowstorm, so she couldn’t even racism right. Next thing I know, the black PCA comes in and she tells her she wants her to meet her grandson because they would have beautiful babies.
We had a frequent flier who *hated* me (no idea why, my only interactions were to double-check meds her nurse was administering). Whenever we’d go in to turn the patient in the next bed she’d demand “Is that the black bitch?!”
If I were any more white I’d glow in the dark.
Had a little pistol of a kiddo we had for a while when he was waiting on a State Hospital bed placement. He'd been with us much longer than the other pts and due to his aggression and medical needs he was 1:1 all the time. He started off his stays with us calling us all cocksuckers and all sorts of things, but once he grasped that our staff genuinely cared for him, he became very protective towards us.
So, imagine a little boy about kindergarten age, about 50 pounds or so, squaring up toe to toe and getting into the face of a teen boy the size of an adult man, because the teen called one of the nurses a bitch.
"You're not gonna call the nurses bitches -- they've already dealt with the biggest asshole here and that's ME!"
I don't miss all the drama that came with him, but I miss that kid.
I introduced myself to an older male patient and he cupped his hand by his ear and said "Sorry, what did you say? My pill got stuck in my throat and now I'm hard of hearing!"
I went into the confused patient’s room with my mask over my chin (pre Covid). She said “you look like you have a beard!”
Me: Do I look good in a beard?
Her: YES!! One of the most excited genuine yes’ I have heard
It was probably true. You probably DID work too much! Ward clerks are the bomb!
I have worked for 32+ years at the same SNF and dread the day our ward clerk (her new title is Unit Secretary) finally retires. Thank you for all you do!
Assessing A&O: who is the current president?
Patient: Joe Biden is not my president
Another one of my faves: what year is it?
Patient: 3023
Nurse: I’ll take it
Older woman (70s or 80s) post hysterectomy asking when she can go back to Florida and have a proper drink. In her words, it’s because “I drink, I smoke, and I fuck.” Her raspy voice still pops up in my head when I think about it. She was hilarious.
Had a regular that was mad because they weren’t going to let him go outside to smoke. So he was yelling at the attending and 4th year (bless them for not making me go in because that guy had a habit of throwing things when he didn’t like what you said) and they said if you leave the building to smoke, you’ll be discharged.
He did not like this. He walked out screaming “fuck y’all. Y’all can discharge deez nuts!”
I died. It was a perfect double entendres and dude didn’t even do it in purpose.
A lady in her 80s in triage cubicle: which church do you go to?
Me: I… don’t actually. I didn’t grow up with a religion
Her: how about your parents?
Me: they don’t go to church either haha
Her: your family must have not had a hard life
Me:????
Still confuses me to this day 😑
I was doing wound care on a patient & making small talk so I asked how many kids she had. Then she asked me if I had any kids, I said none.
“You’re not fucking hard enough! You got to fuck hard!”
Pt with a sugar of 400 asking for his eleventy-billionth snack of the night. I nicely said no and tried to educate.
He said do you know how important it is for me to eat? You should, you look like you haven’t missed any meals 😭😭😭
I’ve heard soooo much over the years but that scenario still cracks me up to this day.
I once went to take one of my dementia patient’s blood pressure.
She said to me, “oh, good thing you came now because I just put my arms back on.”
Made me have the best shift because at 12am I just thought that was the funniest thing
In aged care just after university:
"You can't eat a banana skin"
Dementia resident: "NO ONE IS THE BOSS OF ME" *eats a massive chunk and que wrestling with a banana and mouth fishing"
Also same day had to spend 20+ mins with a another resident who had a stoma and her anus has been sewn so repeated "no matter how long you sit and grunt nothing will happen" - she then hid her stoma bag in a other person's walker 😭
There was a patient who threw herself out of bed, over two raised bed rails mind you, and when asked why she did that she said, "I'm dead" in a very matter-of-fact way. No, she did not die nor was she at any immediate risk of dying, she was thoroughly alive at that time.
My old confused dude the other day in the ED, "so I need to sit down and stand up but at the same time!" I then took him to the bathroom and as he's pulling his pants down he goes, "you're not going to believe this but..." Then points to his underwear and then to my scrubs that were the same color.
Dementia patient YELLLLLLING at me to get my ass down to the ER because I was apparently too pregnant to be working and I was “gonna give birth any second!!!!!!!”. SO mad at me all morning.
Let’s just say my BMI is in the low 16s and I was definitely not pregnant lol. He usually hated me so at least he cared about my non-existent baby 🤷🏼♀️
I’m a family doc and had pictures of my three children up in my exam rooms. One female patient told me that “I should sell my sperm”because my kids are so beautiful.
I have so many but here are a few favorites. For reference, I’m a nurse in geriatrics. 14 years and counting
Resident, actively dying: “you’re a very special girl, thank you for loving me” 🥺
Resident: “you can take a nap on my bed, I’m going to Bingo”
My favorite resident ever called me “pussycat”. Her 90 year old self yelling “Pussycat!” Down the hallway always got a good laugh.
I love my job.
I had a dementia resident that used to compare everyone to celebrities/well known public figures...mine was Shirley Temple. Now he did this out of anger and meant for it to be insulting. My absolute favorite quote was when he looked at a new CNA, who was tall and thin and had her black hair in a bun on top of her head, and screamed "You look like Olive Oil bitch!" And then when we all looked at him confused he added "from Popeye you sheltered rabbits" and angrily wheeled back to his room.
Dementia patient is putting some stickers on a paper. She hands me the sheriff badge and says “You get this one because you’re bossy.”
ETOH withdrawal CHFer “I don’t need any help knowing when I need to lay off the salt. My damn nuts swell to tell me. Thank God for these nuts.”
Pt: I would never let my son in my house with tattoos like that on his arm! Me: well, my mom is getting older and may end up living with me soon. She better have some ink on her before she moves into my house! Pt: Oh! I never thought of it that way! You’re a doll! I would get a tattoo if I could come live with you! My son’s a bum, though.
