Hot vag...

Nurse:  "I just checked again and you don't have a fever."
Patient: "But I feel like I do!  Can you check under my arm?"


Nurse takes patient's temperature under her arm.


Nurse:  "You're still not febrile."
Patient:  <Big sigh> "All right then, can you put that thermometer in my vagina then?  Because I bet I have a temperature there."

The Home Depot baby: a cautionary tale

A while back I was admitting a lady in preterm labor.  I noticed on her chart that we shared a birth month and year.  When I was asking her history it became apparent she had older kids, which is another thing she and I share.

Me:  "so how old is your first baby?"

Patient: "oh she's a worthless thing that's almost sixteen, thinks she owns the damn world." 

I laughed out loud and got the rest of her history.  

We have a section on our chart where we ask if the patient got pregnant as a result of fertility treatments.  When I asked her this she laughed out loud.  And she said:

"Honey, this is a Home Depot baby.  You know what that is?  It happens when you get divorced.  After a couple of years you start noticing the cute young boys at the Home Depot.  Some of them even offer to come over and help you fix things if you ask enough questions.  So you have this beautiful young man in your house... and you know what happens?  They don't even need more than a couple of minutes to get hard, and you don't even have time to think about wearing condoms.  So... Look what happens.  My old ass is having a Home Depot baby, and I'm in preterm labor because my old body isn't doing too good a job with it."

I told her I was in the middle of a divorce with older kids also.

She looked at me and said, "you'd better watch yourself, then!"

Look out, divorced ladies! Beware the Home Depot baby.

Quote of the day...

"I mean, I would be agitated, too, if my penis was that swollen!" - said by someone who doesn't have a penis

Mommy Makeovers

Dear god, if I'm ever in the hospital I want to be like this lady.

Lady: why do I have to take a bath anyway?

Me: you want to look good for your family, right? And that big group of nice looking doctors are going to come see you in the morning.

Lady: (brightens) oh. Can you give me a boob job?

Me:  (trying not to explode in laughter) A boob job? Well, I don't know if we do that kind of thing here, even at night in the icu.

Lady: well, you surely see them here. What do you think? Do they look good?  I mean, I just want your opinion.

Me: yeah, I think they look great. But I don't know if I would get one.

Lady: You should really go to Utah. They call them mommy makeovers there. You can get a discount if you win some kind of competition. Because you need about twelve thousand dollars of work, honey.

Touche'...

Horrible interior design

Patient: "we're not in the hospital! The hell you say - we're in the basement".

Nurse: "does this look like your basement?"

Patient: "well, no, because you fuckin' redecorated it."

Hot.

Cleaning up a patient with another nurse...

Me: You got poop under your fingernails! How did you do that?

Patient: I don't know.

Other nurse: What are you gonna do when all the pretty ladies come to see you, and you go to wave at them and you've got poop underneath your nails and on your hand?

Patient: Well, that's never stopped me before. And I could always use my other hand. See? I'm doing it right now.

Love being this person... Sometimes.

Charge nurse comes into the break room. "You're missing it! You're
missing it! Mr. So and so (a patient) is telling us all to suck his
dick!"
She wasn't even coming to get anything, just to tell me. And it
wasn't my patient either. What on earth does this say about me?

Who asks that?

"No, I'm sorry, ma'am, we don't have a way of finding out what race or nationality the donor was for the blood your daughter will be receiving."

ZOMBIES!

So, yesterday I had to go to the hospital where I'm getting my second job, for more paperwork/bullshit. (this is the 7th time I've been up there for stuff like this, for those keeping track). I had my kids with me, since they can sometimes act decent enough for me to stick them in a hospital coffee shop for a few minutes while I run to the paperwork office and get stuff done. Anyway, we're walking along and run into a sign like this. While I'm asking where there is an ATM (since of COURSE when I'm going with both unruly-ass kids, they can't POSSIBLY have any spaces open in the designated HR use parking spaces, which are free for 2 hours - so I ultimately had to park in the expensive patient lot on level LXZ in row 888).

I noticed the kids were pretty fixated on this sign and were laughing and pointing. Obviously I see stuff like this every day at work, so it doesn't even occur to me that it would be funny under any circumstance. So I stepped closer to listen to their conversation.

Older kid: "That lady looks like a zombie with her hands like that!"

Younger kid: "That guy looks like a zombie, too. What is this poster about? Do you have zombies in the hospital, Mommy?"

Me, laughing: "No, that's a poster about strokes. It's when someone walks funny and has slurred speech, and their arms droop, it means something happened to their brain. It's called a stroke."

Older kid: "No, that sounds like they're turning into a zombie, too. Come on mom, 'something's happening to their brain?' that sounds like code for ZOMBIES!".

Me: "It does."

Younger kid: "You DO have zombies in the hospital, Mommy! Is THAT what you mean by taking care of sick people?"

Older kid: "Oh, and you're supposed to call 911 when this happens. So I'll have to remember that. If you see Zombies, tell them there's someone having a stroke."

I didn't even tell them that people ALSO can drool a lot when they have a stroke. That would have just added to their incredulity. I might have to tell them that later...

My locomotion is discombobulated!

Definitely the quote of my night. Admitted an older gentleman, a southerner, who said that when asked why he ended up in the hospital. He was freaking ADORABLE. Somehow I love the old men. Husband jokes that I am going to up and leave him one day for a guy who's 90 with the gross yellow toenails and good arm veins. Clearly he just doesn't understand.

So this guy kept ringing the call bell and I went in there. He said "I need to get back to bed". WTF? it's six am, you are totally in bed. Where I work, that'll earn you a roll belt. My other guy ALREADY had a roll belt. So last night I was just running from room to room putting little old men back in bed. In between doing stuff like running to CT and giving platelets and doing entire volumes of paperwork. The guy I didn't talk much about? Good lord. Whenever he wanted anything he would SHAKE HIS EVD POLE. Which is kind of as useful as poking a sharp stick around in your eye a bunch of times.

I really have no idea how the ICU karma knows when you're about to have a long sequence of days off. But somehow my last shift before vacation is ALWAYS full of crazy shit. It's like an ICU prophecy.

OFF FOR NINE - count 'em, nine! - DAYS!

Quote of the day, 6/26/2010

"This guy keeps calling about your patient. He sounds... drunk. Or gay, or something".

I like the rectum

After inserting a suppository, I had a preceptor say to me, "You know that suppository isn't going to work. I just let you go ahead and do it because I know you like the rectum".

Umm. I guess you figured me out. My answer was to giggle nervously and look around like maybe she was talking to someone else, but I really wish I had said any of a thousand less stupid things, other than NOTHING. Because I could have made that into some funny ICU shit, for reals.