Journal of Nursing Jocularity

Medical professionals across the nation have begun to report a spike in patients presenting with unusual symptoms.  An insightful team of nurses (who also happen to have ESPN available in every room of their homes, including the bathroom, and amazing fantasy football stats, thank you very much) have identified the following characteristics as defining Post Superbowl Syndrome:

Sore Throat/Loss of Voice

Generally seen as a result of unrestrained vocalizations during interceptions, fumbles, and dropped passes that could have been caught by little Joey Redhead from the Pop Warner team. Can be seen in fans of either team, as exuberant celebrations are just as rough on the vocal cords!

GI Complaints

Nausea, stomach cramps, and general gastrointestinal discomfort can manifest when a much applauded quarterback disappoints loyal fans.  Also attributable to questionable chicken wings served during tailgating.

Tremors in Hands

Reported primarily among Steeler’s fans, this symptom manifests as a rapid waving of one or both hands, generally accompanied by the vehement repetition of the phrase “I don’t want to talk about it!”  The frequency of tremors generally abates as the Superbowl fades into memory, but can return with full force upon being reminded of the game by fans of opposing teams, often for years to come.

Brett Favre-itis

A bizarre condition, generally seen among professional sportscasters, that forces sufferers to bring up Brett Favre’s name at least once every five minutes in any discussion of the game, despite the fact that Favre currently plays for neither team.  PRN application of the statement, “Yes, and now Rogers has just as many Superbowl Rings” can be beneficial but be cautious: adverse reactions have been recorded.

Abrupting Fleeing From The Room Screaming

Some controversy exists about whether fleeing from the room screaming upon a re-broadcast of the half time show is a sign of Post Superbowl Syndrome or a sign that your ears are working perfectly well. Consult with your attending physician.

We’re proud to announce the winner of the JNJ Limerick Contest. With more than 100 votes, the winning limerick is:

This patient’s a pain in the duodenum
With demands for both catheter and freedom.
So unable to cope
Nurse Bob swung his stethoscope,
Got her hypnotized larynx to be numb.

The use of duodenum – admittedly not the most commonly rhymed word in the world – cinched the victory for our Poet Laureate. She’ll be receiving an autographed copy of This Won’t Hurt a Bit: And Other Fractured Truths in Healthcare.

Want your own copy? Click here:

It’s the third week of our Limerick Contest! All this month, we’re soliciting limericks from our readership (and free range poets!) in a competition to see if we can find the best Medical Limerick EVER.

Here are the top three entries we’ve received this week. Make sure to vote for your favorite by leaving a comment sharing which one you thought was best. At the end of the month, we’ll be having a final vote to select the best of all the winning limericks! The winner receives an autographed copy of “This Won’t Hurt A Bit!” and fame and glory!

Without further ado:

Limerick A:

Four A.M. is a bad time to be calling
And Doc, I can tell that you’re stalling
But the patient who’s strictly NPO
Just ate an onion burrito
And the fumes have all the staff bawling!

Limerick B:

On this unit, they say we’re a team
That’s either a hallucination or a dream
Whenever there’s a Code Brown
Nurses head out of town
Staff cohesion is not what it may seem!

Limerick C:

I understand that your scraped knee
Is indeed a catastrophe
You’ve surely been cursed
With pain levels 12+ – “The Worst!”
Right after this Code we’ll be with you promptly!

Do You Have Poetry In Your Soul? ENTER THE CONTEST!

Here’s what you need to do:

Write a humorous limerick related to the world of nursing and patient care and send it to Cindy@journalofnursingjocularity.com Each week throughout January, we’ll be posting the best ones we receive and letting our readers vote for the best. All of the winning limericks will then be posted on January 31st, and readers will be able to each pick their favorite. The author who wrote the limerick that receives the most votes wins an autographed copy of Karyn Buxman’s This Won’t Hurt A Bit! And Other Fractured Truths in Healthcare and more importantly, fame and glory unmatched by any other honor available in the world of medical poetry today!

Don’t forget to vote! Leave a comment indicating which of the limericks are your favorite. Comments are being collected and tallied to select the winners!

It’s the second week of our Limerick Contest! All this month, we’re soliciting limericks from our readership (and free range poets!) in a competition to see if we can find the best Medical Limerick EVER.