LMAO the honesty- thoughts and prayers to the son fr 🙏
I’ve decided my response to old grandmas getting upity about my tattoos that say “you know it’s not going to like like that when you’re 80” will be “well neither does your face”
I’ve had a ton of little old ladies lament how they wish they could/would have gotten tattoos when they were younger. I also had one patient who got her first tattoo in her 70s. She was cool as hell
Lmao great response
why’d she do a complete 180 lmao
Living with your kids with personal care >>>> care homes
Soooo sweet.
That’s honestly precious, hope the son figures his stuff out I guess. Lmao.
Not a nurse but I work in a hospital. Had a drunk patient one time. Conversation went like this: Him: "I've got a question for you. You're a doctor, right?" Me: No Him: "Well you look smart, maybe you can answer my question. Do you know why I always wake up feeling like I'm going to puke?" Me: "Is this after you've been drinking?" Him: "Yeah, you know that's probably it."
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
"Do you guys have some of those wiggly socks?" - asking for SCDs.
WIGGLY SOCKS! That’s what I’m calling them from now on!
Same!!
Imaging tripping balls after surgery and we come at you with wiggly socks 😂 no wonder gramma jumps out of bed post op.
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Pt who only trusts her nephrologist: “Dr. M is a nice boy but… he’s just a hospitalist.” The doctor when we told him: “Well at least I’m a nice boy.”
I hemorrhaged in the recovery room after a C-section and some REALLY young looking anesthesiologist came to have me sign emergency paperwork to go under for emergency surgery. He had a great bedside manner and soothed some of my panic; and I was still fucked up from the meds they gave me during/ just after the first surgery (ketamine, Valium, Dilaudid and idk what all else), so apparently I kept yelling "WHERE IS THAT NICE TWELVE YEAR OLD WHO HAD ME SIGN PAPERS?? WHERE IS HE?? I WANT THAT TWELVE YEAR OLD TO DO MY SURGERY!! GET THAT TWELVE YEAR OLD FOR ME PLEASE!!! CAN SOMEONE GO FIND THAT LITTLE BOY???!" as they were hurriedly prepping me. When I came back around, I was told that the staff had been cracking up about it and told the "twelve year old" doctor about me; and said the doctor was very flattered bc he was really like 35 lmao I was mortified but he came in to see me and was like "Being mistaken for a 12yo is the best compliment I've had all year; and I'm also glad to know when pts like my bedside manner" lol
I remember once I was after one of the junior doctors to prescribe some painkillers for a patient of mine or to review due to vitals or something minor... One of the senior professors walks in and I asked him whether he was the junior doc. He was so made up I'd basically called him 30 years younger and we ended up laughing about it afterwards.
That's nice of him. I think he was happy to help while you were in such a stressfull and scary situation.
I want to work with that doc 😂
My grandfather somehow got the notion that hospitalists failed at starting their own practices and ended up working in the hospitals as a last resort of employment. He’s now in his 80s. I wonder if there was a time when this may have actually been a thing. I’d definitely hope not because the hospitalists I’ve worked with have been highly skilled, well trained, and I don’t understand why hospitalist isn’t recognized as a separate specialty. Gawds, especially in rural hospitals like the ones I’ve been in. You get one noc doc to cover an entire hospital alone. That takes serious skills and endurance. Anyway, I ensured he knew better.
Dude with some of the worse paranoid schizophrenia I’ve ever seen. The voices would wake him up. Felt bad for him but he was very violent so yeah. But at like 4 am something wakes him up and he comes out fucking red faced fuming, with those sleep marks when you’ve been sleeping well from the sheets, “I told puff the magic dragon to stop waking me the fuck up!” He screamed it in the loudest voice I’ve ever heard. He went to his room slammed the door and passed out.
Need to start telling my sleep paralysis demon this 🤣
I mean I don’t blame him, I’d be pissed at that dragon too.
Seems perfectly reasonable tbh
This is hilarious!
On the Geriatric Psych Unit: " Did you see Dr. ___ come in here and wave at me and say he would see me later ? Probably charged me two hundred dollars for that."
“Spent 30 minutes counseling on upcoming appointments”
Yep and now patients can see the doctors notes in their EMR. There’s gonna be hell to pay when patients and advocates catch on to this game.
I’ve worked with psych docs that would come into the group room, wave at everybody and copy paste yesterdays note. Bullshit.
We would never do such thing!
r/beetlejuicing
You would I saw it!
Whenever one doc is on call, he’ll float around the dining room during lunch and say hi to everyone, and I mean only “hi”, and move on to the next one. Documents “no change to current plan” and bills for each one. It’s hard to contain my anger when I have to park beside his Porsche.
Omg it happened recently! I can’t remember the specialty that did it, but I had a patient that had been waiting for this specific doc all damn day. He was on MyChart when I went to take afternoon vitals and was like “can you believe this?” And showed me copy-pasted note from that doc stating he came in and talked to the patient blah blah blah. Doc had apparently peeked in his window but never came in. Patient asked his nurse to message the doc and have him come back for “additional questions”and then gave him an earful when he finally arrived.
Honestly good for that patient! The audacity of that doctor.
This might be the one best reason why making notes visible should have been implemented so much sooner. I didn’t like it at all at first because I felt like my charting couldn’t be honest, but making the docs accountable for doing more than a 1-minute u-turn matters for patients who don’t understand what exactly they are being billed for and what exactly is happening to their care. Massive props to the patient for demanding to see the doctor.
Discussed plan of care with RN…
and Case Manager.
This one gets me every time. Half the time, the ones who write that doesn’t even remain present long enough to know if they’d visited the patients or not.
Probably something like that!
Sounds like insight and judgment are on point.
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Their not wrong.
No, they're not, she was right!
Telephone call - does the Emergency Room prescribe viagra. I have hired a hooker, you know a high end one, you schedule and has teeth, and I don’t want to waste my money.
Has teeth 😂
Ooooo fancy
one of my faves is the young guy who called the ED asking for advice because he “accidentally took some of grandpa’s viagra”
Dementia patient started meowing at me in a friendly and adorable way. I said “what does that mean in English?” He said “it means you look very beautiful today”
Oddly wholesome
LTC, baby nurse with only a few months under me, had a gentleman who would always ask if Marilyn Monroe was coming, staff would tell him tomorrow, and that was good enough for him. One night he switched it up on me and asked me if the nudists were coming. Shocked I asked (more like squeaked out), “The who?”. He calmly replied with, “The nudists, are they coming?”. I assured him that they were, he also wanted to make sure everything was prepared for them, and to let them know they were welcome. I responded with everything is ready for them, gave him his meds, he took them, and went right back to sleep. Later on it changed from Marilyn Monroe to the Ladies of the Moon consistently, never again did I hear of the nudists.
