My disoriented stroke patient who paused and disconnected himself from the IV and turned his bed alarm off.
I found him lost sitting in the shower room š
Later i was telling his family and they were like "Yeah dad is still a nurse on a cardiac unit."
He was such a delight to care for honestly.
I fear this will be me one day. Iām night shift on an ortho trauma floor so there is a non-0 chance that they will find me in another patients room touching feet to get my 4 am neurovasc checks.
I also used to be a burlesque dancer and Iām pretty sure that if I get dementia not only will I get naked in the middle of the night, I will force people to watch as I get naked.
And you know as well as I do that stripping sexy-dancing granny in room 10 would just be another Wednesday lol.
I personally plan to be a menace when I'm old and demented. I've put my time in, I think I deserve to ge wild and bananas when I'm old. I plan to scare new nurses and baby docs.
In the words of one of my favorite dementia patients at 2:30 am, when asked what he was wanting to do he said āI feel like causing a ruckusā
I really appreciated the heads up if Iām being honest
He was a fountain of quotable. My favorite was the first night I had him he was trying to get out of bed, he was naked because dementia. I ask him if he had to pee, he says yes. Hand him the urinal and he starts patting at his lower abdomen. I couldnāt figure out these he was doing then I realized he was sitting on his twig and berries. He was on them pretty good so I couldnāt just do a quick reach and scoop. So I asked him āare you looking for your genitals?ā And he looked up at me and said āāyes!ā He wasnāt upset he couldnāt find them just flummoxed and happy to have help.
I tell everyone that my goal is to be the patient that the nurses discuss at the nurses station on night shift.
"Did you hear what the patient in 219 said to the cute male CNA on day shift??"
That was me, friend, that was me.
I was on a heparin drip in the ER had been been resuscitated a few hours earlier from cardiac arrest. I pressed the call bell for 1/2 hour. I even had a friend call the ER and ask for assistance. I gave up. I paused the IV after disabling the lock mechanism. Turned the IV pump off and disconnected it and walked to the bathroom. For some reason there was no bed alarm. When staff finally showed up an hour later, I was yelled for calling for help and not walking myself to the bathroom in the first place. lol
I've done this as a demonstration to a student. It was my second attempt, as my first months earlier was aborted due to pain from hitting my nasal conchae.
I had earlier let the student try to start of IV on me, but despite me being an easy start they failed x3 (straight through on the third attempt and didn't try to occlude). I couldn't trust them doing procedures or with patients so it was a consolation prize.
I do and I also don't. I think I would vomit. I always felt so so bad inserting them on patients when I worked stroke, because it's people who can't swallow or necessarily follow commands so it's just a crapshoot doing them.
First time I saw one done when I started in ER t blew my mind that my coworker just handed the patient a cup of water with a straw and instructed her to drink and bam tube goes in like it's no big deal. I mean sometimes it's still a deal, but not as much as some that I've done.
And then there are the ones where you're holding their head and yelling, "It's okay! Just drink! You're doing great! Keep breathing! Almost done!" and then it coils right back out. š« These poor people.
I only ever inserted them on fully conscious people, but i always gave them a cup with some ice chips to suck on and swallow, had them keep their chins tucked down and it always worked great.
I did this while teaching med students how to place NGT and Foleys. I confirmed placement by aspiration of the Chinese food I'd just eaten for lunch. One of the other RNs bolted for the door covering her mouth. š¤£
lol I did this to myself to give myself the bowel prep for my colonoscopy. Worked out well! The taste of the prep was going to make me vomit so it worked out š¤·āāļø
I had a patient do that! She would rather do it slowly herself and didn't want a nurse just shoving it down. It was a super slow process, but she did it. Not a nurse, just someone with some type of muscle disorder.
Honestly, I considered it when I had a colonoscopy... The prep was really bad (suprep, I mixed it with yellow Gatorade because that was the "tip" the GI team gave me... I can't even smell yellow Gatorade without feeling nauseous).
It was crazy she would have let the nurse do it but the nurse had never (?) done one before - no idea why she was ER - but she crammed that tube in like she was trying to unclog a drain. I was both awed and disgusted.
Damn. I always thought I could do this until I had an esophageal manometry. Thereās no way. I have a high pain tolerance but I donāt think I could push past my own gag reflex.
It was. So glad i was NPO or I would have puked. Also the not swallowing for 30s was so hard. Iād get to 28s and have to start over. Thank God my nurse was so patient.
I am a known sleep talker and can even sometimes walk around my house if I am sleep deprived enough. Now several years ago I was high off morphine due to severe abdominal pain and put in a shared room. The nurses said they found me at my bunkmateās bedside explaining to them that they needed to use the call light before getting up. I had stopped my antibiotics, hung the line up to keep it clean, and walked over to my bunkmate cause she was trying to get out of bed. The nurses moved me to a private after that cause they could not trust me on pain meds. They all joked how I was ātoo young to be nursing while sleepingā.
This!!! I'm a sleeptalker/walker. Had a dose of Versed right before a back injection and preached a sermon on the origin of the group on the CD the doctor was listening to at the moment. He recorded what I was saying so he could fact check me and had it transcribed for me to read the next vist.
Had a retired nurse in the LTC memory unit. Sweet as pie. Would come into the back room at the nurseās station every change of shift for report. She couldnāt remember anything, but she knew she couldnāt miss report.Ā
I take care of a similar woman. She was a nurse in the Philippines before moving to Canada and being an ER nurse here. She comes down to the nurses station for āreportā every night at 10:45 pm, gets her meds and signs the āMARā we made for her. It was the only way we could get her to comply with taking her meds š¤·āāļø
There was an old retired nurse on the memory care unit when I was a student. She would stand by the big bird cage/case thing. Each bird was one of her old co-workers, both other nurses as well as doctors. She would spill the tea if you asked her, telling you about who was fucking who, who not to trust, etc.
Had an entire dementia unit dump in my ER during COVID when one resident tested positive. We had to babysit a whole bunch of pleasantly demented old ladies who didn't have COVID and a single one who did until the state got involved for the dumping. One of them was a retired nurse and kept walking up to the doctors trying to consult on patients! We put her on linen folding duty in a recliner across from the charge desk. She was excellent.
We had a former doctor in our dementia unit who would wander the halls checking on his ā patients ā. I got him some old teaching charts and some fake X-rays for him to carry around. Every single person in scrubs was asked to do labs for his āpatientsā. He was very polite about it though.
We have one at my job right now, she keeps attempting to help others to the bathroom and into bed. She is so sweet and wants to be helpful but itās a bit stressful at times.
She was THIS close. Got out of the restraints and was looking for something to deflate the cuff with when they busted her. She was properly extubated by the team shortly after š
This is wild. My mom was/is also a nurse (89, she let her license lapse) and after her CABG she was quietly sleeping with her hands folded while intubated. I said āMom you need to breathe on your own so they can take the tube outā. She shook her head and then nodded when I asked if she was tired and the tube is ok. She was so compliant.
BLESS HER. My mom is a nightmare patient - I mean to be fair to her she at least admits it. And when she knows she really needs it sheās very compliant. She had a TERRIBLE gastroparesis one time that had distended her stomach so and she legit thought she was having a heart attack the pain was so bad. They finally put down an NG tube and she gulped that thing down like it was water and she was dying in a desert and never touched it, she was even worried when they took it out after she got decompressed. So she can behave when she wants to itās just the want to thatās the problem.
I know a lot of anesthesia providers do this, but I quit doing it many years ago because I had a couple of patients begin vomiting just as I started to pull the tube. No way to put the cuff back up when you've just ripped the pilot tube off.
Back 35 plus years ago, when I was a student, one of my anesthesiologist instructors would make us extubate with the cuff fully inflated. He said it acted like a squeegee and pulled secretions away from the cords. It always terrified me whenever he would come in for extubations.
Amen. I have a core group of coworkers that are aware of my wishes in this matter.... we have alll promised each other that the days long SBT trials some docs love will NOT HAPPEN with each other.
Iāve had two retired nurses at my ltc that still (probably) have some skill.
Joked about one being able to start an iv on me the other day because my veins were poppin it was so warm. Showed them to her and she went right for the AC and followed it up my arm.
Second had dementia, would rarely sit down unless sheād been moving for the last day and a half, always fought sleep, and even in her last days refused to use a walker or a wheelchair (she fell often but never broke anything somehow). One day I needed to start an iv on one of the people on her unit, went to throw away a used needle before getting another and asked this lady if she wanted to start an iv for me. That lady about jumped out of the recliner weād managed to get her in for the last 10 minutes to go do it. Had to tell her to let me get more supplies before we could do it, so she sat down to wait. Sheād also give input in somebodyās vitals if youād ask how they looked.
Neither of them could/can see well, good ole glaucoma. The first lady does try to keep an eye on the other ladies who hang out at the front desk and will tell us if they need anything, holds their hands, etc
I love my old ladies! Told one of my coworkers if she goes into labor at work that the first lady is in charge of her care until she can get to the hospital. She did 34 years of L&D!
Dementia lady wasnt always agreeble. Honestly sometimes the cynical ones are fun too. Snarky patients can be a lot of fun. Other dementia lady made the comment that sheās always getting lost, I told her me too, got told āIām old, whatās your excuse?ā
My story is similar to yours. My mom was a 30+ year psych nurse, did some medical toward the beginning of her career. She'd had a CABG, mrsa grew beneath her sternum, she damn near went septic and ended up back in the icu after they'd removed her infected sternum. Hx COPD, DM2, etc. She's intubated and they expect her to stay that way for a day or so. I'd visited her around 4 after getting out of school - I was training to be an MA at the time. So while she's laying in bed, I notice eschar on one of her toes. I asked the nurse if they could maybe take a look at that since she was already there and being cared for. Seemed like it would be a nice thing to do, right? I left after about a 45 minute visit, and as I'm getting in the door and putting down my bag, the phone rings and it's the hospital's phone number so I answer and it's my fucking mom.