Here are the top three entries we’ve received this week. Make sure to vote for your favorite by leaving a comment sharing which one you thought was best. At the end of the month, we’ll be having a final vote to select the best of all the winning limericks! The winner receives an autographed copy of “This Won’t Hurt A Bit!” and fame and glory!

Without further ado:

Limerick A:

Nurse Nathan’s adroitness is stellar
when he wrestles a sticking umbrella.
Yet on a dance floor
He howls out, “No more!
This is killing my tricky patella!”

Limerick B:

A patient I had in Alberquerqe
claimed an allergy to cold turkey
A slice on his plate
Would make his stomach gyrate
And his movements grow terribly jerky!

Limerick C:

I once had a patient named Perkins
who adored eating pickles and gherkins
She found them so nice
Adored all their spice
and pickled her internal workin’s

Do You Have Poetry In Your Soul? ENTER THE CONTEST!

Here’s what you need to do:

Write a humorous limerick related to the world of nursing and patient care and send it to Cindy@journalofnursingjocularity.com Each week throughout January, we’ll be posting the best ones we receive and letting our readers vote for the best. All of the winning limericks will then be posted on January 31st, and readers will be able to each pick their favorite. The author who wrote the limerick that receives the most votes wins an autographed copy of Karyn Buxman’s This Won’t Hurt A Bit! And Other Fractured Truths in Healthcare and more importantly, fame and glory unmatched by any other honor available in the world of medical poetry today!

Don’t forget to vote! Leave a comment indicating which of the limericks are your favorite (Comments may take a while to appear so please only vote once!)

It’s the first week of our Limerick Contest! All this month, we’re soliciting limericks from our readership (and free range poets!) in a competition to see if we can find the best Medical Limerick EVER.

Here are the top three entries we’ve received this week. Make sure to vote for your favorite by leaving a comment sharing which one you thought was best. At the end of the month, we’ll be having a final vote to select the best of all the winning limericks! The winner receives an autographed copy of “This Won’t Hurt A Bit!” and fame and glory!

Without further ado:

Limerick A:

This patient’s a pain in the duodenum
With demands for both catheter and freedom.
So unable to cope
Nurse Bob swung his stethoscope,
Got her hypnotized larynx to be numb.

Limerick B:

My dementia patient was on the run,
Frantically searching for his gun.
“But why, David?” I asked with some alarm,
Wherefore he urgently grabbed me by the arm,
Said: “Don’t go outside, it’s not safe, Doc.
Out there in the garden is a man-eating croc.”
“Surely, David, that cannot be true”,
And he winked and assured me: “Don’t worry, Doc, I will shoot it for you!”

Limerick C:

Marie, who had failed intubation,
was called to assist respiration.
“If they want to breathe,”
that charming nurse seethed,
“they’ll have to await inspiration.”

Do You Have Poetry In Your Soul? ENTER THE CONTEST!

Here’s what you need to do:

Write a humorous limerick related to the world of nursing and patient care and send it to Cindy@journalofnursingjocularity.com Each week throughout January, we’ll be posting the best ones we receive and letting our readers vote for the best. All of the winning limericks will then be posted on January 31st, and readers will be able to each pick their favorite. The author who wrote the limerick that receives the most votes wins an autographed copy of Karyn Buxman’s This Won’t Hurt A Bit! And Other Fractured Truths in Healthcare and more importantly, fame and glory unmatched by any other honor available in the world of medical poetry today!

Don’t forget to vote! Leave a comment indicating which of the limericks are your favorite (Comments may take a while to appear so please only vote once!)

Editor’s Note: This was sent to us by “Anonymous” who writes “Names have been changed to protect the clumsy!”

Fred’s catheter tubing hung down,
Off the bed, barely clearing the ground.
Then his nurse, Betty-Lou,
Hooked the tube with her shoe.
Fred’s yell was heard all over town!

ENTER OUR LIMERICK CONTEST!

It’s that time of year again: The Journal of Nursing Jocularity Limerick Contest begins TODAY! Want to win fame, glory, and the chance to be proclaimed a Most Excellent Poet by your peers and colleagues?

Here’s what you need to do:

Write a humorous limerick related to the world of nursing and patient care and send it to Cindy@journalofnursingjocularity.com Each week throughout January, we’ll be posting the best ones we receive and letting our readers vote for the best. All of the winning limericks will then be posted on January 31st, and readers will be able to each pick their favorite. The author who wrote the limerick that receives the most votes wins an autographed copy of Karyn Buxman’s This Won’t Hurt A Bit! And Other Fractured Truths in Healthcare and more importantly, fame and glory unmatched by any other honor available in the world of medical poetry today!

