Journal of Nursing Jocularity

• 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!

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A little 8 year old boy wanted to be circumcised when he realized he looked different than dad and his friends. The day after the proceedure he returned to school.

During class, he became uncomfortable and asked for permission to go to the nurse. When he arrived at her office, he hesitated and finally just asked if he could call his mother. Sensing this was personal (and having read the absence note for the previous day) the nurse stepped into the hall and closed the door to allow him privacy.

Several minutes later the little boy came out of her office and the nurse noticed his penis was sticking out of his pants.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Back to class,” said the boy.

“But you can’t go back like that!” explained the nurse.

“I have to,” stressed the boy. “My mother said that if I could just stick it out until lunchtime, she would come and pick me up.”

SCHOOL NURSES: It’s SUMMER! Send us your funniest stories about the year that was and we’ll share them with everyone! Email them to Cindy@journalofnursing jocularity.com

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10. If it’s wet, make it dry.

9. If it’s dry, make it wet.

8. Always ask for on-call pay before agreeing to overtime.

7. Never tell management what you are really thinking.

6. Never finish report with, “You have an easy assignment”.

5. Never say, “This looks like a easy assignment”.

4. Don’t expect anyone to do their job – especially when you really need them to.

3. Don’t expect doctors to believe anything you tell them.

2. If you don’t have enough time to do everything, take 30 minutes to complain about it and then make it all happen.

1. If it moves, rattles, shakes, falls down, or won’t stay in place: tape it.

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