I am an R.N. in a small community hospital in a very rural area of East Tennessee. Recently I was caring for an elderly lady. Her son (an only child) was very concerned. Her admission diagnosis was dehydration from a recent bout of nausea and vomiting. The patient was in the room the farthest from the nurses' station. As I was charting I heard a loud commotion, looking up I saw the patient's son running at break-neck speed yelling loudly, "I NEED A NURSE, I NEED A NURSE IT IS AN EMERGENCY". Please let me describe myself at this point. I am a 5 foot, 50 year old fat nurse. I began running as fast as my short, fat legs would go until I got the to room. Upon entering the room I had no shoes on because I had kicked them off as I ran down the hall (I could run much faster this way. The sign of a true hillbilly!) The son was so out of breath he could not say anything. My quick assessment upon entering the room told me nothing serious was wrong. Finally my heart climbed back up from my stomach and my breathing became regular. I ask in my calmest, nicest voice what was the emergeny. The son still panting (he was no young skinny-minnie either)stated the IV pump says "air in line and I think mom got some in her veins because she has the hiccups". I did not know where to be angry or relieved. I poitely told him thank you, turned the pump off, flushed the IV line and returned to the desk where I could finish having my mental breakdown.

Awe thats so CUTE! Poor you!

That's too funny...

that is hilarious--and well written. you should write short stories on the side

Awwwww, that so funny! My brother is a RN in the Emergency Room and he always has crazy stories to tell, but also some very sad ones too. But thats cute!

that's cute.

during cna clinicals we had to shadow other cnas while they did their job and we were asked to help...well i was walking down the hall to catch up with another class mate and i heard this woman screaming "HELP ME HELP ME! PLEASE PLEASE DONT WALK AWAY HELP ME!" well, i kinda freaked out and ran to the cna i was shadowing and told her there was something wrong, turns out that woman does that ALL the time, it freaked out one of the other cnas and she rushed in to see what was wrong and the lady just ignored her and started trying to have a regular conversation...haha poor thing just wanted to talk but if you'd heard this woman screaming, you would think something was really wrong with her!

There is one particular little old lady that doesn't speak anymore. Usually! I always make a point of saying hello to her, at least.
One day she was in the hallway, pushing along in her wheelchair. She looked up and saw me. She flung her arms out and said, clear as a bell "Hello Lady", and gave me a big hug. She made my whole day!

the funiest thing that ever happened to me is I was mopping my patients floor when one of her cats came running outof the back room and scared me and made me jumpback into the bucket of water, and it fell all over her floor, i mean like lake status water just got everywhere, and to top it all off, i fell in it! lol

funniest thing I ever encountered...

Every time a certain resident got cleaned up weather it be from incontinence or routine cares he would repeat over and over...aye aye aye aye aye and get an erection. Other than that, he was pretty non verbal. One night after cleaning him up and the aye aye aye routine with the erection the charge nurse noted his erection lasted a very long time and decided he was in pain/distress and sent him to the ER. Standing with the MD while he was examined I heard the Doc say HOLY Sh*$ and bust out laughing. Turns out the resident had an old school internal penis pump with the little inflation ball. Every time the CNA would wipe him they were pressing the little pump that would "inflate" his erection.

As a lab technician, I generally take fluid (or solid...eeew) and go back to the lab to do my work. So other than that, my time with patients is limited. I think the funniest encounter that I have had was with an older patient. She was being evaluated for a possible cardiac infarction, so we were taking blood samples to verify. Her husband promptly asked the doctor how it was possible for his wife to have a heart attack when she had no heart (jokingly, of course). He wanted verification via an x-ray. His wife, our patient, responded rather wittily, "Dear, I have a heart. I am not denying that it is a cold heart, for antifreeze courses through my veins, but I have a heart". We got a kick out of that.
No antifreeze was found in her bloodwork.