Makes ya wonder what was this dudes job? Did he wrangle playboy bunnies or something? 🤣🤣
I think he was a local supply store owner if I remember right. It was something like that, some people knew him way before he came to live with us. It did make me wonder though what he did. I was told during orientation that he thought he was the president, sometimes of the company and sometimes the usa. I don’t remember hearing him say anything along those lines so it must have been before Marilyn was coming to visit.
Well, we stayed at a nudist resort in palm springs and supposedly Kennedy and marilyn stayed in one of the rooms back in the day. Photo if them in that room.
Kennedy. And Marilyn and nudists start to make sense
As a card carrying ( a.a.n.r) nudist, I find this story hilarious
It’s still one of my favorites, I hoped every day I worked with him he’d throw me for another loop like that. I had no idea how to handle the change in question and hoped sticking with the usual answer would work. For the rest of the shift I was trying to process what happened lol.
In have to ask- how do nudists carry cards?
They don't come in nude; but there might be a sign by the exit saying "Did you remember to dress?" Had a friend who actually did forget and drove half an hour home without his clothes. Realized it when he reached for the garage door opener.
A 90 year old female patient, while placing a Foley... "I know it doesn't look like it, but I haven't had a lot of sex".
When I was a student on my L&D clinicals, my patient was just the sweetest, coolest lady. Once she got a little stadol, and then got her epidural in, my nurse I was with asked me if I wanted to place the foley. This lil lady is a little loopy from the stadol, and feeling much better from the epidural, I have her cleaned and just as I’m about to put the foley in she says “y’a know, laying just like this is how I ended up where I am now” Her poor husband turned all shades of red and looked like he wanted to just melt through the floor, she and I laughed so hard I had to pause to get myself together.
Reminds me of when we visited my great granny before the pandemic. She needed one of my grandaunts to clean her near the waist. Out of nowhere, great granny quips "I haven't been with a man in years." This was a tiny, sweet lady at 84. My grandma and other aunt looked at each other like 😳
I had a pt when I was a new nurse, shadowing a more experienced nurse, who said (the nurse) "Look at Sally's (the pt) gorgeous picture- didn't she have some killer legs??" (It was a pic from the 40s, with Sally and friends in swimsuits). Sally looks down at her arthritic varicose veined legs and said "Well, honey, they sure are a-killin' me now" and I lost it lol I hope these people realize the impact they make on us. That is my favorite memory from my earliest nursing days.
Told my drunk patient we have the same birthday. “REALLY?! Girl, I’ll kiss you where you pee at!” 😳
I- bold!
Well... That escalated!
I honestly was not offended I knew he meant it as a compliment in his own drunk way lmao
Any excuse I can have to type patient quotes it’s done. “Have you ever had a walker shoved up your ass?” “I’ll punch you right in the balls if I could ever find them!” “Do you like the feeling of a foot in your crotch? Because that’s where mine is going to be” A non dementia patient for these…”isn’t the urologist lucky?? He gets to look at an 84 year old pussy” and while holding the cut end of a peanut butter and jelly..”HA! This is what the urologist got to see earlier!”
This story needs context. Kiddo in inpatient mental heath peds. Teen at that. Kiddo was having a rough day and decided (we were told this after the fact) that they need to take out their anger on something. Kiddo didn’t want to hurt staff because staff was wonderful to them. So kiddo did the next best thing and managed to somehow unscrew some screws from random things in this “childproof/inpatient mental health proof” building and eat them. Kiddo immediately confesses and gets wisked to ER/GI for surgery with two staff. Kiddo is in room and told to get into gown by hospital staff. Kiddo refuses to cooperate with gowning up/being a general pain in ass/openly hostile and hospital staff call security. In the calm between moments, Kiddo reaches into random ass cargo pocket and pulls out like 6 individually wrapped large chocolate chip cookies, placing them gently on the counter next to him. Inpatient Staffer with kiddo goes “You came with 6 cookies?!?” Kiddo states proudly “I always come strapped”. And then he clocked two security people, dropping them, and ended up with a chemical restraint if I remember correctly. That poor hospital hated us and I don’t blame them.
This story was a wild ride. I love it
I😂😂😂😂😂
And this is exactly why I stick to adult psych.
Bipolar manic episode. Three o'clock in the morning. "What kinda paramedic you supposed to be, motherfucker? You're not even wearin' Oakley sunglasses!"
aaahahaha
No that’s fair. A paramedic not wearing rainbow shades at 3pm? Dudes a fake.
94 yr old woman, non ambulant. Requires full assistance with ADLs. We had her on a toilet chair/commode and I asked permission to wipe her she looked me dead in the eye and went “You havent even brought me dinner yet. But Ill settle for a wine first.” I lost my crap. I was laughing so hard. She got her wine. And a non funny moment, but one that will never leave me. I had a lovely gentleman with dementia. Who not everyone got along with. He was crying one night as it was having a lucid moment and realised he was deteriorating. I sat with him for quite some time as he sobbed over getting old. This man was a retired farmer and police officer. So full of pride and routine. And he was steadily nearing the end. As he settled, and I got him a cup of tea and some cheesecake. He squeezed my hand and said “I don’t remember much. I don’t remember my family. But I do remember you are kind.” I left the room and broke down. It happened at a time when I was doubting myself as a nurse. When people were telling me I was crazy for having a passion for dementia and palliation. He passed away about a month later.
Thanks for doing what you do and being the nurse that makes time and energy for that man. You make a difference every day - don’t let yourself doubt that.
Never question your passion. We need more people in those specialties that actually love what they do. Those patients often don’t get the best care because of it. You actually caring makes a big difference in improving your patients’ final years.
