Table of Contents
Want a laugh? Welcome to the right (or wrong?) place. As nurses and midwives….we have seen, heard and experienced some crazy shit…our career choice is…unique to say the least. Lucky it’s rewarding…The following are stories submitted to us via email or the FB group
Delerium Olympics
Asked a colleague today how her day was / how bad was it as the little ward she is on can get feral at times. “It’s the delirium Olympics in here” was her response. All day all I can think of are events for the delirium Olympics:
- 100m dash (absconding)
- Boxing (fighting the nurse when trying to get a set of obs)
- Wrestling (personal care)
- Ribbons gymnastics (plucking)
- Balance beam (unsteady gait bed to chair)
Humerus
The surgical cap
No legs
We once had 2 clients with the exact same name. I had to refer one to podiatry. I got mixed up and sent the podiatrist to the one who was a double leg amputee. When the podiatrist rang me and asked me if it was a joke, I was mortified
The unconscious wig
When I worked in PACU, I took a ladies theatre hat off, as you do, and also pulled her wig off. I was mortified. Luckily she was still sedated.
Flooding
Overhead emergency page:”Attention all staff, respond yellow, Ward 3 East: water leaking from ceiling over reception area”2 minutes later…”Attention all staff, respond yellow, Ward 4 East: pan room flooding”…I still feel sorry for the 3rd-floor reception staff
The Forceps
During my Acute placement I was sent in to remove packing from a female patients lady bits (unsure if Facebook likes the use of correct body parts? ????) following some kind of gynaecological procedure. Anywho – in I wandered (unsupervised), old love is on the phone chatting away, I introduce myself and explain what I’m about to do and ask if she’d prefer if I came back shortly when she has finished her phone call. “No love, you’re fine, you do what you need to do!”. set myself up, tell the patient I’m about to start, she continues gasbagging on the phone, and away I go….Geez this packing is well and truely lodged in place. I’m repeating grabbing at the “packing” with the plastic forceps – grab, tug, no not moving. Grab, tug – no still not coming. This went on for probably only a minute or 2 to be honest, but looking back at it it feels like a was at it for half an hour – meanwhile my patient is still chatting away on the phone oblivious to the fact that I have actually been grabbing and pulling at her LABIA for the last 2 minutes ????????????????????????. No wonder it wasn’t “coming out”!!
I briefly died inside, regained my composure, had a better assessment of what I was working with and successfully (and very easily) removed the gauze packing ????♀️????. And now I live in Community Nurse land where it’s safe and warm ❤️
Standard Chest Pain
Septic Glory
Now this is a long one…..but this is the story of my worst resourcing shift on the Gen Med ward at a major city hospital…Gen Med is always interesting with a good mix of high risk, high dependence, and highly confused patients. I’ll never forget two patients we had on a particular night shift back in 2013. The first, lets call him Bob, was a regular on Gen Med. The poor bloke had terrible pyoderma gangrenosum up both legs. We cared for him for several years on and off, and got to know him really well. He was a lovely guy, but prone to infection and he’d often get septic and super confused. His favourite trick was to pull out his IDC, balloon and all. Ouch.
The other character in this story was Beryl (alias)…the most hilariously delirious 80-something year old. Beryl had a raging UTI, and absolutely no time for nonsense from anyone. Beryl was convinced she was at a bakery, and couldn’t understand why we weren’t serving her bread. She had no intention of going to sleep that night. Anyway, it’s night shift and I’m in charge for one of my first ever resourcing shifts. Still nervous and wanting to do a good job…I’m petrified of anything going wrong.
It’s a busy shift with plenty of BOC, as well as several pretty sick patients.So, it’s 0100, and we’ve already had 2 MET calls. The second of which has not resolved to any form of stability, and sure enough, she ends up coding. We call the code blue…the usual fuss ensues, and the patient is eventually transferred to ICU.