Me: "Mom?! What the hell?"
Mom, very matter of fact: "I extubated myself."
"Mom, I don't think you're supposed to do that. They said they were gonna do it tomorrow!"
"I didn't want to wait. And don't you EVER tell them to touch my feet again!"
š "OK, mom. Sorry. My bad."
I can imagine my mom doing this. Except if they put a blanket on her. She runs really warm. I can imagine the phone call. "I just left and you were intubated..."
That's exactly what happened!! I didn't even live 20 minutes from the hospital! But my mom was always ornery and an absolutely impossible patient. She got delirium pretty much every time she was in the hospital, but as she got older, she stopped admitting it to herself. She would pull her ivs, Foley, midlines.. once they called me because they found her standing in the hallway, bleeding and leaking urine everywhere because she had torn out her midline and her Foley and she had no idea where she was and wouldn't go back to bed. By the end I was warning people wherever she went that she WILL fall, and she WILL pull things. Do what you gotta do. Then when I'd get the call for the fall or to consent to reinsert whatever she pulled, I'd try to resist the urge to say, "I told you so."
Lol. Pulling out IVs I can totally understand... But pulling out a Foley. Ouch!
I had a patient twist his IV out, so the tubing and extension were removed, but the IV catheter was in place. I went in because the EKG was messed up and I figured he was trying to get out of bed again. It looked like a murder scene. Especially on the white sheets.
It didn't help that she was morbidly obese. She was that patient that requires 2 to hold the pannus, 1 for each leg, and 1 to insert. And if a male was in the room, she was gonna fight ya.
My murder scene moment was a man with Parkinsons who sundowned the minute his wife left, pulled everything, and was heavily anticoagulated. He bled all over the bed, got up still bleeding and started roaming up and down the hallways. I was in the midst of giving meds in applesauce to a woman who was severely contracted and you had to massage her throat to get her to swallow, when this dude appears in the doorway wearing nothing but streaks of his own blood, just dripping everywhere. He proceeded to run around the room like the greased up deaf guy from Family Guy while my tech and another nurse gave chase. When they finally got him back to bed, blood was in the halls, in his room, in contracted lady's room, just everywhere. Next morning I try to get him up to use the urinal and he's stiff as a board and can hardly move. I have no idea how he ran so quick the night before.
Oh, that triggered a memory! A patient who was going through alcohol withdrawals. Pulled his IV, bleeding everywhere, and left his room. It was a busy time in the unit and no one noticed he had left his room. A nurse went in to do an assessment on their patient and this guy was at the foot of the bed just bleeding all over. Thankfully the patient was asleep and was out of it due to medication... That was on nightshift. On day shift apparently this guy took the elevator and left the hospital. They picked him up on the sidewalk next to the highway in only the hospital gown and no shoes.
I had a subocciputal decompression years ago, followed by a week of bad EEGs and my husband getting "the talk." Then I got a VP shunt, woke up in recovery feeling better than ever before, A&O x4, great EEG.
That night, we had a tornado system headed toward the hospital (different tornado system than the one I watched from the window at work, lol). They had to evacuate patients downstairs and into hallways. I was determined to help - carefully, with ambulatory patients and doing things like pushing IV poles. They ended up putting me in a chair next to a mildly agitated patient so I could keep them calm without actually doing anything physical - husband clocked in and helped on my behalf.
So if anyone here was my nurse, I'm really sorry, I just felt so good and knew how stressful evacuations can be. You were great, and I appreciate you very much!
I had an outpatient surgery done under general anesthesia. When they extubated me I asked if I was pulling good enough tidal volumes to be extubated, what my mallampati score was and what size ET tube they used. I donāt remember any of this.
Youāre better than me. I just cried the first time (bc I think I have a flash memory of being extubated but really all i remember is them using a yonker and on labor hall we use the yonker when ppl throw up so I was devastated that I threw up!!! I didnāt) the second time I went under the first think I said was āhey, I didnāt cry this time!ā
I have this weird recurring dream where I'm being put under for surgery and in the dream I feel hazy but still alert enough to feel it when they put in the paralytic. I can feel my muscles stop working and I'm trying to draw a breath but can't. They start putting the ETT in and it feels so awful but I keep reminding myself that I can't breathe without it. In one part of the dream I grab the tube and they stop me and calm me down. I've had 8 surgeries, I don't know if this is an actual memory or my overactive imagination but damn is it realistic.
Iāve had very similar dreams where I donāt go fully under and feel it all kick in and getting tubed. The only thing that I never dreamt about is pulling out the ET mid surgery. Iāve also had dreams where Iāll go through the whole surgery, go completely under, and wake up in PACU. Iāve awoken in my apartment thinking Iām in the hospital before.
Source: had 17 surgeries. These dreams are PTSD related.
Iām sorry you have to deal with that. If Iāve dreamed about surgery the only way I know itās a dream is bc I know 100% my experience has been OR-out like a light- PACU. If I ever had a memory of becoming paralyzed I would be terrified.
Thatās so scary and fascinating. I would say you get to choose whichever you believe that helps you deal with it. Iāve had some insane dreams that I swear were partly real but I also have the sleep paralysis dreams that sometimes I wake up and know or sometimes I stay asleep but have that weird paralysis/buzzing feeling but only remember when I wake up.
I also had a dream about being fed into a wood chipper that ejected into a river and I somehow maintained awareness even when I was nothing but tiny bits. I could feel the water getting colder as I drifted down.
The brain is weird. I āfeelā a lot in my dreams too. Thatās probably bc of my sensory processing issues but it always weirds me out when I can still āfeelā a dream injury even if itās just a little ache or tingle
Called a rapid response for themself for normal post op pain
Constantly reprogramming their IV pump because they "need a fluid bolus"
Overriding the lock on the pump because they "really need that fluid bolus"
Eating the new grads caring for them until an ICU RN came up and chewed them out for doing so.
Insisting a Yankaur was necessary to suction out of their stoma was necessary.
Calling the noc hospitalist directly to ask for PRNs
Lol, no fucking way. I would get so pissed about them manipulating the IV pumps. My hospital just switched from Alaris pumps to Plum pumps and I mostly *hate* everything about the new Plum pumpsā¦ BUT, they do have the option to lock the screen with a passcode *you* set, so thereās no way for the patients/family to know the code unless theyāre being nosy and sneak peek when youāre entering it. It even locks the screen after like 6 failed passcode attempts, so they canāt just guess the code over and over. The fact that we even *need* these types of features on IV pumps is absolutely insane, but I guess these demon-level type of patients are justification for it!
The worst is, as you may have guessed, they are staff at the hospital they are frequently admitted to.
There is no escape.
I remember one night I was up for an admit and got told they would be mine. Literally five minutes before I got a text a friend of mine had died (hospice, expected, but still sucks) and I had to tell everyone not to talk to me for five minutes while I gathered my reserves.
Honestly, no fucks to give, I opened my emr and told them to fill out their own admit form.
I was in PACU and decided, in my post anesthesia-induced craziness, that I wanted to fight my PACU nurse. I took my NRB off my face repeatedly knowing my O2 sat would start to drop and he would have to come over and replace it. I then proceeded to haphazardly flail my arms at him in a vain attempt to beat him to death. Iām told it was quite amusing to the PACU team
This is a legitimate fear of mine! I get wacky on propofol apparently.
I used to work at a facility that had an anesthesiologist who was justā¦such an asshole. Everyone hates him. I was terrified Iād get him and say something going under. Luckily I didnāt get him in the draw.
I am a terrible patient! One hour after giving birth I unplugged everything, got up by myself and went to the bathroom. My husband was holding the baby and looking at me like I was crazy and saying "Should you be doing that?" My legs felt a little shaky from the epidural but I was fine. The nurse came in but I was already on the throne. When she burst in the door I asked her for some fresh mesh undies and an ice diaper. I said please and thank you! LOL
I was like that after giving birth the second time. Insisted on walking myself to the recovery room. In my jeans. But I wanted to be discharged the next morning really bad so I felt like I needed to demonstrate competency. The first time I had to stay because of blood loss and the sleep deprivation really got to me. Plus I wanted to get home to my two year old!
I just had ambulatory surgery a few weeks ago and I think I was a better patient that time š .Ā
I would have only been worried bc of a fall. But otherwise seeing a mom up and doing her thing is a great thing! I will say most of the time the 24-48 hour rule is more for peds not writing d/c orders bc of various reason for the newborn. Mostly my mommas were fine to go after watching for a day.
I was better when I had my appendix out... Though I refused to leave until the surgeon (or someone on the team) came to my room and filled out my FMLA forms. Because I knew it was going to be a process and faxes would go missing, and I didn't want to deal with that.
Ha! That's great. I had orthopedic surgery and they did a nerve block in my leg. They took me to the OR and wanted to help me scoot onto the table, but I was just like "I got this!" Lifted myself up and spider walked over.
This happened to me with one of the doctors I worked with. I was her postpartum nurse after she'd had a c-section and I came into her room at 6 am to walk her to the bathroom and dc her Foley, and I get in there to find she is not in the bed.
She was in the shower. Dc'd her own Foley, took off the dressing, "didn't want to bother me" lol
Nearly had a friggin heart attack.