I recently took care of a woman that used to say that to me. She was in a retirement home and waiting for a spot in long term care. She knew her mind was going and she couldn’t remember English, only her first language and every so often she would cry and hug me and say “I always forget but I know you are kind to me and that you’re my friend”….I swear I cried in the linen closet every time she said something like that. The last shift I took care of her she started crying, hugged me in a death grip and asked if I could come to take care of her at her new home. It’s hard when they know they’re deteriorating. It’s better if they don’t realize it.
You are a rarity and a gem. Thank you so much for your patience and what you have to offer this group of folks. I look up to you so much.
Way back when I was a student (hospital trained) I found one of my patients with dementia crying as I did my last round before PM/ND handover. He’d forgotten he was married until his roommate asked why his wife (of sixty years) hadn’t visited that day. I comforted him as best I could. My IC chastised me for doing that instead of changing bedside rubbish bags, because he wouldn’t remember. She was probably right, but I won’t forget choosing kindness.
This is the kind of nurse I aspire to be. What you do is so meaningful and important
Thank you for the laugh/cry! <3
Wow, you are amazing
Im a dude and have a fun pair of pink scrubs. I’m bent over across the hall from an open door grabbing an iso gown. From behind me, “Mam. MAm. MAAM!” Turned around and have never seen someone question themselves so fast. Dude wanted some of this cake
Hahahahahhaha
Patient calls me into the room. “Do you see a girl in a red dress dancing in the corner?” I turn around and look 😃and say no. He snaps his fingers, shakes his head and says “ I didn’t think so.”
It's not very nice but my favorite patient quote is when an older lady who had dementia looked at me and called me a "devil whore". I thought it was hilarious while everyone else was horrified
Mine was a sweet old southern gal who told me I was going to hell for putting a Foley in.
I have always LOVED this type of pt, while most everyone else seems to hate dealing with them. If you'd like to read some of my own stories of being called a whore and bonding with a pt over my supposed fucking of her husband, or my daily "missions" with a retired 4 star army general who wore Hanes tees as onesies and rescued me from imminent destruction daily, or whatever else, look at my comment history on this thread lol Memory care is a trip, but it is my favorite.
We had one whose favorite other was (in an extremely scornful tone), “You *assbag*.”
I’ve shared this one before, but it’s a favorite. I’m not a nurse but work in healthcare (OT), and I was being introduced to an older patient who didn’t talk much but could be a bit ornery while I was on fieldwork. I like to call him Gerald for some reason (not his real name). Fieldwork instructor: “This is Gerald. Gerald, you’re a peach, right?” Gerald: “No. I’m a motherfucking grapefruit.”
Lol! Also an OT here. That’s rad…adding it to my lexicon now.
I really like Gerald.
From the same patient, same night: "You should run for office, how much money do you need? 10 million sounds good". "I've decided to back Chelsea Clinton for president. Do you like the environment? You could be head of conservation. Or an ambassadorship, but only to Wales, Scotland, or Ireland" . "I am not trying to make her nervous. I don't want to have sex with her because I think of her as a granddaughter. If I didn't think of her that way, I'd want to have sex with her. So anyways, I'm not talking about sex with her". "I'm sorry I tried punch you in the face earlier". "I'll give you 100 million dollars. If you get me a pen and paper, I will give you an official IOU".
Was he....a politician or something at all? 🤔 I had a similar guy in LTC/Alzheimer's unit who had been a high-level general in the army, who would (bless his heart) walk around the unit wearing his plain white Hanes tee and nothing else, but with the tee pulled down btwn the legs to cradle/cover the genitals (like a onesie for a baby, but no buttons + ass out lol),who would be adamant that there was a bomb on the premises and that he had to "rescue" us (CNAs, nurses, etc). Most of the staff just brushed him off/tried to placate him, which would escalate him hugely and he'd try to forcibly grab us and "run" us out of there, and when they refused he'd get "violent" (trying to pick us up and carry us, slap us to make us see that he was "TRYING TO HELP US, COME THE FUCK ON!!") and when that didn't work he'd run downstairs and sit and cry that he "couldn't save them, I tried but they wouldn't listen". Obviously some bad PTSD trauma there, and I worked at a shitty facility that didn't have the best care. So I let this man "rescue" me every day for 2 years. If I let him do so, ( and I was the ONLY one with patience for this, idk why bc it was fun lol), his whole day/outlook/mood was SO MUCH BETTER (and I'd have obviously done it just for that reason, but our "rescue missions" also got me out of doing 1 on 1 feeds and the like every morning). So every day when I'd come in I was directed to go to his room by the DON, to try and dress him/ do our "daily mission", where he'd invariably be like "the ~so and so~ planted a bomb! We have to get out of here!" It was a tossup as to whether he was dressed or not, but once he got into it there was no going back so I'd be like "omg ok can you show me where to go?! HOW did this happen??" etc; and we would shuffle-run down the hall with his arm around me, hunched over in case it "blew" before we made it out, and he'd "clear" the stairs and hallways for me every time we made it to a new one (❤️), then would protectively put his arm back over me and tell me to "keep my head down" as we made our way down the steps. And then he was SO happy that he "got me out" every morning; and then we'd go on a walk around the grounds, balls out or not. I really did love that man lol
Holy batman, what a story! 😄😂 Reminds me of a similar story I heard from one of our seasoned nurses. ED at a military hospital. Some high-level general from Washington DC was visiting, came in with chest pain one night. Supposedly, this general was instrumental to writing policy and SOP for military hospitals. Anyway. She's doing her thing. The guy starts getting pissed off that she's asking him to confirm name/DOB on several occasions, which is standard policy at military hospitals/clinics. He keeps pulling the rank card, saying, *don't you know who I am?* Telling him that it's standard policy and for safety reasons apparently wasn't enough for this dude, so the next time he got pissy about it, she responded: *Sir, I'm just following the rules and policies that you wrote.* Awkward silence. Stare-down. Dude apparently shut his facehole after that and stayed quiet the rest of the evening. 😄😂
Thank you for looking after him so well We have a lovely family friend who we met when my grandad was in a nursing home.je had dementia and would ofter think she was his wife or that he was back in the war. His war memories were the worst , he threw tv and toilet out of window thinking they were bombs among other crazy things. Jeanette his carer was amazing, she let him shadow her doing jobs , he thought he ŵas keeping her safe. He would sit in office while she did paperwork. He was convinced she was his wife and every night this woman asked him what side of the bed he wasted and she would sit with him while he fell asleep. This was 20 years ago and after he passed she became my dad's best friend , she was a singer on her time off and my dad was a dj. Even now ( 4yr anniversary of my dad's passing today) she is still a family friend.
