Nursing Humor

I had one of my friends tell me the other day, “Nurses have a weird sense of humor.”  I didn’t really think much of it at the time, but after a while the statement was stuck in my head.  I have come to agree with this statement.  One of the things that new nurses learn very quickly is that nursing is a very stressful profession.  In fact most of the time, the stress is so high most of us feel like pulling our hair out, screaming or crying.  Humor is a way of defeating the stress without causing physical harm to ourselves or our patients. 

Thankfully I work with great nurses and nursing techs that understand this.  In fact we may understand it a little too well.  I and my co-workers never have trouble finding humor or fun in a situation.  Unfortunately, many times this humor and fun just so happens to be at one of the nurses or techs expense.  In fact, it is a very good thing that I can laugh at myself right along with everyone else since the majority of the time the fun and humor is at my expense. 

Recently, I was helping a co-worker with a difficult patient.  He was admitted for a urinary tract infection which had left him with altered mental status.  At the beginning of our shift, he was minimally confused but was able to tell us his name and birth date and follow simple commands. However, as the night progressed the pt was getting more and more confused.  He was pulling at his PICC line, and trying to roll out of the bed.  The only reason he was not falling out of his bed was because he had suffered a stroke 6 months ago and he had right sided paralysis. 

Part of our nursing care for this patient was to monitor his urine output.  Unfortunately he was retaining his urine, so we were in and out cathing the patient every six hours.  Now normally cathing a male patient is not that difficult since there is a single access point.  Of course nothing can ever be easy in nursing.  This patient had a history of benign prostatic hyperplasia or an enlarged prostate that makes it difficult to get the catheter in the bladder. 

My co-worker and I were attempting to cath the patient.  I was standing on the left side of the patient (since at this point I did not know that he had suffered a stroke with right sided paralysis, believe me if I did I would have been on the right side).  As my co-worker was preparing her supplies the patient was rubbing his private area with his hand.  My mistake at this moment was I was not paying close attention to the patient, but rather watching my co-worker prepare.  My co-worker asked me to secure the patient’s left leg since he liked to move it around and kick it into the way. Just as she began to insert the catheter the patient took his dirty hand and rubbed it up and down my arm, even managing to get his hands up underneath my sleeve.  I was trying really hard not to react but all I could think at that moment was “Oh my gosh!!!! I can’t believe he is touching me with that dirty hand!!!”  Unfortunately there was nothing I could do at the moment except to ensure that I scrubbed my arm down when we were finished.  My co-worker finished cathing the patient and as we left the room, the jesting began. 

As the night progressed I was still a little disgusted and felt as if I needed a good shower thanks to this patient.  But of course six hours later, we were back in the patient’s room preparing to in and out cath the patient again.  By this time, in the early morning, the patient was beyond confused.  In fact he was out of control.  The doctor had been called to come access the patient multiple times, due to the increased risk of physical harm.  I was not looking forward to this task. 

As we began to prepare, I once again found myself on the left side of the patient. (At this point, I swear my co-worker was doing this to me on purpose.) The patient was so agitated it was going to take a little more hands on approach in order to accomplish this.  I was holding the patient’s left leg trying to stabilize it, but found this to be impossible.  He was shaking his leg so hard I could not get it to hold still.  Once again, the patient had his hand down in the area, and then back up to his lips where he had picked a hole through his lip and there was blood everywhere.  My co-worker inserted the catheter and was trying to hold it in place, but every time the patient would reach his hand down to where we were working, the catheter would be knocked around and urine would fly everywhere.  Between his hand, and his leg shaking it was near impossible to hold the catheter steady.  All my co-worker and I could do was stand there and laugh.  In fact I’m pretty sure we laughed so hard there were tears flowing.  I thought this was as bad as it was going to get, but was I wrong.  Just as we were finishing up, the patient reached down to the catheter one more time, rubbed really hard and then began to move his hand.  It was as if it was moving in slow motion because as soon as I saw it move I knew exactly where it was headed.  But I was not able to move out of the way fast enough.  Once again his hand came up and rubbed all over my arm.  Then to make matters worse, his hand went up to his lips and then came back to my arm and rubbed the blood all over my arm.  At this point, I’m sure the look on my face was speechless, because all my co-worker could do was stand there and laugh hysterically.  As disgusted as I felt, all I could do was look at the patient, then at my co-worker and just laugh hysterically too. 

This patient was definitely one I will not forget in a long time, since throughout the course of that twelve hour shift he managed to somehow get almost every bodily fluid on me.  The first thing I did after that shift was take a nice hot shower!