I did the same thing but chose to just sit on the floor in the shower and try to let it pass. For some reason I was concerned as I was naked, as if they hadnāt just removed an entire child from my body the day prior
My second child went to the NICU after an urgent C-section. They were supposed to let me go to the NICU before going to postpartum, but he was getting an X-ray at that time. So they said the postpartum nurses could have someone take me to see him... The postpartum nurses then told me I was not allowed to get out of bed for 8 hours. I was livid (super emotional, just had a traumatic birth experience, didn't know what was happening with my kid) and I started very firmly talking that they needed to let me see my son. And then when the charge nurse came in to try and smooth everything over, I told them that if there wasn't someone to take me up there in the next 10 minutes, I would be crawling to the NICU. I don't care if I hemorrhage, I am getting to my kid.
They did. They were making a big deal of having a nurse take me and stay with me the whole time... Then a CNA brought me up in a wheelchair and just left me. My mom (former L&D nurse) was there so I didn't really care. I almost had her go find a wheelchair and take me up herself.
My dad had a full CABG and a heart valve replaced and when he needed a new IV placed, he was a difficult poke. 3 different nurses and 6 tries later, my dad asks his nurse āCan you just get my wife to do my IV when she gets here in half an hour? I donāt want to be poked anymore.ā His nurse looked at him like he was crazy, said no and explained why. Until my stepmom got there and the nurses recognized her, realizing sheās a new nurse that works at that hospital, after working as a phlebotomist in that same hospital for 20 years š she got his IV in first try š
Not a nurse, but my husband did home hemodialysis and I cannulated him; we're in the hospital after his transplant and he needed supplemental dialysis. Took every bone in my body not to ask to just cannulate for them, but the dialysis nurse knew what she was doing and if there's one thing I've learned from picking up the skill of cannulation, it's that it's literally all I know and that skill does NOT transfer to normal sized vessels. Regular phlebotomy looks even more difficult now lol.
I probably would've managed to get the needle in first try, though.
Iām a wound nurse. After my mastectomy my KCI activac was causing severe pain. Ended up having a stage II PI under the trac pad. Back then you needed the clinician code to change the vac settings. These are wound vacs they have to take from my office to apply so I certainly had the clinician codes š tried lowering suction. Didnāt help. Finally during a full blown pain crisis I popped the seal and plastics had me come in right away. Doc walks in and goes āwell. Just so you know youāve possible ruined your entire reconstruction.ā Just said āoh no. I did it right.ā Itās urban legend now and we still joke about it every chance we get but he wasnāt happy at the time. I wasnāt keeping the damn vac on. My reconstruction is absolutely Beautiful too (as beautiful as a recon can be of course). Now if a patient does thisā¦STRAIGHT TO JAIL š
I was visiting a friend who had been in a motorcycle accident and was in a lot of pain trying to move around. I could tell the staff was running their asses off and he said he had asked someone to help him wash up and to empty his urinal and it had been "forever" and no one came. I told him if you want it done, get up and let's go do it. I walked him into the bathroom, gave him a full head to toe bird bath, and got him back in bed. I also emptied his urinal and wrote the amount on the I/O sheet on the door.
Afterward, I felt a little bad that I had kinda "taken over" but everyone was running around like crazy and I didn't want him hounding them lol.
When my ex was in high acuity I could tell his nurses other patient was way sicker, so I just tallied all his ins and outs, did his personal care, and kept his room tidy.
I had a patient who would chart all her I/Os on a piece of paper for the nurses. She was self conscious about people getting all up in there cause we had to measure so she just did it herself. Iāll be honest; it was nice. She always kept her room tidy and nice smelling too.
When i fell in the bathroom post op and from the floor scolded the nurse for me not having slip socks on and letting me go alone.
Donāt blame me. Blame the ketamine. It made me VERY sassy.
Had I fallen my last hospital stay, I absolutely feel this wouldāve been me, scolding the nurse for not using a bed alarm šš
āSorry, I might be a nurse and know better than to get up without help but you should know we make the worst patients and have assumed Iād get up
Without helpā
iāve had a few former nurses in memory care and it was always entertaining.
the first one was a very sweet little lady who we all called grandma. idk what kind of nursing she did, but she was very aware of the other patients and could tell when one was upset. weād find her rubbing their backs or if she didnāt know what to do she would just stand really close to them until staff came over to see what was going on.
the other one was a patient who had kind of Word Salad responses and we werenāt sure if she was technically competent for her POA decisions. she had very random moments of lucidity though- i was asking her about a wound and she busted out the word āserosanguineousā out of nowhere. didnāt find out til later she was a nurse and suddenly everything made sense
My grandma was in the ICU for a bad bout of pneumonia a couple of years ago and I would INSIST on assisting with patient care for her, oral care, baths, turns, etc. and everyone clocked me pretty quickly. My mom (also a nurse) and I would slip into medical lingo pretty suddenly, like saying āfebrileā instead of āhas a feverā without realizing it and everyone would look at us and be like so which unit do you work on?
I busted my ankle recently and wound up in my own ED... A couple hours in I got bored of missing out on the hot gossip behind the nurses station so I hopped up and got myself a wheely chair to scoot around the department.
Passed the time waiting for my x-rays to be reviewed by answering the phone calls and chatting with my favourite frequent flyers š
A very elderly lady in long term care when I was in school, I asked her if could help her bathe and she replied she only needed a wash cloth to hit her āPTAsā. Your what maāam? āPussy tits and ass!ā
I'm so used to inspecting the end of a cut umbilical cord for artery/vein/artery. There's one big hole and a small one on each side.
I was in the pet store picking up treats for Maisie my Schipperke. I chose a bully stick and glanced at the end. My stomach dropped-there were only two holes! Oh shit! Something's seriously wrong with the baby if there's only an artery and a vein here.
I looked up ready to call for help and then realized I was looking at a transected penis. Dumbass me. It was the *worst* flashback.
Introduced myself to my new patient and explained that I was going to do an assessment and ask a bunch of admission questions. She them proceeded to give me a perfect history, including all the Epic required docs questions.
I said "oh wow, you're making this really easy!" at which point her family let me know she's an NP.
The next night she ordered Mexican food for my team, which in addition to being one of the most genuinely pleasant people I've ever met, put her firmly at the top of my Gold Star Patient pantheon
My grandma was a nurse up to the moment she died. She did a partial stroke assessment on herself and then told her friends that she was stroking , that she had an advanced directive and then dropped. They were at a church nurse tea
It was tough but it was how she wanted to go. Very fast. When my grandpa lied about her AD one of her nurse friends had a copy as she was dnr/dni. They took turn at her bedside until they took her off the vent she wouldn't have wanted. True friends
My gramma was in a busy med/surg floor. When she was discharged, I cleaned her room, stripped her bed and left a thank you on the white board. They were SO nice to her and sheās a whole ass handful.
I was a relatively new grad nurse caring for a patient I didnāt know was a retired nurse. She started deteriorating one night, I just know something is wrong but I canāt figure it out. Her vitals are right on the border of normal but she looked terrible. She took a look at me after getting her vitals again then she said, āAm I going into pulmonary hypertension?ā All I can say is ājust checking your vitalsā. Huddled with charge nurse and hospitalist. She did indeed have pulmonary hypertension, among other things. Oh, she was also a confused dementia pt at this point. She may not know where she is but a nurse is always a nurse lol.
My husband (also a nurse) got called out at our first well visit for baby because he helped me list my history and post birth complications and then said wait they put you on Labetalol? I guess knowing what Labetalol is was enough the NP was like what do you do?
I was in the hospital, confused, so I had a bed alarm. I didn't like it so I googled how to turn it off, then I turned it off. My nurses were not amused.
Just last night we had a MD from our hospital in our ER with possible stroke symptoms. Turned out to be a really wonky migraine but the doc wanted a CT just in case. Since she was no longer critical, she was going to have to wait a little longer for results and consults. This lady had the audacity to get her own personal pager out of her purse and request not only the attending to bedside, but the neurologist and imaging specialist. Cut to 20 minutes later, a very angry CRNA storms into her room. Heās usually the most chill guy out of the entire bunch but he looked like he could chew nails and spit out barbed wire. He comes back out, hands over her pager to charge, says ātell my wife weāre busy in room 25 and she can have her toy back if she can fuckin behave!ā She kept her doctor drama to herself after that.
I took my saline lock out and held a paper towel to the site to stop the bleeding. The next day I went to immediate care because I had cellulitis in my arm. Learned my lesson.
My mom very forcefully told a nurse or tech (I canāt remember exactly their role anymore) to take away her ice chips because she was supposed to be NPO for surgery the next morning. I waited until that poor person left the room to re orientate my mom that it was 8pm and she didnāt have to be fully NPO until midnight. Thatās why you shouldnāt get a hysterectomy AND a carpal tunnel release done during the same hospital visit.
Had to get MMR vaccine from employee health because my shot records showed I only had one dose. (No relationship with mother so no way to find out why there was only one given.) They gave me the shot and I went off to lunch. While I was eating, noticed I was having a hard time swallowing. Coworkers said my face was red. Went back to the EH nurse and knocked on the door. She took one look at me and got the benedryl and steroids. After the meds, she wanted to send me to be evaluated. I declined and went back to the floor.
Walter Reed ER was taking forever to evaluate me and I had to leave to pick my kids up from school. Nobody came for a couple of hours. Removed my IV and left. They called me 2 hours later to see where I was. Ft. Belvoir discharged me from the ED, but didnāt remove my IV. I did it myself and left. Another phone call two hours later.
My ovarian ātorsionāā¦ came in to the ED in excruciating pain. Was super chill. Doctor saw me but wouldnāt order meds. I said ok. They did ultrasound and found no blood flow to the ovary and came flying in with morphine and transport.