All staff on the floor have been doing an amazing job and everyone’s working so hard. Unfortunately, with all the fuss, Beryl has decided she’s had enough of our bakery, and has made her way off the ward.
We notice she’s gone pretty quickly, but cannot find her anywhere. I have the overnight hospital director helping coordinate a search, security guards are all on the job, but we can’t find her anywhere.
Eventually, the police are called and notified of the situation, and of course, we have to call her NOK, in this case her son. It’s 0230 at this point.
Now, I’m sure we’re all pretty grumpy if we get woken up at 0230 by a phone call. But imagine being woken up at 0230 by a phone call, to be told a hospital has lost your mother. This son was understandably PISSED OFF. After copping an earful of “what the F*ck are you even doing there, you’re all f*cking useless” The son says he’s coming in to help look for Beryl.
At 0330 I get a call from security to say the son is there, and I tell them he can come up. We have a skeleton crew left on the ward now, as a few nurses have left the ward to check the corridors to find Beryl. I’m nervous about the abuse I’m about to cop from the son. I hear to the elevator ding outside the ward…and then a man yells a surprised and panicked “what the F*CK!?!” from the lifts.
What the hell else could have gone wrong!? We run out to the lift. The son is standing outside the lift, looking at horror at the figure on the floor.It’s Bob. In all his septic glory. Completely naked, dragging himself across the floor, with his catheter and his tattered leg bandages dragging out behind him. He legit looks like something out of a horror film. But, to really cap off the night…Bob then rolls onto his back in front of the son, and proceeds to yank his catheter out, through his urethra, balloon and all, before we can stop him.
The son simply just looked up at me in absolute bewildered horror…I’ll never forget the look on his face. Anyway, Beryl was found soon after, safe and sound, having a nap in one of the outpatients waiting for areas on another floor. The son was actually very understanding once he knew his mum was safe, but still couldn’t understand how an IDC balloon could fit through a man’s urethra…Dex and sex
My uncle was dying from brain cancer and in his final days the Dex allowed some lucid moments with his wife and daughters. One daughter updated the family via text. Her text read: “Thanks to all the sex the nurses have given Dad we got to have some precious time with him awake”
Inside out
(Retrieval Nurse) I got called into work early and we flew to the country Victoria to pick up a premature baby. With the dad and referral team at the baby’s bedside I took off my sweatshirt to perform a procedure and my shirt was noticeably inside else – I had got dressed in the dark. Everyone thought it was funny and the mood in the room was lightened.
It’s in the bum
Not me but a nurse I know very well once had a patient who had come in with a foreign body or removal. Naturally it was a surgical case because why else would you go to hospital to have something removed from your bum?! There was a bit of a wait on the emergency list which was OK with the patient who kept absconding and didn’t seem to want the object out that badly.
The nurses kept calling and calling this patient to have them come back, assuming they were out smoking. This happened a fair few times. Eventually the nurses were informed to please stop calling that patient if they abscond. Then the patients number was actually blacked out on the charts. Turned out the foreign body was actually the patient’s phone….. on vibrate.
Pat slide fun park
Pat sliding can be scary for patients who are usually independent. However recently we were pat sliding a 90 year old patient, and we told her to cross her arms and give herself a hug. As we slid her she let out a “ wwoooo” sound as if she was enjoying herself, proceeded to giggle and say “ that’s the best ride I’ve had in a long time…
Pattering on my shoulder
On one of my very first shifts as a brand new personal care assistant, I learnt the hard way how messy nursing can really be! An elderly gentleman needed help putting his pants on after his shower. With him standing up, I bent down to help him put his feet through the pant legs and I then felt pattering on my shoulder. I looked up only to realize he had begun peeing on my shoulder. I looked at him, he looked at me and we both decided not to mention it ever again.
How to manage a hangover
Triaging at a large metro hospital on a Saturday afternoon. Double lines out the door. A young 18 year old skinny man and his friend come up to my desk, the friend does the talking. “Yes my friend is very sick, he’s been throwing up all day”. I ask a few follow up questions and the friend pipes up “it might be the alcohol”. “What alcohol?”