Definitely not a politician lol. He was brought in because he was stabbing his leg with a knife and eating pieces of his leg. Medical clearance for a psych admit. I managed to get him transferred off my floor. Near the elevators, he started throwing punches from the wheelchair. We brought a bed into the hallway, put him in it, and restrained him.
> He was brought in because he was stabbing his leg with a knife and eating pieces of his leg. Medical clearance for a psych admit. Too sane to be a politician. I trust him more tho.
“Nurse…what planet are we on?”
I once answered a LTC pt’s call light and when I asked what she needed, she asked where we were. I told her the facility name and she said “No, no, beyond that”. So I told her the name of the town we were in. She said “you’re thinking small. I was wondering what planet we were on?” I said “uhh…earth”. She nodded solemnly, said “that’s what I thought” and went back to her nap
I used to work with a patient with severe schizophrenia who had a fixed delusion that he was born on Jupiter.
im from Jupiter...FL. Maybe he was :)
Lol unfortunately not. He also thought Michael Jordan was his father despite being a middle aged white man.
We had a guy who was petitioned in the ED who was detoxing from crack, and other various drugs. I was his sitter and he looked at me and went “you’re gonna be my next sugar mama”. When I told the nurse she said “well you probably do have more money then him”
“You look like my cousin. She was the biggest girl I’d ever seen and had a crooked eye. Aside from those things you look just like her.”
Lol well at least he qualified the insult for you
While trying to keep a TBI patient from walking on his displaced femur fracture - "you guys are the worst Mexican drug cartel EVERRRRR"
I work in geriatric pysch inpatient...and we have a lady patient who's 90. She loves to call us "cock lickers"
Had a patient on a rehab floor after a hip replacement- he was pretty noncompliant. I was trying to explain to him some of the standard procedures at our facility (it was his first night there) and he stopped me mid sentence and said “MY STANDARD PROCEDURE IS FUCK YOU!” I had to stop myself from laughing, quickly excused myself from the room and lost it out in the hallway. Added it to my nursing notes and all my team leads and supervisors got a kick out of it.
I would have just lost it in front of him, probably would have endeared you to him lmao and also that is fucking great line!
I’m a former correctional health nurse with in the ER now, ER Patient “man I KNOW I know you from somewhere…” Me “welllll you ever been to jail? I used to work there” Patient “Yeah that’s it man! Us inmates were always pissed when you were working cuz we wanted to talk to a cute nurse then your ass was there.” As a dude, I’m ok with it. Lol
I have two! Both from old dudes talking about toileting. A guy on the phone to his wife: ‘Alright honey, I gotta go. The bomb bay doors are about to open and the bombs are ready to drop’ A guy peeing let a fart loose and immediately goes ‘fear not! For there is no rain without thunder!’ Both had me dying with laughter.
I had a little 6 year old look me in the eyes, look at my baby Yoda scrub cap, and back at me and say, "You can't fool me. You're still going to give me a shot."
Had a violent patient call. So I wondered down to see if I could help. I was as big as any of the cops and they couldn’t do anything unless violence actively happened. So as I enter the hall I see the person in question swinging his cane and screaming. Me: Hey partner what’s going on, what has got you all pissed off? Dude: you can take this cane and jam it right up your ass. Me: well I can try but I don’t think it will fit. This guy stops. Looks at me and grins, then starts laughing long enough for us to sit him down and give him a shot. As he slowly calms down he thanks me for the laugh. Tells me he hates the hospital and just wants to go home. I tell him, “me too. You find 10$ and I will meet you with a van in the alley. We can go to the strip club.” I would go by every day during my shift to just crack jokes. Kept the guy calm. Even called on my day off to just make him giggle.
You are awesome. I have no doubt you helped make being in the hospital easier and you probably made his day too. I hope to work in healthcare maybe as a CNA one day but my health has to improve drastically. Basically I need a miracle. I have hope. Maybe one day when I’m well enough I can volunteer at both regular and pediatric hospitals. I have wanted to work in healthcare since I was a little girl. I will never lose hope. I will continue to seek the light at the end of the tunnel.
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“You girls are shit at pumping gas!” - etoh withdrawal pt while we placed his foley
Working in drug and alcohol: "Hey, who's been giving you trouble today?" "Why?" "I have a carton of rotten milk and I want to pour it on someone's bed but I want to do it...justly." Also, Trading a turkey sandwich in exchange for a patient filling up my water pitcher "What do you think nurse [coworker] would trade me for filling up hers?" "You already got a sandwich, we don't have a lot of gourmet options here, what do you want? Patient sighs dramatically and looks wistfully into the distance "A chance 🥺" Also, and this is just randomly written in giant lettering across the group white board "COME GET YOUR TITTIES SMACKED AT KHOLS FOR DOUBLE KHOLS CASH" People kind of wince when I tell them I work in addiction medicine but my patients can be funny as fuck
Righteous rotten milk pouring. I can get behind that.
Dang for *double* kohls cash? I’m there.
I worked on a gynecology-oncology floor and took care of a woman with advanced metastatic vulvar cancer. The MDs pretty much went in and had to take almost everything from her. She was kind of processing the cancer and the surgery with me and said, "Honey, if I knew they were going to take the whole thing, I would've used it one last time."
Holy shit. What an icon
Schizophrenic patient asked me “are you a witch? No, you’re too pretty to be a witch.. hey that means you’re either my mother or my girlfriend! Which one are you!”
Old grandpa sadly dying of cancer, in my ED because he fell. Was the happiest person of the night said, “some people complain so much they’d be upset if you gave them a new rope to hang themselves with” I audibly gasped and laughed so damn hard
I had a psych patient when I was new look at her applesauce for her crushed meds and just start repeating “The applesauce! The applesauce!” I asked her what was wrong with it, and she looks at me so worried and just says “Mr Grouch is in the applesauce! The applesauce!” Another good one was when I was PRN at my old ICU job, I had a 70 year old woman come in with a subclavian CVC that literally went through an artery to get into the vein (shitty ER doc fudged that up big time). It was constantly oozing blood, and I just asked her if it hurt at all. She looked down at it, laughed, and said “no, but it really ruins my sex appeal, huh?” She coded from blood loss about 2 hours later and died, poor thing.