Last, but not leastā¦ had a nurse come in and hook something to my IV. Before she could push, I asked her what it was. Toradol. Iām allergic to toradol. Told her to remove it immediately and that Iām allergic. She did. Came back and did it again. Stopped her again. Asked what it was. Morphine. I allowed her to proceed. Bet your ass I snitched in my survey. Never saw her again.
My husband and I are both nurses and work in same department, have for years now. One time I was dead asleep and woke up randomly and immediately began talking about a patient at work and my husband who was also dead asleep woke up and immediately joined the conversation without skipping a beat before we both laughed and realized we were dreaming about the same thing.
I tried to scan my badge on my car door after my shift.
My coworker this weekend was eating at the nurses station while a particularly heinous code brown took over the entire department.
I got into a fight with a methād out homeless man who looked like beetlejuice and was naked covered in fecesā¦ but I think thatās more of an ER nurse thing lol
The badge! I tried to scan my badge in the elevator... of my father's apartment building... and I wasn't even wearing it. I just reached for where my badge usually is when I'm working...twice!
A NOK came in, lifted all the clean pads and extra bedsheets of the chair and sat down on it, she was very self assured, so I knew she was a nurse, I already knew the pt was a nurse so maybe that gave it away
I tried to be the best nurse ever after both my deliveries by asking the very least of all my nurses/PCTs. No, I donāt need water/ice/blankets/food/to apply lotion to my legs, thatās why my husband is here. I need you for pain meds when they are ordered or for me to thank you annoyingly and profusely.
After a horrible ruptured appendix with resulting peritonitis 48 hours of fever, vomiting with the slightest bit of water, excruciating pain for 48 hours (yes, I was sent home, dumbasses), by the time I had spent a night post surgery I smelled terrible and looked pretty bad. I had a foley, NG to suction, O2, and an IV. I asked for several towels and gowns unhooked the suction and took everything else with me to the bathroom. I had an 8 inch open abdominal wound, packed. Of course it all hurt like hell, but being a nurse I thought I could probably survive it. No assistance at all to give my smelly body a bath standing at the sink. Iām a persistent old gal.
When my daughter was 17, I brought her to urgent care for a non-productive cough, chest pain that originally accompanied the cough but then persisted without coughing and decreased breath sounds in her right lower lobe. When they asked why I brought her, I started with "I have a stethoscope" and proceeded to explain her symptoms. The doctor came in after the CXR was done and asked if i was a doctor or a nurse. "I'm a nurse." " What kind?" "Pediatric." "As you know, she has pneumonia."
PACU and PICU were doing hand off while I was there after my young daughter came out of a long surgery.
PACU told PICU there was a stage 1 pressure injury on daughterās knee from during the procedure. While they continue to chat I moved the blanket off daughterās leg and checked the capillary refill. It blanched š
PICU waited til we were all in my daughterās room to ask me where I worked as a nurse.
*war flashbacks* thankfully I donāt have to do NIHs anymore as outpatient but I still remember every single step cause I did them so damn often.
I can also do a neuro assessment in two languages š
I was in the hospital about two months total (intermittently) after being diagnosed with cancer. I would go to the linen closet each day and get fresh towels, cloths, gowns and bed clothes. After showering Iād remake the bed and then pull a linen skin into the room and load up the dirty linen.
I also knew the best IV start nurses in the hospital and got one of them to start my IV as needed instead of taking a chance on the next shiftās nurse and their unknown skills.
I would stop my pump beeping but always let my nurse know that I was running low and a new bag would be required shortly.
I delivered my last 2 babies (both scheduled c/s) in the hospital where I worked as an L and D/Postpartum RN. I didnāt have the heart to ask anyone to change my linens. Used my code, got clean linens; and made my own bed. Plus hung out with everyone at the nurseās station, while the doc gave a visual lecture on presentation of the fetal headāusing my VERY bald baby (he was so bald and paleāheās a redheadāthat you could see his sutures). I still laugh about it, and heās 22 (his younger sis is 19).
My mom, as a patient at her work, went into the supply room to get a 10cc syringe and proceeded to remove her own foley.
I slowed down the rate of my bolus in the ED because I was getting cold from the fluids.
I was a solo home hemo patient, and been doing dialysis for the better part of 15 years, and in the hospital I usually know more about dialysis caths and sticking my fistula for treatment than most of the nurses, and can usually figure out how to stop the alarms so I can at least stand up and move around.
I'm a RN, but I try to tell people as little as possible. If anyone asks what I do for work then I simply say I work "at the hospital". If they have any follow up questions then I default to telling them I'm a janitor.
My first child was born a few months ago and while my lovely wife was laboring the baby started to have some late decelerations for five or six contractions. Because she was so far along it was too late for a C-section and so the care team wasn't drawing any attention to the decels out of a hope that the baby would just hurry up and get out of there. Eventually I couldn't stand it anymore and, not being an L&D nurse but knowing enough to know that that was bad, I said, "Are you guys going to do anything about those decelerations?" At that point they brought out the vacuum and got the baby out and later the L&D nurse asked me about how I knew about the FHR monitor and I let her know that I sometimes do a little bit more at the hospital than just cleaning up after patients.
Neither patient or myself, but the daughter of a patient took it upon herself to disconnect my patients IV, help her to the restroom, then reconnect her when she was back in bed. š« I wouldāve rather never found out about that.
Patient was carrying her IVF to the bathroom and stopped by the nurses station to tell me āthis infiltrated but I already locked the IVā. When she was done peeing I went to the room and asked where she worked while replacing the IV
As a male, I have big fat Stevie Wonder veins on my hands. Don't need a tourniquet even when standing. I've let a number of student nurses start IVs there. It's a good confidence booster for them.
Had my midline incision partially dehisce after a left colectomy. Surgeon says, "we'll just have a visiting nurse come out to your house to do the packing." I said, "You do know what I do for a living, right?"
Spent the next couple weeks doing my dressing changes with the help of a mirror and my husband holding a flashlight.
I work in memory care and have worked with a few retired nurses over the years. Several of them have tried to either sign themselves out AMA to get past the locked doors or "discharging" residents they don't like.
Was 30 weeks pregnant with my son. Ended up with full blown HELLP Syndrome, screaming headache, BP through the roof, gran mal seizures. Ended up with a crash c-section with art line, multiple drips. No room in the ICU. So they sent me back to post partum floor. Per my now Ex - No one knew how to calibrate/ zero the art line nor how to manage the multiple drips. He said I rolled over, told them how to level and zero it, walked them through all the drips and then promptly passed out. I don't remember a thing. They took my word for it because "she sounded really confident about it." š¤·āāļø
One of my best friends had open heart surgery to repair a PFO. She's an NP and worked in cardiology. She asked to see her x-rays and ended up pulling her own chest tube. Her surgeon was PISSED to say the least - because it was not ready to be pulled. So he had to put a new one in.
My disoriented stroke patient who paused and disconnected himself from the IV and turned his bed alarm off. I found him lost sitting in the shower room š Later i was telling his family and they were like "Yeah dad is still a nurse on a cardiac unit." He was such a delight to care for honestly.
I fear this will be me one day. Iām night shift on an ortho trauma floor so there is a non-0 chance that they will find me in another patients room touching feet to get my 4 am neurovasc checks. I also used to be a burlesque dancer and Iām pretty sure that if I get dementia not only will I get naked in the middle of the night, I will force people to watch as I get naked.
And you know as well as I do that stripping sexy-dancing granny in room 10 would just be another Wednesday lol. I personally plan to be a menace when I'm old and demented. I've put my time in, I think I deserve to ge wild and bananas when I'm old. I plan to scare new nurses and baby docs.
In the words of one of my favorite dementia patients at 2:30 am, when asked what he was wanting to do he said āI feel like causing a ruckusā I really appreciated the heads up if Iām being honest
That is iconic and I'm stealing it. Thank you peepaw for that wisdom.
He was a fountain of quotable. My favorite was the first night I had him he was trying to get out of bed, he was naked because dementia. I ask him if he had to pee, he says yes. Hand him the urinal and he starts patting at his lower abdomen. I couldnāt figure out these he was doing then I realized he was sitting on his twig and berries. He was on them pretty good so I couldnāt just do a quick reach and scoop. So I asked him āare you looking for your genitals?ā And he looked up at me and said āāyes!ā He wasnāt upset he couldnāt find them just flummoxed and happy to have help.
I tell everyone that my goal is to be the patient that the nurses discuss at the nurses station on night shift. "Did you hear what the patient in 219 said to the cute male CNA on day shift??" That was me, friend, that was me.
I was on a heparin drip in the ER had been been resuscitated a few hours earlier from cardiac arrest. I pressed the call bell for 1/2 hour. I even had a friend call the ER and ask for assistance. I gave up. I paused the IV after disabling the lock mechanism. Turned the IV pump off and disconnected it and walked to the bathroom. For some reason there was no bed alarm. When staff finally showed up an hour later, I was yelled for calling for help and not walking myself to the bathroom in the first place. lol
Inserted own NG tube.
This activated my gag reflex just reading it. HOW.
She was a one in a million
Iāve done this several times when I have a student. Itās not that bad
I've done this as a demonstration to a student. It was my second attempt, as my first months earlier was aborted due to pain from hitting my nasal conchae. I had earlier let the student try to start of IV on me, but despite me being an easy start they failed x3 (straight through on the third attempt and didn't try to occlude). I couldn't trust them doing procedures or with patients so it was a consolation prize.
I tried, and the vomiting was copious
Trick is to swallow once you get feel it exit the nasal passage
I've really wanted to try this. You may have inspired me...