Turns out this 18 year old drank for the first time the previous night. Shots of whiskey, no food.
I welcomed him to adulthood and sent him home with instructions how to manage a hangover.
I love you
I was on the phone to the consultant as I needed him to review a patient in clinical review criteria for low blood pressure. After a serious professional conversation, I accidentally ended the phone call with, love you dad….it was an awkward phone call 1 hour later for a follow up on the same patient…
Clenching his rectum around my gloved finger…
When I first graduated, I was an agency RN in aged care. One day, one of the residents who was A+O came up to the nurses office to tell me that he was constipated and had not opened his bowels for 4 days. I checked his file and he was on the usual laxative concoction that majority of the oldies were on. The resident said to me “usually they just give me a suppository and that fixes it right up”. Ok – I thought. Easy. I prepped my equipment and the resident laid down on the bed facing away from me. I discussed what was about to happen. Up the sup went. The resident groaned and I apologised and explained that although it was uncomfortable, I’d have to put it up as high as it would go. The man turned around, looked me directly in the eye whilst clenching his rectum around my gloved finger and said “oh no love, that’s not a groan in pain, don’t stop”. I was mortified. I had been conned into pleasuring an old man. Fast forward to 2100 hrs hand over the the night RN (who was a regular staff member). I began to discuss the man who I had administered the suppository earlier on.
The night RN stopped and put her hands over her face and mumbled
“Did no one tell you?”
“Did you not read the care plan?”
He is one of the residents with some unusual behaviours . He’s not constipated. He does it for pleasure.
Cant get deader
I was mid cardiac arrest (one of my first) and the ED Consultant told me to give the adrenaline. I asked how fast I had to give it, he looked at me and laughed before he replied, “He isn’t getting any more dead, jam it in!” Haha
Independant
One of my first geri rotations I set my patient up in the shower, gave her a wash, dried and dressed her only for her to tell me the last time someone had washed her she was a baby. I’d incorrectly assumed as she was an older person she couldn’t wash herself. ill never forget the way she looked at me, like I was a complete pervert!
What a beautiful day
As a student, had a pt who was completely blind- a fact I clearly mind blanked on when I walked in and so when I started to make small talk I said “oh its a beautiful day out there, let me open your curtains so you can see the sunshine and flowers out there”
…she replied “won’t make much difference” then laughed thankfully! Safe to say I went bright red, lucky she couldn’t see that either!
I need to pee
Followed my buddy nurse in to the toilet, was just that bit too keen to learn
Take a shit
I asked my pt “would you like to take a shit” instead of seat due to my nervousness. Said “see you later” when they discharged from ED, I dont think any of them wants to see us again
A quickie
Oh maybe the time a 95-year-old man asked me to fetch his boxer shorts that had the catchphrase ‘always got time for a quickie’ printed on them. Still makes me laugh when I think of it.
Shark Bite
We all have eye-rolling moments multiple times a day and often funny situations. One situation I recall that was not funny as in ha-ha, but a bit comical, was when I was working in a fishing area renowned for sharks but rarely had any shark attacks. I received a call on a Sunday arvo about a guy coming into the clinic from an hour down the coast with a shark bite to his leg.
Of course, my mind thought of the worst and I raced to the clinic and started preparing for major trauma. When the patient and his family arrived, he had a massive bandage around his leg but seemed quite ok, walking and talking and appeared hemodynamically stable. I pulled the bandages off and yes, he did have quite a large shark bite to his leg, but he was very stable. When asked how it happened, apparently the patient had caught a shark on his fishing line, he pulled the shark onto the boat to take a photo and when trying to hold it for a photo, the shark obviously was pretty annoyed so took a chunk out of the patient’s leg.