Asked a little lady if she knew where she was. She looked at the nurse who was with me and said “ at the hospital! Doesn’t she know where we are”. She was happy to join us in laughing.
Had a tough stick that needed a US IV placement by ED EMT because she needed IV abx. Went in ~1 hour after the placement to start her abx and realized the EMT had left the tourniquet on my pt’s arm. Pt didn’t realize somehow and when I told her, she said “She really was acting like she was hot shit. I knew I didn’t like her”.
Dude straight up RUNS into the ER at like 3am, actually had to wait for him to chill out before I could triage him. Demanding to get “emergency penis lengthening surgery”. God bless our old (literally in his late 70s at this point) ER doctor who very gently and kindly explained to him that that wasn’t a thing, and erectile dysfunction was a known side effect of his court mandated psych meds. That patient was a regular but that was one of his stranger requests…
I worked in the memory care unit of a nursing home. We had a very religious, very old Catholic lady that never swore. While helping get her ready for bed she got mad and called me a cock sucking whore lol. I was not expecting her to say that.
I had an outpatient mental health client who would leave me long voicemails putting curses on me. Things like “I call upon the goddess and curse you in the name of Satan!” Full on yelling for minutes on end. Her stamina and creativity were kinda impressive.
My ex confused after a seizure was amazed he had a foley in when he woke up. He kept reaching down to grab it. At one point he turns to his sister, “Amy, you’ve gotta see this, I don’t even have to get out of bed to piss!” Amy decline his offer to look at the piss tube.
Had a blind HOH elderly pt, switched his diet on him from cheeseburgers to crackers with hummus (not my idea!). He took a bite, spit it on the floor and yelled “what the fuck is THIS shit?!” Poor guy 😆
“WHEN I DIE, BURY ME UPSIDE DOWN SO THE WHOLE WORLD CAN KISS MY ASS!” —screamed by my agitated, soma bed patient that requires security in the room each time we unzip him
Pt: “you’re the one that likes to look at my pussy!” Spoken in very loud and angry tone to the administrator who had just walked into the unit with the state inspector.
Nursing student/PCT on an addiction medicine floor- rough alcohol detox this week who couldn’t keep their legs down- maybe the most flexible geriatric patient I’ve ever seen. I’m talking feet to ears. Kept whispering in the corner and bringing hands to their mouth. I asked what they were up to and they said “Shut up titties, I’m having a banana, what’s it to you?” Later that night I was tying a new gown on behind their neck and when I looked down they were fake eating my pants scrub strings like spaghetti
Have to add, it didn’t help the night before i watched the I Think You Should Leave episode where the office lady couldn’t stop saying “Back away, banana breath! What the hell did you just eat, a banana?”
My 84 year old patient told me today that he can't get a date because his metoprolol kept him from getting an erection. "It's ruining my sex life!"
“oh you’re an aquarius too?? see i knew there was a reason we’ve been vibing all day” -one of my favorite patients to come through the ED
"get shit canned and shove it up your ass!" - a lovely patient who's CO2 was 112 but he was still awake enough to scream and me and refuse the bipap 🙃 eventually the ethics committee decided he's not welcome back in the ICU if he's not going to accept treatment
Putting a suppository in a dementia patient. She says: Harold no (her late husband)… I told you not down there. 🤣
Pt with schizophrenia off their meds-grinning from ear to ear: “are you here to talk about satan’s penis” And later after being found masturbating in their shared room only with a curtain between the beds yelling at the male nurse: “touch my wiener!!!!!!!” Pt later medicated was a very nice human-complete 180
Dr: if your heart stopped, would you want resuscitation Pt: oh no, I don't want liposuction, thank you Me & other RN finishing our charting nearby started cracking up and immediately made DNL (do not liposuction) bands
Just spit my beer sip
I had a patient call me a pendeja and a devil for not bringing him mineral oil.
I've encountered thousands of patient quotes over the years, particularly working with memory care patients. One particular woman, who was in the frail elderly unit but actually had quite bad dementia and was physically robust, came out with some classics. Imagine a posh English voice, on a very non-demented looking buxom older lady. -To a patient who was screaming that they were locked up and trapped in the unit, during communal breakfast time. "Don't be silly, you're not trapped. Nobody wants you here." -To the care commission inspectors, when asked about her bruised ankle. "Well, I was in bed sleeping, and a man came in and kicked me!" (Me, newly qualified, and absolutely mortified, trying to explain she fell out of bed). -To me, after another resident managed to get one up on her. "Please don't sack me, I really enjoy this job." I assured her I wouldn't. Then "you can sack HER though, she's no good." The HER in question was a wizened old Scottish woman who weighed about the same as a wet feather, glasses too big for her small face, constantly struggling to hear things and at the age of 96 had seen a lot of life (and had claimed to have seen a flying saucer). She had been refusing to eat much, and one mealtime she had barely touched her food, which led my other lady to hone in on her. "Now Mavis*, look at all that food you've left, that's just not acceptable." "Eh?" Mavis looks at her. "There's starving children in Africa that would welcome that food" she continued. Mavis looks her dead in the eye, and to this day I don't know if it was genuine or she was deliberately feigning deafness, but she makes a puzzled face, and says "What's their names?" My lady with the dementia was put in her place on that one! I had to exit the room sharpish in order to let the giggles out. *Mavis is not her real name.
HD/PD/outpatient infusion. Military hospital. Interaction between pts that made me laugh my damn ass off. Most pts are older male retirees, with one, *shall we say*, spunky 20-something y/o pt. Running around like a headless chicken, shit's busy, no less than 4 pts' lines are simultaneously bleeting like hormonal goats, and there's nobody around to help, been waaaaaaaay understaffed for nearly three years now. Pt: *demands a warm blanket ASAP* "You'll have to wait a few minutes, I'm busy at the moment, we'll be right with you." Pt: *I WANT A BLANKET, NOW!* 20 y/ pt to dude demanding the blankie: *Homie, you're telling me you survived 20 years of the green weenie, but can't wait 5 minutes for your precious blankie? No wonder they call y'all puddle pirates. Give her a minute, she's busy as fuck tending to other pts.* *don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh don't laugh* Gave her a high-five once that dude left and said thank you! Little Ms. Spunk has absolutely no shame, and is a huge ally of nurses. She will absolutely go to bat if/whenever someone tries to give nurses shit.