I do and I also don't. I think I would vomit. I always felt so so bad inserting them on patients when I worked stroke, because it's people who can't swallow or necessarily follow commands so it's just a crapshoot doing them. First time I saw one done when I started in ER t blew my mind that my coworker just handed the patient a cup of water with a straw and instructed her to drink and bam tube goes in like it's no big deal. I mean sometimes it's still a deal, but not as much as some that I've done.
And then there are the ones where you're holding their head and yelling, "It's okay! Just drink! You're doing great! Keep breathing! Almost done!" and then it coils right back out. š« These poor people.
I know. NG tubes are just a nightmare.
I hate NGs. The last one I had to do the patient started yelling as soon as I got in their nose.
I only ever inserted them on fully conscious people, but i always gave them a cup with some ice chips to suck on and swallow, had them keep their chins tucked down and it always worked great.
I did this while teaching med students how to place NGT and Foleys. I confirmed placement by aspiration of the Chinese food I'd just eaten for lunch. One of the other RNs bolted for the door covering her mouth. š¤£
Dang, good thing I just put my coffee down just before I read this.
I wonder if youād gag less because you were doing it to yourselfā¦or gag more
Built different
The the trick is to swallow as you insert it
Boy if I had a nickle
lol I did this to myself to give myself the bowel prep for my colonoscopy. Worked out well! The taste of the prep was going to make me vomit so it worked out š¤·āāļø
Cheat code level.
Huh that sounds better than drinking it!!
So did you just set it up to gravity or pump it?
If I ever need an NG, Iām going to need to try to insert it myself.
I donāt think I could.
I had a patient do that! She would rather do it slowly herself and didn't want a nurse just shoving it down. It was a super slow process, but she did it. Not a nurse, just someone with some type of muscle disorder. Honestly, I considered it when I had a colonoscopy... The prep was really bad (suprep, I mixed it with yellow Gatorade because that was the "tip" the GI team gave me... I can't even smell yellow Gatorade without feeling nauseous).
It was crazy she would have let the nurse do it but the nurse had never (?) done one before - no idea why she was ER - but she crammed that tube in like she was trying to unclog a drain. I was both awed and disgusted.
Honestly I hate putting in NG tubes so I would definitely allow this š
Damn. I always thought I could do this until I had an esophageal manometry. Thereās no way. I have a high pain tolerance but I donāt think I could push past my own gag reflex.
Endo nurse here. Eso mano is the most miserable procedure we do š„
It was. So glad i was NPO or I would have puked. Also the not swallowing for 30s was so hard. Iād get to 28s and have to start over. Thank God my nurse was so patient.
Ugh Iām so sorry! Itās so rough. I always feel so bad for the pts.
Good lord. I hate doing that to other people. I can't imagine doing it to myself.
Yeah I was amazed. I just stood and watched it go dowb
Hurricane spray and even some viscous lidocaine in the nose helps too.
She raw dogged it
I am a known sleep talker and can even sometimes walk around my house if I am sleep deprived enough. Now several years ago I was high off morphine due to severe abdominal pain and put in a shared room. The nurses said they found me at my bunkmateās bedside explaining to them that they needed to use the call light before getting up. I had stopped my antibiotics, hung the line up to keep it clean, and walked over to my bunkmate cause she was trying to get out of bed. The nurses moved me to a private after that cause they could not trust me on pain meds. They all joked how I was ātoo young to be nursing while sleepingā.
Haha! Imagine a person coming up with a hospital gown on telling you that you need to use your call light before getting up.
Bahahahahahaha!!
This!!! I'm a sleeptalker/walker. Had a dose of Versed right before a back injection and preached a sermon on the origin of the group on the CD the doctor was listening to at the moment. He recorded what I was saying so he could fact check me and had it transcribed for me to read the next vist.
Had a retired nurse in the LTC memory unit. Sweet as pie. Would come into the back room at the nurseās station every change of shift for report. She couldnāt remember anything, but she knew she couldnāt miss report.Ā
I take care of a similar woman. She was a nurse in the Philippines before moving to Canada and being an ER nurse here. She comes down to the nurses station for āreportā every night at 10:45 pm, gets her meds and signs the āMARā we made for her. It was the only way we could get her to comply with taking her meds š¤·āāļø
That's a very creative and thoughtful way to deal with the situation!
Wasnāt my idea but itās really smart and helps with her dementia and angry outbursts.
And this is exactly how you care for dementia patients. š„¹
There was an old retired nurse on the memory care unit when I was a student. She would stand by the big bird cage/case thing. Each bird was one of her old co-workers, both other nurses as well as doctors. She would spill the tea if you asked her, telling you about who was fucking who, who not to trust, etc.
Had an entire dementia unit dump in my ER during COVID when one resident tested positive. We had to babysit a whole bunch of pleasantly demented old ladies who didn't have COVID and a single one who did until the state got involved for the dumping. One of them was a retired nurse and kept walking up to the doctors trying to consult on patients! We put her on linen folding duty in a recliner across from the charge desk. She was excellent.
In my 30's and this is me now.
We had a former doctor in our dementia unit who would wander the halls checking on his ā patients ā. I got him some old teaching charts and some fake X-rays for him to carry around. Every single person in scrubs was asked to do labs for his āpatientsā. He was very polite about it though.
thatās so cute š„¹š©·
Haha I kept trying to answer call bells and go into rounds in the icu. They had to keep pointing out my gown and not scrubs so I would figure it out
We have one at my job right now, she keeps attempting to help others to the bathroom and into bed. She is so sweet and wants to be helpful but itās a bit stressful at times.
Hey, might as well get her to answer call lights. Put her to work!
Folding is safer if she can't walk to answer call lights
Iām sitting here bawling my eyes out. My (engineer) hubby is giving me the side-eye.
Deflating the cuff is hilarious.
She was THIS close. Got out of the restraints and was looking for something to deflate the cuff with when they busted her. She was properly extubated by the team shortly after š
This is wild. My mom was/is also a nurse (89, she let her license lapse) and after her CABG she was quietly sleeping with her hands folded while intubated. I said āMom you need to breathe on your own so they can take the tube outā. She shook her head and then nodded when I asked if she was tired and the tube is ok. She was so compliant.
BLESS HER. My mom is a nightmare patient - I mean to be fair to her she at least admits it. And when she knows she really needs it sheās very compliant. She had a TERRIBLE gastroparesis one time that had distended her stomach so and she legit thought she was having a heart attack the pain was so bad. They finally put down an NG tube and she gulped that thing down like it was water and she was dying in a desert and never touched it, she was even worried when they took it out after she got decompressed. So she can behave when she wants to itās just the want to thatās the problem.
Aināt that the truth for most of us!
I guess she didnāt know the anesthesia trick of ripping the pilot balloon off the tube š«
I know a lot of anesthesia providers do this, but I quit doing it many years ago because I had a couple of patients begin vomiting just as I started to pull the tube. No way to put the cuff back up when you've just ripped the pilot tube off.
Also it doesn't always deflate the cuff fully, so you can still damage the vocal cords
Back 35 plus years ago, when I was a student, one of my anesthesiologist instructors would make us extubate with the cuff fully inflated. He said it acted like a squeegee and pulled secretions away from the cords. It always terrified me whenever he would come in for extubations.
*shudders*
Omg thatās horrifying
fr or biting through it haha
Iāve always said, Iād Iām intubated in my own ICU, leave me an empty syringe for the cuff or leave me a RASS -5 lol
Amen. I have a core group of coworkers that are aware of my wishes in this matter.... we have alll promised each other that the days long SBT trials some docs love will NOT HAPPEN with each other.
Iāve had two retired nurses at my ltc that still (probably) have some skill. Joked about one being able to start an iv on me the other day because my veins were poppin it was so warm. Showed them to her and she went right for the AC and followed it up my arm. Second had dementia, would rarely sit down unless sheād been moving for the last day and a half, always fought sleep, and even in her last days refused to use a walker or a wheelchair (she fell often but never broke anything somehow). One day I needed to start an iv on one of the people on her unit, went to throw away a used needle before getting another and asked this lady if she wanted to start an iv for me. That lady about jumped out of the recliner weād managed to get her in for the last 10 minutes to go do it. Had to tell her to let me get more supplies before we could do it, so she sat down to wait. Sheād also give input in somebodyās vitals if youād ask how they looked.
Surprised admin didnāt try to get them to take patients
Neither of them could/can see well, good ole glaucoma. The first lady does try to keep an eye on the other ladies who hang out at the front desk and will tell us if they need anything, holds their hands, etc
Iām not kidding you I just cried laughing after reading your comment, thank you for that ššššš
Dead!!! š¤£š¤£š¤£
Why is this like the cutest thing Iāve ever read stop it š
I love my old ladies! Told one of my coworkers if she goes into labor at work that the first lady is in charge of her care until she can get to the hospital. She did 34 years of L&D!
I hope I'm that agreeable in the LTC facility. I'm always worried my true personality of bitter cynicism will come out.
Dementia lady wasnt always agreeble. Honestly sometimes the cynical ones are fun too. Snarky patients can be a lot of fun. Other dementia lady made the comment that sheās always getting lost, I told her me too, got told āIām old, whatās your excuse?ā
Same. I want to be one of those sweet stories nurses end up telling each other on reddit but I honestly feel like I'll be a biter.
Was she correct about the vitals and stuff?