Amniotic Fluid
Half funny – Half gross… Whilst caring for a woman in labour who was close to having a baby, her waters broke. Now despite me standing on the side of the bed, they managed to hit me straight in the face and avoided everybody else. Luckily my mouth was closed and I was wearing my PPE, so I helped that baby be born whilst amniotic fluid dripped down my face and hair. The doctor in the room very kindly wiped my face for me and once the baby arrived safely and the woman was comfortable, I left the room to shower and threw out my very soaked work shoes.
Donald Trump
I undertook an Addenbrookes Cognition Test with a patient in the year 2005. The patient had cognitive decline was getting most questions wrong such as the day, date and month. After a significant amount of incorrect answers, the patient answered “who is the current US president” as Donald Trump. I was seriously concerned about his poor answers.
The reality is that he may have actually had great insight as Mr Trump had not even been nominated at that stage!
Drop our pants!
Probably my funniest and also most embarrassing story of my career goes back to my student days. Whilst in theatres as a student on the scrub/scout rotation I found myself thinking it was awfully cold at the end of a long orthopaedic case. I clearly remember the moment I said to the surgeon, “is it always this cold in here?” to which the Anaesthetist replied, “only when we drop our pants!”. To my horror, my scrub pants knot had come loose and they had promptly dropped to the floor. For the rest of practical I made extra sure my knots were tight.
The locked gate
I often bend over and drop my top pocket contents into a bedpan, and have got locked outside in a garden area once on a PM shift and had to call triage to get someone to come and let me back through the self-locking gate I accidentally exited. My family always gives the eye roll and says I am never funny however, so apologies if my sense of humour fails me
A splinter
As a newby working in ED at Tamworth, we have the most hilarious team. We had the Westpac chopper arriving and I asked the head consultant what we were expecting. He told me it was a bloke with a splinter and asked if I could go get some tweezers as he was about to be wheeled in. I thought, ‘This is really strange and such a poor use of resources, a splinter?’. As I was carrying the tweezers out to this Dr. he looked at me, polka faced and thanked me, then opened the curtain to where I found a man laying on the bed with a massive fence post straight through his chest and sticking out the back. The Dr. looked at me, clicked his tweezers and said to the other staff, ‘Everything is ok, Ange has brought me tweezers for the splinter”. I just stood there, red faced while everyone was in hysterics. I really should’ve known better, he has been known to be a joker. But even in a situation like that, he was able to make light of it. Even the patient had a good chuckle.
The loud bum
Myself and the other nurse in a small community had gone with our health workers to uplift one of the very respected community elders that had passed. He had been palliated at home, everything had gone well. The family and community were all quiet outside while we were loading him into the ambulance, but we had trouble because the arm rest on the drivers side was flipped back. So I jumped in the front to flip it forward, they pushed him in, and I moved back….right into the horn with my bum. They could have put me in the cold room as well because I died. Loud horn beep, as everyone is grieving. Could not have been more horrified. Cue jokes from the health workers about how loud my bum is for the next few days. No one was offended luckily. But every now and then I think about it and both laugh and cringe.
Silent Shoes
As student nurses training in the old hospital system, we were largely left to ourselves overnight. A fellow student nurse could do an amazing impersonation of our eccentric Night Supervisor (who wore the most silent shoes). The SN would ring her friends during the night pretending to be the Supervisor and allocate them the most horrendous patient from ED. She was in the middle of this prank, with her work colleague wildly trying to get her attention, finished the call and turned around to find the real Night Supervisor standing behind her. Not a word was said, looks said it all.
A Slippery Reduction
I was towards the end of my very first placement in theatres. It was a breast reduction and during the surgery I was asked to retrieve something from the store room. Somehow a small amount of fatty breast tissue made it’s way to the floor by the door. I slipped on it and went down like a sack of potatoes, scrambling for a hold on the handle-less doors. I landed with on the floor with a small squeal and a thump and turned red faced to see the rest of the theatre staff silently and sympathetically cacking themselves.