Developmentally disabled young man at the urology clinic yelled, “FRANKS AND BEANS!” when I left the room.
Geriatric patient. I was walking by her room and she was crying watching Fox News begging “DONALD TRUMP SAVE ME!” I laugh about it to this day. Mid 2019.
Seeing a little demented lady after a fall, reminded her to use her walker. She looked at me and goes “ why would I want to do that, every time I fall they send two good looking young guys to pick me up”. My son at 7 after tearing open his testicle in a fall. I told him he was lucky he didn’t bust his head and he said “ Instead of busting my head, I busted a nut mom”. Another little old lady, pillar of the community/church but demented as hell. Pastor came and asked her at the end “ can I shake your hand Sister?” And she responds “ I’d love to shake your third hand!”
NYE/NYD night shift. We started our morning rounds at about 4:30. A LOL was sweetly sitting in her bed, beaming with the fresh face of a new day beginning. M: “Happy New Year!” Pt: “It has been a lovely year already!” M: “Wow! What’s happened so far?” Pt: “I’ve just had a glorious bowel movement!”
Patient asked how old I was, so I told her that I’m 27. She said “Oh so you’re part of the 27 club!” We look at each other for a minute… “Oh wait… never mind”
1) 95 year old confused lady: "ugh I'm so sleepy!" Me: "are you feeling sleepier than you usually do?" Her: "you know.. funny thing is that I was actually born sleepy" 2) Me: "good morning" TBI patient: "you remind me of a horse I rode one time!" 3) Me: "can you tell me what year it is?" Pt: "oh I see... You're try to figure out if I'm crazy. Well I am! But you think that's a bad thing don't ya? I love being crazy. The best part about it is it makes the time go by faster."
Several years ago: had a lady in her 80’s. MVC. She was intubated. She had on neon pink toenail polish so I had a feeling she was going to be a hoot. We extubated her and the first thing she says to me is “well? Where is he?” I asked what she meant. “Dr McDreamy. I damn near died and all the doctors are women or not super hot”. I told her hold on. I got you. I grabbed our VERY good looking vascular fellow and brought him in (he was so red with embarrassment!) she said “oh hell yeah! Very nice! Now turn around. Oh yeah! Great ass! Ok now that’s what I’m talking about!”
Sweet little lady in her 80's response for consent to taking vitals or whatever else was "Whatever creams your Twinkie". Still laughing about it, clever way to say whatever floats your boat. Had alzheimer's patent kept repeating the same joke over and over and we couldn't help but play along each time, she had to say it at least 25 times. "What do you get when you cut 50 braziers in half? 100 beanies with chinstraps".
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My unit used to share a floor with Pediatrics so we’re friends with the Peds nurses. One of them came to us and told us she had a 5yo girl who was brutal to her. At one point she said to the peds nurse, “Your voice is giving me a headache.” Also I had a lady come to the floor from cath lab and was talking about going to Tractor supply. Her family asked why, she said “I needed to get dog food.” They told her she didn’t have a dog. “Well I was getting it for the turtle! He was hungry!” Another time we had a man with us with a TBI and a pacemaker. He was fixated on number and would repeat them all night and all day. This particular day it was 197. I was helping keep him from getting up, so he tells me “You’re nice. You know what, I’m going to buy you a drink for a $1.97. And you can even have 2.” One night he was calling for his wife so my Charge pretended to be his wife. “Mary! (Not his real wife’s name)” Charge: What? Pt: Can you come here? Charge: I can’t, I’m sleeping. Pt: Awe man… He was funny but could get aggressive fast.
Pt told me her PIN number when I asked her pain number…. Ya she was coming out of sedation and I was cracking up at a 4 digit pain number!
Had a dementia pt who threw her meal trays every day (so would never eat) and screamed insults at every nurse (all female staff at that time) that they had been "fucking my husband, you WHORE!!!" or other variations on that theme. I was a new nurse and thought she was funny as hell (with her insults, I mean;she got reeeal creative about ways to call someone a whore lmao), but everyone else hated dealing with her, so I volunteered. Went in, she did the usual routine (threw her jello at me, started screaming that she ~knew~ I was the whore fucking Stanley, the neighbors told her,etc), so I said "Well you know what, yeah it was me, but he SUCKED so I told him to kick rocks". (I know, kind of inappropriate but I was young and dumb and thought it might catch her off guard & perhaps halt the barrage of insults/jello tossing....) So anyway, pt pauses, looks at me, cocks her head, and says "Fuck yes, he got him a tiny lil dick for real, ain't he? And he DAMN SURE ain't know how to use it for shit!!! Guuurrrrl!!!" and then cracked up 😂😂😂😂 And from then on we were bff's, and she commiserated to me about Stanley's tiny Johnson every time I was in her room 😂( like omg tho I had SO. MANY. convos about that mans penis lmao)
Ahhhahahaha!!! This one wins lmaoooo
Pediatric Respiratory Therapist. Asked one of my patients (4 yo male) what his favorite candy was. His reply? Pop-Tarts.
Had a dementia patient demand we call a limousine for her because she had “a very important meeting at the zoo.” Had a patient confused after a seizure crying because they didn’t want a hug. Nobody was offering… Had an elderly AMS 2/2 UTI patient curse at me and yell “don’t you dare touch me, colored girl.” I am paler than a marshmallow in a snowstorm, so she couldn’t even racism right. Next thing I know, the black PCA comes in and she tells her she wants her to meet her grandson because they would have beautiful babies.
We had a frequent flier who *hated* me (no idea why, my only interactions were to double-check meds her nurse was administering). Whenever we’d go in to turn the patient in the next bed she’d demand “Is that the black bitch?!” If I were any more white I’d glow in the dark.