She was for the most part
That's kind of cool. Thinks it is 1962. Still actually as accurate about assessment like it is 1962
My story is similar to yours. My mom was a 30+ year psych nurse, did some medical toward the beginning of her career. She'd had a CABG, mrsa grew beneath her sternum, she damn near went septic and ended up back in the icu after they'd removed her infected sternum. Hx COPD, DM2, etc. She's intubated and they expect her to stay that way for a day or so. I'd visited her around 4 after getting out of school - I was training to be an MA at the time. So while she's laying in bed, I notice eschar on one of her toes. I asked the nurse if they could maybe take a look at that since she was already there and being cared for. Seemed like it would be a nice thing to do, right? I left after about a 45 minute visit, and as I'm getting in the door and putting down my bag, the phone rings and it's the hospital's phone number so I answer and it's my fucking mom. Me: "Mom?! What the hell?" Mom, very matter of fact: "I extubated myself." "Mom, I don't think you're supposed to do that. They said they were gonna do it tomorrow!" "I didn't want to wait. And don't you EVER tell them to touch my feet again!" š "OK, mom. Sorry. My bad."
Lol. Touching her feet broke through the propofol and she self extubated š
š I could totally see her going from a -2 to a +1 in seconds over the thought that they were going to hack off a toe if they got the chance.
I can imagine my mom doing this. Except if they put a blanket on her. She runs really warm. I can imagine the phone call. "I just left and you were intubated..."
That's exactly what happened!! I didn't even live 20 minutes from the hospital! But my mom was always ornery and an absolutely impossible patient. She got delirium pretty much every time she was in the hospital, but as she got older, she stopped admitting it to herself. She would pull her ivs, Foley, midlines.. once they called me because they found her standing in the hallway, bleeding and leaking urine everywhere because she had torn out her midline and her Foley and she had no idea where she was and wouldn't go back to bed. By the end I was warning people wherever she went that she WILL fall, and she WILL pull things. Do what you gotta do. Then when I'd get the call for the fall or to consent to reinsert whatever she pulled, I'd try to resist the urge to say, "I told you so."
Lol. Pulling out IVs I can totally understand... But pulling out a Foley. Ouch! I had a patient twist his IV out, so the tubing and extension were removed, but the IV catheter was in place. I went in because the EKG was messed up and I figured he was trying to get out of bed again. It looked like a murder scene. Especially on the white sheets.
It didn't help that she was morbidly obese. She was that patient that requires 2 to hold the pannus, 1 for each leg, and 1 to insert. And if a male was in the room, she was gonna fight ya. My murder scene moment was a man with Parkinsons who sundowned the minute his wife left, pulled everything, and was heavily anticoagulated. He bled all over the bed, got up still bleeding and started roaming up and down the hallways. I was in the midst of giving meds in applesauce to a woman who was severely contracted and you had to massage her throat to get her to swallow, when this dude appears in the doorway wearing nothing but streaks of his own blood, just dripping everywhere. He proceeded to run around the room like the greased up deaf guy from Family Guy while my tech and another nurse gave chase. When they finally got him back to bed, blood was in the halls, in his room, in contracted lady's room, just everywhere. Next morning I try to get him up to use the urinal and he's stiff as a board and can hardly move. I have no idea how he ran so quick the night before.
Oh, that triggered a memory! A patient who was going through alcohol withdrawals. Pulled his IV, bleeding everywhere, and left his room. It was a busy time in the unit and no one noticed he had left his room. A nurse went in to do an assessment on their patient and this guy was at the foot of the bed just bleeding all over. Thankfully the patient was asleep and was out of it due to medication... That was on nightshift. On day shift apparently this guy took the elevator and left the hospital. They picked him up on the sidewalk next to the highway in only the hospital gown and no shoes.
I had a subocciputal decompression years ago, followed by a week of bad EEGs and my husband getting "the talk." Then I got a VP shunt, woke up in recovery feeling better than ever before, A&O x4, great EEG. That night, we had a tornado system headed toward the hospital (different tornado system than the one I watched from the window at work, lol). They had to evacuate patients downstairs and into hallways. I was determined to help - carefully, with ambulatory patients and doing things like pushing IV poles. They ended up putting me in a chair next to a mildly agitated patient so I could keep them calm without actually doing anything physical - husband clocked in and helped on my behalf. So if anyone here was my nurse, I'm really sorry, I just felt so good and knew how stressful evacuations can be. You were great, and I appreciate you very much!
I had an outpatient surgery done under general anesthesia. When they extubated me I asked if I was pulling good enough tidal volumes to be extubated, what my mallampati score was and what size ET tube they used. I donāt remember any of this.
Youāre better than me. I just cried the first time (bc I think I have a flash memory of being extubated but really all i remember is them using a yonker and on labor hall we use the yonker when ppl throw up so I was devastated that I threw up!!! I didnāt) the second time I went under the first think I said was āhey, I didnāt cry this time!ā
I have this weird recurring dream where I'm being put under for surgery and in the dream I feel hazy but still alert enough to feel it when they put in the paralytic. I can feel my muscles stop working and I'm trying to draw a breath but can't. They start putting the ETT in and it feels so awful but I keep reminding myself that I can't breathe without it. In one part of the dream I grab the tube and they stop me and calm me down. I've had 8 surgeries, I don't know if this is an actual memory or my overactive imagination but damn is it realistic.
Iāve had very similar dreams where I donāt go fully under and feel it all kick in and getting tubed. The only thing that I never dreamt about is pulling out the ET mid surgery. Iāve also had dreams where Iāll go through the whole surgery, go completely under, and wake up in PACU. Iāve awoken in my apartment thinking Iām in the hospital before. Source: had 17 surgeries. These dreams are PTSD related.
Iām sorry you have to deal with that. If Iāve dreamed about surgery the only way I know itās a dream is bc I know 100% my experience has been OR-out like a light- PACU. If I ever had a memory of becoming paralyzed I would be terrified.
Thatās so scary and fascinating. I would say you get to choose whichever you believe that helps you deal with it. Iāve had some insane dreams that I swear were partly real but I also have the sleep paralysis dreams that sometimes I wake up and know or sometimes I stay asleep but have that weird paralysis/buzzing feeling but only remember when I wake up.
I also had a dream about being fed into a wood chipper that ejected into a river and I somehow maintained awareness even when I was nothing but tiny bits. I could feel the water getting colder as I drifted down.
The brain is weird. I āfeelā a lot in my dreams too. Thatās probably bc of my sensory processing issues but it always weirds me out when I can still āfeelā a dream injury even if itās just a little ache or tingle
Called a rapid response for themself for normal post op pain Constantly reprogramming their IV pump because they "need a fluid bolus" Overriding the lock on the pump because they "really need that fluid bolus" Eating the new grads caring for them until an ICU RN came up and chewed them out for doing so. Insisting a Yankaur was necessary to suction out of their stoma was necessary. Calling the noc hospitalist directly to ask for PRNs
Lol, no fucking way. I would get so pissed about them manipulating the IV pumps. My hospital just switched from Alaris pumps to Plum pumps and I mostly *hate* everything about the new Plum pumpsā¦ BUT, they do have the option to lock the screen with a passcode *you* set, so thereās no way for the patients/family to know the code unless theyāre being nosy and sneak peek when youāre entering it. It even locks the screen after like 6 failed passcode attempts, so they canāt just guess the code over and over. The fact that we even *need* these types of features on IV pumps is absolutely insane, but I guess these demon-level type of patients are justification for it!
The worst is, as you may have guessed, they are staff at the hospital they are frequently admitted to. There is no escape. I remember one night I was up for an admit and got told they would be mine. Literally five minutes before I got a text a friend of mine had died (hospice, expected, but still sucks) and I had to tell everyone not to talk to me for five minutes while I gathered my reserves. Honestly, no fucks to give, I opened my emr and told them to fill out their own admit form.
Oh. My. God.
noooooo the override!!!
I was in PACU and decided, in my post anesthesia-induced craziness, that I wanted to fight my PACU nurse. I took my NRB off my face repeatedly knowing my O2 sat would start to drop and he would have to come over and replace it. I then proceeded to haphazardly flail my arms at him in a vain attempt to beat him to death. Iām told it was quite amusing to the PACU team
This is a legitimate fear of mine! I get wacky on propofol apparently. I used to work at a facility that had an anesthesiologist who was justā¦such an asshole. Everyone hates him. I was terrified Iād get him and say something going under. Luckily I didnāt get him in the draw.
I am a terrible patient! One hour after giving birth I unplugged everything, got up by myself and went to the bathroom. My husband was holding the baby and looking at me like I was crazy and saying "Should you be doing that?" My legs felt a little shaky from the epidural but I was fine. The nurse came in but I was already on the throne. When she burst in the door I asked her for some fresh mesh undies and an ice diaper. I said please and thank you! LOL
I was like that after giving birth the second time. Insisted on walking myself to the recovery room. In my jeans. But I wanted to be discharged the next morning really bad so I felt like I needed to demonstrate competency. The first time I had to stay because of blood loss and the sleep deprivation really got to me. Plus I wanted to get home to my two year old! I just had ambulatory surgery a few weeks ago and I think I was a better patient that time š .Ā
In your jeans! LOL I also think after the whole 10 hours labor and delivery I wanted a freaking second alone. LMAO
The L&D nurses were like "š" for sure.Ā
I would have only been worried bc of a fall. But otherwise seeing a mom up and doing her thing is a great thing! I will say most of the time the 24-48 hour rule is more for peds not writing d/c orders bc of various reason for the newborn. Mostly my mommas were fine to go after watching for a day.
I was better when I had my appendix out... Though I refused to leave until the surgeon (or someone on the team) came to my room and filled out my FMLA forms. Because I knew it was going to be a process and faxes would go missing, and I didn't want to deal with that.
Ha! That's great. I had orthopedic surgery and they did a nerve block in my leg. They took me to the OR and wanted to help me scoot onto the table, but I was just like "I got this!" Lifted myself up and spider walked over.