Need some help getting started? Here’s a great article on How to Write Limericks. (Although the article says don’t be afraid to be dirty, we’ve got to say that if you want us to publish it, keep it family friendly, folks!)

We can’t wait to see what you come up with!

2011 starts in just a few days.  That means it’s time to make your resolutions!  We’ve polled some of our favorite nurses to see what they’re planning to do to make 2011 the Best Year Ever.  Here’s the results:

• I will give up chocolate.  Really.  Honest.  Why is everybody laughing?
• I will stop blaming my electronic charting errors on magnetic storms and nearby lightning.
• I will not bore my NM by calling in with the same old excuse.  I will come up with creative, exciting reasons that I can’t make it in to work.
• I will grow into my weight.  By December 2011, I expect to be 9 feet tall.
• I will stop looking for arcane wisdom hidden in my patient’s tattoos.
• I will refrain from sneering at anyone who has more than 5 body piercings but claims to be afraid of needles.
• I will never give a laxative and a sleeping pill to a patient at the same time. Even if I’m going off duty immediately thereafter.
• I will no longer shout “Hooray!” and throw confetti when a PITA decides to go AMA.  At least not where anyone can see me.
• The words “Hey, we could all use a little diversion around here” will never come out of my mouth again.
• Buy all my lotto tickets at a luckier store — and finally get the clerk to give me my money back for all the defective tickets I bought before!

What’s your New Year’s Resolution?

Dashing down the hall, a stretcher’s in my way,
I just heard someone call, for a nurse in room 4-A,
The lab is on the phone, the charts are stacked galore,
I go into my patient’s room and he is on the floor OOOH

Jingle bells, jingle bells, much to my dismay,
I am stuck at work again 12 hours on Christmas Day!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas go away,
This is not my idea of a happy holiday!

A day or two ago, I thought I’d call in sick,
Just spend my Christmas Day at home,
Now wouldn’t that be a trick?
But as the time drew near, the guilt set in so fast,
I came to work and should have known
Nice guys finish last! OOOH

Jingle bells, jingle bells, O’, my aching back,
This could drive me crazy, give me heart attack,
Jingle bells, jingle bells, I don’t hear them ring,
Christmas is no fun this year, I wish that it were spring.

Another patient said, as I answered her light,
“Would you please check my bed? It doesn’t seem just right.”
I take a closer look, I don’t like this one bit,
She’s had a dose of Milk of Mag, her bed is full of !#?@ OOOH

Jingle bells, jingle bells, I don’t mean to bitch,
I would not be here today if I had married rich.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, blast the mistletoe!
This will be the death of me, an awful way to go.

“O, honey, you’re so sweet, to take such care of me,
These nurses can’t be beat, you’re all so good, you see.”
If what she says is true, before my song is sung,
One consolation that I have — the good, they say, die young! OOOH

Jingle bells, jingle bells — Santa, I’m so sad.
Guess I must have misbehaved, done something really bad.
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Santa, do you hear?
What a punishment! I promise I’ll be good next year!

Contributed by Susan Elaine Arnold, RN, BSN, CCRN

From: Administration
To: All Nurses
RE: Special Holiday Directives

As the holiday season draws near, we’d like to take this opportunity to clarify hospital policy on the following points:

“Silent Night” is indeed a lovely carol. It is not, however, a directive to disconnect all the call lights.

Playing Jingle Bells on the phone system is strictly forbidden.

Restrain yourself from making wreaths out of gloves to decorate the nurses station. If you must do so, use the extra large gloves. Extra small, small, medium, and large are all on back order, and we have a limited supply remaining.

Physician and patient requests are NEVER to be answered with “Bah humbug.”

Page on-call physicians and staff only when it is medically necessary. Confirming Santa sighting reports is not medically necessary.

Ambulances are not to be used to go over the river and through the woods to Grandma’s house.

Anyone identifying themselves as a member of a “Cookie and Eggnog Quality Assurance Team” will be severely reprimanded — particularly if found while ‘testing’ patient’s snacks and beverages.

In spite of all this, the staff is encouraged to have a Happy Holiday!!!