Journal of Nursing Jocularity

10. The man who snuck in his three cats to visit his asthmatic wife.

9. The visitor who ate all his father’s food, then rang the nurse to say that the patient was still hungry and needed another tray.

8. The wife who asked you to take her stroked-out husband to the bathroom whenever SHE really was the one who had to go.

7. The son who emptied his mother’s colostomy bag into the waste basket at the nurse’s station.

6. The male visitor who fell asleep in the patient’s bed while she was in the bathroom.

5. The wife who discontinued her husband’s CVP line herself, because “John likes to sleep on his right side.”

4. The 80 year old daughter of the 98 year old man, who kept drinking her father’s continuous IV fluids whenever she got thirsty.

3. The children of one patient who insisted upon using their mother’s portable IPPB machine as a scooter in the hallway.

2.The husband who kept sneaking in chocolates for his newly diagnosed diabetic wife. The jig was up when he hid them under her roommate’s bed and the whole room was infested with cockroaches.

1. The man who never actually visited his brother, but called 12 times every shift to criticize the nurses, the doctors, the food, and anything else that came to mind.

My son, then three years old, stated “Mama, I got diarrhea.” I thought that was a big word for him, so I asked him to tell me what diarrhea meant. He said, “You know, that’s when your doodoo is kinda melted.”

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Years ago when I was a new grad, I worked on a med-surg floor. On one occasion, I had a confused patient recovering from hip surgery. She was Poseyed and frequently screamed. Loudly.

One evening, after listening to her for several hours, I tried all I knew to quiet her down. I gave up. I walked into her room, sat at her bedside, and looked her right in the eyes.

“Honey,” I said. “Stop screaming. You’re driving me to drink.”

She stopped screaming, patted me on the head, and said, “Oh, sweetheart. Don’t blame me for your drinking problem.”

I was at the nurses’ station when a patient’s wife passed by, carrying a large, apparently heavy cardboard box. A few minutes later, the patient’s call light went on. I went into the room and the patient asked me if I would give this box to the doctor. I must have looked puzzled.

The patient said, “He told me to have my wife bring in all my old records!”

• When stripping a bed, there will invariably be a surprise package in it.  Wear gloves.
• Armpit odor will linger on your forearm for two days.  Drape a towel over your arm before your lift your patient onto the shower chair.
• Bleach helps remove BM from under your fingernails.
• Always avert your face when disconnecting any type of urine tubing.  Droplets will flick in your direction.
• Dear, sweet Granny will drool on your shoulder while you lovingly help her pivot into bed.
• When you turn patients over to wash their backs and bottoms, expect a release of gas.
• During your career in Chronic Care Nursing, you will be called a whore (and many other choice words) in at least six different languages.
• Your unit will always have at least one finger paint artist whose favorite color is brown.
• That same patient is usually the one that loves to  hold your hand and pinch your cheek.
• The patient you just meticulously groomed will have a messy accident just as his son, a prominent lawyer, walks in.
• The newer and more expensive your unit is, the greater the chance pureed spinach will be sneezed onto it.
• Cups of OJ with Peri-Colace mixed in will be flung at you with great regularity.
• Never buy work shoes that cannot be thrown in the wash with copious amounts of bleach.
• The biggest complainer on your unit will have a daughter on your hospital’s Board of Trustees. When the Nurses’ Aides have gone on break and you are passing meds, at least six patients will urgently need to be helped to the bathroom. Simultaneously, your supervisor and at least two physicians will appear.
• The MOM you gave, hoping it would kick in on the next shift, takes effect the next day, when you are in the previous situation.
• Yes, you too will come face-to-face with an exploding colostomy bag.
• By the time you retire, you will become an expert translator of gibberish in multiple languages, including Physicianese.
• Disasters come in clusters. Always have several incident report forms, death certificates, lab forms, straight-cath kits, suction machines, x-ray requisitions and suture kits ready before you begin your shift.
• The family that only visits once a year will find it absolutely incomprehensible that their Mom with Alzheimer’s doesn’t recognize them, but she just loves you and the rest of the staff.

By Christine Stephens, RN

I was assigned to a patient who had just undergone a total abdominal hysterectomy. At the beginning of the shift, my instructor told me to get the numbers off the pump.

When I promptly brought the numbers back to her, she looked at me with a confused expression and said,”Where did all these numbers come from?”

I told her. After she finished laughing, she explained she needed the readings on the amount of medication that had been infured. Not what I had brought: the serial numbers off the back of the pump!