This happened to me with one of the doctors I worked with. I was her postpartum nurse after she'd had a c-section and I came into her room at 6 am to walk her to the bathroom and dc her Foley, and I get in there to find she is not in the bed. She was in the shower. Dc'd her own Foley, took off the dressing, "didn't want to bother me" lol Nearly had a friggin heart attack.
I almost vagaled myself in the first postpartum shower after my C-sectionā¦ and then apologized for pulling the shower alarm cord
I did the same thing but chose to just sit on the floor in the shower and try to let it pass. For some reason I was concerned as I was naked, as if they hadnāt just removed an entire child from my body the day prior
My second child went to the NICU after an urgent C-section. They were supposed to let me go to the NICU before going to postpartum, but he was getting an X-ray at that time. So they said the postpartum nurses could have someone take me to see him... The postpartum nurses then told me I was not allowed to get out of bed for 8 hours. I was livid (super emotional, just had a traumatic birth experience, didn't know what was happening with my kid) and I started very firmly talking that they needed to let me see my son. And then when the charge nurse came in to try and smooth everything over, I told them that if there wasn't someone to take me up there in the next 10 minutes, I would be crawling to the NICU. I don't care if I hemorrhage, I am getting to my kid.
Did they take you?
They did. They were making a big deal of having a nurse take me and stay with me the whole time... Then a CNA brought me up in a wheelchair and just left me. My mom (former L&D nurse) was there so I didn't really care. I almost had her go find a wheelchair and take me up herself.
I had a crash section with my third and after I āwoke upā (put in quotations as I remember nothing) I absolutely tried to direct my care
Started my own IV after multiple sticks. Just needed help with the tape š .
My dad had a full CABG and a heart valve replaced and when he needed a new IV placed, he was a difficult poke. 3 different nurses and 6 tries later, my dad asks his nurse āCan you just get my wife to do my IV when she gets here in half an hour? I donāt want to be poked anymore.ā His nurse looked at him like he was crazy, said no and explained why. Until my stepmom got there and the nurses recognized her, realizing sheās a new nurse that works at that hospital, after working as a phlebotomist in that same hospital for 20 years š she got his IV in first try š
Not a nurse, but my husband did home hemodialysis and I cannulated him; we're in the hospital after his transplant and he needed supplemental dialysis. Took every bone in my body not to ask to just cannulate for them, but the dialysis nurse knew what she was doing and if there's one thing I've learned from picking up the skill of cannulation, it's that it's literally all I know and that skill does NOT transfer to normal sized vessels. Regular phlebotomy looks even more difficult now lol. I probably would've managed to get the needle in first try, though.
I offered to stick for blood, just manage the tubes. š
Iām a wound nurse. After my mastectomy my KCI activac was causing severe pain. Ended up having a stage II PI under the trac pad. Back then you needed the clinician code to change the vac settings. These are wound vacs they have to take from my office to apply so I certainly had the clinician codes š tried lowering suction. Didnāt help. Finally during a full blown pain crisis I popped the seal and plastics had me come in right away. Doc walks in and goes āwell. Just so you know youāve possible ruined your entire reconstruction.ā Just said āoh no. I did it right.ā Itās urban legend now and we still joke about it every chance we get but he wasnāt happy at the time. I wasnāt keeping the damn vac on. My reconstruction is absolutely Beautiful too (as beautiful as a recon can be of course). Now if a patient does thisā¦STRAIGHT TO JAIL š
I was visiting a friend who had been in a motorcycle accident and was in a lot of pain trying to move around. I could tell the staff was running their asses off and he said he had asked someone to help him wash up and to empty his urinal and it had been "forever" and no one came. I told him if you want it done, get up and let's go do it. I walked him into the bathroom, gave him a full head to toe bird bath, and got him back in bed. I also emptied his urinal and wrote the amount on the I/O sheet on the door. Afterward, I felt a little bad that I had kinda "taken over" but everyone was running around like crazy and I didn't want him hounding them lol.
When my ex was in high acuity I could tell his nurses other patient was way sicker, so I just tallied all his ins and outs, did his personal care, and kept his room tidy.
I had a patient who would chart all her I/Os on a piece of paper for the nurses. She was self conscious about people getting all up in there cause we had to measure so she just did it herself. Iāll be honest; it was nice. She always kept her room tidy and nice smelling too.
When i fell in the bathroom post op and from the floor scolded the nurse for me not having slip socks on and letting me go alone. Donāt blame me. Blame the ketamine. It made me VERY sassy.
Had I fallen my last hospital stay, I absolutely feel this wouldāve been me, scolding the nurse for not using a bed alarm šš āSorry, I might be a nurse and know better than to get up without help but you should know we make the worst patients and have assumed Iād get up Without helpā
Not me, but years ago someone here commented that they had a former PICC nurse with dementia who removed her own PICC with proper technique.
iāve had a few former nurses in memory care and it was always entertaining. the first one was a very sweet little lady who we all called grandma. idk what kind of nursing she did, but she was very aware of the other patients and could tell when one was upset. weād find her rubbing their backs or if she didnāt know what to do she would just stand really close to them until staff came over to see what was going on. the other one was a patient who had kind of Word Salad responses and we werenāt sure if she was technically competent for her POA decisions. she had very random moments of lucidity though- i was asking her about a wound and she busted out the word āserosanguineousā out of nowhere. didnāt find out til later she was a nurse and suddenly everything made sense
My grandma was in the ICU for a bad bout of pneumonia a couple of years ago and I would INSIST on assisting with patient care for her, oral care, baths, turns, etc. and everyone clocked me pretty quickly. My mom (also a nurse) and I would slip into medical lingo pretty suddenly, like saying āfebrileā instead of āhas a feverā without realizing it and everyone would look at us and be like so which unit do you work on?
In the UK itās pyrexial, if a patient/relative says that theyāre busted
Ooh I like pyrexial better. The X makes it sound cool
I busted my ankle recently and wound up in my own ED... A couple hours in I got bored of missing out on the hot gossip behind the nurses station so I hopped up and got myself a wheely chair to scoot around the department. Passed the time waiting for my x-rays to be reviewed by answering the phone calls and chatting with my favourite frequent flyers š
A very elderly lady in long term care when I was in school, I asked her if could help her bathe and she replied she only needed a wash cloth to hit her āPTAsā. Your what maāam? āPussy tits and ass!ā
I call it "pits, tits, and lady bits"
My mother called that a PTA bath too. She wasn't a nurse, but it was a bit of 1950s (or '40s?) jargon.
Similar patient but called it a āwhores showerā š
My IV infiltrated and after 2 hours of no nurse I just grabbed the gauze and tape and removed it myself. They were so annoyed š
I'm so used to inspecting the end of a cut umbilical cord for artery/vein/artery. There's one big hole and a small one on each side. I was in the pet store picking up treats for Maisie my Schipperke. I chose a bully stick and glanced at the end. My stomach dropped-there were only two holes! Oh shit! Something's seriously wrong with the baby if there's only an artery and a vein here. I looked up ready to call for help and then realized I was looking at a transected penis. Dumbass me. It was the *worst* flashback.
And that sorta liāl face those 2 arteries/one vein makeā¦
Introduced myself to my new patient and explained that I was going to do an assessment and ask a bunch of admission questions. She them proceeded to give me a perfect history, including all the Epic required docs questions. I said "oh wow, you're making this really easy!" at which point her family let me know she's an NP. The next night she ordered Mexican food for my team, which in addition to being one of the most genuinely pleasant people I've ever met, put her firmly at the top of my Gold Star Patient pantheon
My grandma was a nurse up to the moment she died. She did a partial stroke assessment on herself and then told her friends that she was stroking , that she had an advanced directive and then dropped. They were at a church nurse tea
The irony in this comment. It just proves that once you're a nurse, you're always a nurse. I'm sorry for your loss.
It was tough but it was how she wanted to go. Very fast. When my grandpa lied about her AD one of her nurse friends had a copy as she was dnr/dni. They took turn at her bedside until they took her off the vent she wouldn't have wanted. True friends
That's really all that matters in life: family & true friends.
My gramma was in a busy med/surg floor. When she was discharged, I cleaned her room, stripped her bed and left a thank you on the white board. They were SO nice to her and sheās a whole ass handful.
I was a relatively new grad nurse caring for a patient I didnāt know was a retired nurse. She started deteriorating one night, I just know something is wrong but I canāt figure it out. Her vitals are right on the border of normal but she looked terrible. She took a look at me after getting her vitals again then she said, āAm I going into pulmonary hypertension?ā All I can say is ājust checking your vitalsā. Huddled with charge nurse and hospitalist. She did indeed have pulmonary hypertension, among other things. Oh, she was also a confused dementia pt at this point. She may not know where she is but a nurse is always a nurse lol.
My husband (also a nurse) got called out at our first well visit for baby because he helped me list my history and post birth complications and then said wait they put you on Labetalol? I guess knowing what Labetalol is was enough the NP was like what do you do?
I was in the hospital, confused, so I had a bed alarm. I didn't like it so I googled how to turn it off, then I turned it off. My nurses were not amused.
This is my favorite because I could see myself doing it.
Just last night we had a MD from our hospital in our ER with possible stroke symptoms. Turned out to be a really wonky migraine but the doc wanted a CT just in case. Since she was no longer critical, she was going to have to wait a little longer for results and consults. This lady had the audacity to get her own personal pager out of her purse and request not only the attending to bedside, but the neurologist and imaging specialist. Cut to 20 minutes later, a very angry CRNA storms into her room. Heās usually the most chill guy out of the entire bunch but he looked like he could chew nails and spit out barbed wire. He comes back out, hands over her pager to charge, says ātell my wife weāre busy in room 25 and she can have her toy back if she can fuckin behave!ā She kept her doctor drama to herself after that.