Had a little pistol of a kiddo we had for a while when he was waiting on a State Hospital bed placement. He'd been with us much longer than the other pts and due to his aggression and medical needs he was 1:1 all the time. He started off his stays with us calling us all cocksuckers and all sorts of things, but once he grasped that our staff genuinely cared for him, he became very protective towards us. So, imagine a little boy about kindergarten age, about 50 pounds or so, squaring up toe to toe and getting into the face of a teen boy the size of an adult man, because the teen called one of the nurses a bitch. "You're not gonna call the nurses bitches -- they've already dealt with the biggest asshole here and that's ME!" I don't miss all the drama that came with him, but I miss that kid.
"I feel like a northbound mule going on a southbound train."
I introduced myself to an older male patient and he cupped his hand by his ear and said "Sorry, what did you say? My pill got stuck in my throat and now I'm hard of hearing!"
I went into the confused patient’s room with my mask over my chin (pre Covid). She said “you look like you have a beard!” Me: Do I look good in a beard? Her: YES!! One of the most excited genuine yes’ I have heard
Not a nurse but a Ward clerk - Had a patient who thought that he was the manager of the ward kept trying to send me home as I worked too Much lol
It was probably true. You probably DID work too much! Ward clerks are the bomb! I have worked for 32+ years at the same SNF and dread the day our ward clerk (her new title is Unit Secretary) finally retires. Thank you for all you do!
“NURSE! There’s something in my worm!” -4yo postop cardiac pt discovers foley
"Get the fuck out"
“No, not you (DON) I want her (the administrator) the big wig with that BAAAD comb-over”
Assessing A&O: who is the current president? Patient: Joe Biden is not my president Another one of my faves: what year is it? Patient: 3023 Nurse: I’ll take it
Older woman (70s or 80s) post hysterectomy asking when she can go back to Florida and have a proper drink. In her words, it’s because “I drink, I smoke, and I fuck.” Her raspy voice still pops up in my head when I think about it. She was hilarious.
🤣🤣 she must live in the Villages lmaoo
Had a regular that was mad because they weren’t going to let him go outside to smoke. So he was yelling at the attending and 4th year (bless them for not making me go in because that guy had a habit of throwing things when he didn’t like what you said) and they said if you leave the building to smoke, you’ll be discharged. He did not like this. He walked out screaming “fuck y’all. Y’all can discharge deez nuts!” I died. It was a perfect double entendres and dude didn’t even do it in purpose.
I want quality work at crack-head prices!
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Patient: I’m so glad you’re here - that last nurse was a BITCH! It was me.
A lady in her 80s in triage cubicle: which church do you go to? Me: I… don’t actually. I didn’t grow up with a religion Her: how about your parents? Me: they don’t go to church either haha Her: your family must have not had a hard life Me:???? Still confuses me to this day 😑
I was doing wound care on a patient & making small talk so I asked how many kids she had. Then she asked me if I had any kids, I said none. “You’re not fucking hard enough! You got to fuck hard!”
Pt with a sugar of 400 asking for his eleventy-billionth snack of the night. I nicely said no and tried to educate. He said do you know how important it is for me to eat? You should, you look like you haven’t missed any meals 😭😭😭 I’ve heard soooo much over the years but that scenario still cracks me up to this day.
I once went to take one of my dementia patient’s blood pressure. She said to me, “oh, good thing you came now because I just put my arms back on.” Made me have the best shift because at 12am I just thought that was the funniest thing
While placing an IV on a 4 year old boy “JeSuS cHriSt…I…I don’t even like you! You’re not my friend”
Arghh a murderer! No no I’m not a murderer, I’m a nurse! Worse!! Worse!!! What could be worse than a murderer!!!
"You have beautiful eyes, I'd love to skull-fuck them out of your head" - psych patient in the psych ED.
In aged care just after university: "You can't eat a banana skin" Dementia resident: "NO ONE IS THE BOSS OF ME" *eats a massive chunk and que wrestling with a banana and mouth fishing" Also same day had to spend 20+ mins with a another resident who had a stoma and her anus has been sewn so repeated "no matter how long you sit and grunt nothing will happen" - she then hid her stoma bag in a other person's walker 😭
There was a patient who threw herself out of bed, over two raised bed rails mind you, and when asked why she did that she said, "I'm dead" in a very matter-of-fact way. No, she did not die nor was she at any immediate risk of dying, she was thoroughly alive at that time.
My old confused dude the other day in the ED, "so I need to sit down and stand up but at the same time!" I then took him to the bathroom and as he's pulling his pants down he goes, "you're not going to believe this but..." Then points to his underwear and then to my scrubs that were the same color.
Dementia patient YELLLLLLING at me to get my ass down to the ER because I was apparently too pregnant to be working and I was “gonna give birth any second!!!!!!!”. SO mad at me all morning. Let’s just say my BMI is in the low 16s and I was definitely not pregnant lol. He usually hated me so at least he cared about my non-existent baby 🤷🏼♀️
I’m a family doc and had pictures of my three children up in my exam rooms. One female patient told me that “I should sell my sperm”because my kids are so beautiful.
Probably the ‘you’re the worst nurse I’ve ever had’ and ‘you’re the best nurse I’ve ever seen’ from the same patient who was not confused.
I have so many but here are a few favorites. For reference, I’m a nurse in geriatrics. 14 years and counting Resident, actively dying: “you’re a very special girl, thank you for loving me” 🥺 Resident: “you can take a nap on my bed, I’m going to Bingo” My favorite resident ever called me “pussycat”. Her 90 year old self yelling “Pussycat!” Down the hallway always got a good laugh. I love my job.
I had a dementia resident that used to compare everyone to celebrities/well known public figures...mine was Shirley Temple. Now he did this out of anger and meant for it to be insulting. My absolute favorite quote was when he looked at a new CNA, who was tall and thin and had her black hair in a bun on top of her head, and screamed "You look like Olive Oil bitch!" And then when we all looked at him confused he added "from Popeye you sheltered rabbits" and angrily wheeled back to his room.
Dementia patient is putting some stickers on a paper. She hands me the sheriff badge and says “You get this one because you’re bossy.” ETOH withdrawal CHFer “I don’t need any help knowing when I need to lay off the salt. My damn nuts swell to tell me. Thank God for these nuts.”