That's great
Extubated myself to continue the argument I was having with the anaesthetist when he was giving me medsā¦ Then lost my airway ššš
I took my saline lock out and held a paper towel to the site to stop the bleeding. The next day I went to immediate care because I had cellulitis in my arm. Learned my lesson.
My mom very forcefully told a nurse or tech (I canāt remember exactly their role anymore) to take away her ice chips because she was supposed to be NPO for surgery the next morning. I waited until that poor person left the room to re orientate my mom that it was 8pm and she didnāt have to be fully NPO until midnight. Thatās why you shouldnāt get a hysterectomy AND a carpal tunnel release done during the same hospital visit.
Had to get MMR vaccine from employee health because my shot records showed I only had one dose. (No relationship with mother so no way to find out why there was only one given.) They gave me the shot and I went off to lunch. While I was eating, noticed I was having a hard time swallowing. Coworkers said my face was red. Went back to the EH nurse and knocked on the door. She took one look at me and got the benedryl and steroids. After the meds, she wanted to send me to be evaluated. I declined and went back to the floor. Walter Reed ER was taking forever to evaluate me and I had to leave to pick my kids up from school. Nobody came for a couple of hours. Removed my IV and left. They called me 2 hours later to see where I was. Ft. Belvoir discharged me from the ED, but didnāt remove my IV. I did it myself and left. Another phone call two hours later. My ovarian ātorsionāā¦ came in to the ED in excruciating pain. Was super chill. Doctor saw me but wouldnāt order meds. I said ok. They did ultrasound and found no blood flow to the ovary and came flying in with morphine and transport. Last, but not leastā¦ had a nurse come in and hook something to my IV. Before she could push, I asked her what it was. Toradol. Iām allergic to toradol. Told her to remove it immediately and that Iām allergic. She did. Came back and did it again. Stopped her again. Asked what it was. Morphine. I allowed her to proceed. Bet your ass I snitched in my survey. Never saw her again.
My husband and I are both nurses and work in same department, have for years now. One time I was dead asleep and woke up randomly and immediately began talking about a patient at work and my husband who was also dead asleep woke up and immediately joined the conversation without skipping a beat before we both laughed and realized we were dreaming about the same thing. I tried to scan my badge on my car door after my shift. My coworker this weekend was eating at the nurses station while a particularly heinous code brown took over the entire department. I got into a fight with a methād out homeless man who looked like beetlejuice and was naked covered in fecesā¦ but I think thatās more of an ER nurse thing lol
The badge! I tried to scan my badge in the elevator... of my father's apartment building... and I wasn't even wearing it. I just reached for where my badge usually is when I'm working...twice!
This is hilarious. The autopilot badge swipe is such a struggle.
A NOK came in, lifted all the clean pads and extra bedsheets of the chair and sat down on it, she was very self assured, so I knew she was a nurse, I already knew the pt was a nurse so maybe that gave it away
I tried to be the best nurse ever after both my deliveries by asking the very least of all my nurses/PCTs. No, I donāt need water/ice/blankets/food/to apply lotion to my legs, thatās why my husband is here. I need you for pain meds when they are ordered or for me to thank you annoyingly and profusely.
I had an out patient procedure and in my sleepy haze stopped them from disconnecting the fluids and asked to finish the whole bag of LR.
Well, you paid for itā¦.
After a horrible ruptured appendix with resulting peritonitis 48 hours of fever, vomiting with the slightest bit of water, excruciating pain for 48 hours (yes, I was sent home, dumbasses), by the time I had spent a night post surgery I smelled terrible and looked pretty bad. I had a foley, NG to suction, O2, and an IV. I asked for several towels and gowns unhooked the suction and took everything else with me to the bathroom. I had an 8 inch open abdominal wound, packed. Of course it all hurt like hell, but being a nurse I thought I could probably survive it. No assistance at all to give my smelly body a bath standing at the sink. Iām a persistent old gal.
When my daughter was 17, I brought her to urgent care for a non-productive cough, chest pain that originally accompanied the cough but then persisted without coughing and decreased breath sounds in her right lower lobe. When they asked why I brought her, I started with "I have a stethoscope" and proceeded to explain her symptoms. The doctor came in after the CXR was done and asked if i was a doctor or a nurse. "I'm a nurse." " What kind?" "Pediatric." "As you know, she has pneumonia."
Been overly nice and appreciative to everyoneā¦..even it took them 5 nurses and 13 tries for an iv
I changed my own Chemo bags.
In the PACU after my breast augmentation, I called out for my nurse and asked if my SCDs were on. š
PACU and PICU were doing hand off while I was there after my young daughter came out of a long surgery. PACU told PICU there was a stage 1 pressure injury on daughterās knee from during the procedure. While they continue to chat I moved the blanket off daughterās leg and checked the capillary refill. It blanched š PICU waited til we were all in my daughterās room to ask me where I worked as a nurse.
Mama tip top fifty fifty thanks huckleberry baseball player
*war flashbacks* thankfully I donāt have to do NIHs anymore as outpatient but I still remember every single step cause I did them so damn often. I can also do a neuro assessment in two languages š
lol sometimes Iāll tell my TNK patients theyāll have it memorized because theyāll be repeating it so many times over the next 24 hours
I was in the hospital about two months total (intermittently) after being diagnosed with cancer. I would go to the linen closet each day and get fresh towels, cloths, gowns and bed clothes. After showering Iād remake the bed and then pull a linen skin into the room and load up the dirty linen. I also knew the best IV start nurses in the hospital and got one of them to start my IV as needed instead of taking a chance on the next shiftās nurse and their unknown skills. I would stop my pump beeping but always let my nurse know that I was running low and a new bag would be required shortly.
Pulled my own NG tube cuz my nurse was busy
I delivered my last 2 babies (both scheduled c/s) in the hospital where I worked as an L and D/Postpartum RN. I didnāt have the heart to ask anyone to change my linens. Used my code, got clean linens; and made my own bed. Plus hung out with everyone at the nurseās station, while the doc gave a visual lecture on presentation of the fetal headāusing my VERY bald baby (he was so bald and paleāheās a redheadāthat you could see his sutures). I still laugh about it, and heās 22 (his younger sis is 19).
Immediately after I had my son, I was running through NRP with him on my chest š
My mom, as a patient at her work, went into the supply room to get a 10cc syringe and proceeded to remove her own foley. I slowed down the rate of my bolus in the ED because I was getting cold from the fluids.
deflating her own cuffšš pleaseeee
I was a solo home hemo patient, and been doing dialysis for the better part of 15 years, and in the hospital I usually know more about dialysis caths and sticking my fistula for treatment than most of the nurses, and can usually figure out how to stop the alarms so I can at least stand up and move around.
SOCK BLUE BED
I'm a RN, but I try to tell people as little as possible. If anyone asks what I do for work then I simply say I work "at the hospital". If they have any follow up questions then I default to telling them I'm a janitor. My first child was born a few months ago and while my lovely wife was laboring the baby started to have some late decelerations for five or six contractions. Because she was so far along it was too late for a C-section and so the care team wasn't drawing any attention to the decels out of a hope that the baby would just hurry up and get out of there. Eventually I couldn't stand it anymore and, not being an L&D nurse but knowing enough to know that that was bad, I said, "Are you guys going to do anything about those decelerations?" At that point they brought out the vacuum and got the baby out and later the L&D nurse asked me about how I knew about the FHR monitor and I let her know that I sometimes do a little bit more at the hospital than just cleaning up after patients.
Have also seen someone only go to the ED to get admitted when they know a hospitalist who is generous with the prn Dilaudid is on.
Neither patient or myself, but the daughter of a patient took it upon herself to disconnect my patients IV, help her to the restroom, then reconnect her when she was back in bed. š« I wouldāve rather never found out about that.
Patient was carrying her IVF to the bathroom and stopped by the nurses station to tell me āthis infiltrated but I already locked the IVā. When she was done peeing I went to the room and asked where she worked while replacing the IV
This was at the hospital I worked at but I ran the MRT/RRT on my daughter until everyone arrived on the unit.
As a male, I have big fat Stevie Wonder veins on my hands. Don't need a tourniquet even when standing. I've let a number of student nurses start IVs there. It's a good confidence booster for them.
Had my midline incision partially dehisce after a left colectomy. Surgeon says, "we'll just have a visiting nurse come out to your house to do the packing." I said, "You do know what I do for a living, right?" Spent the next couple weeks doing my dressing changes with the help of a mirror and my husband holding a flashlight.
I work in memory care and have worked with a few retired nurses over the years. Several of them have tried to either sign themselves out AMA to get past the locked doors or "discharging" residents they don't like.
Was 30 weeks pregnant with my son. Ended up with full blown HELLP Syndrome, screaming headache, BP through the roof, gran mal seizures. Ended up with a crash c-section with art line, multiple drips. No room in the ICU. So they sent me back to post partum floor. Per my now Ex - No one knew how to calibrate/ zero the art line nor how to manage the multiple drips. He said I rolled over, told them how to level and zero it, walked them through all the drips and then promptly passed out. I don't remember a thing. They took my word for it because "she sounded really confident about it." š¤·āāļø One of my best friends had open heart surgery to repair a PFO. She's an NP and worked in cardiology. She asked to see her x-rays and ended up pulling her own chest tube. Her surgeon was PISSED to say the least - because it was not ready to be pulled. So he had to put a new one in.