Ward whoppers

I have recently decided to take a career break from the profession I worked hard at for 16 years. After working in areas as diverse as psychogeriatrics to Pharmacological research, earlier this year I decided to hang up my virtual “nurse’s cap” (they did away with these items of uniform along with the shocking electric blue dresses when I finished my training) and graze on pastures new. I’m not yet sure what these pastures will be, but I know they will be something completely different from what I have done.

Looking back over the years, there have been – as with any job – good days and horrendous days. Days when patients who were at death’s door improve so much that they are able to go home to continue their rehabilitation; and days when patients unexpectedly and suddenly pass away leaving devastation among both staff and families. As I have been reflecting over the years I have worked in the nursing profession, some of the funnier stories have come to mind – and I thought I would share them with you.

One of the patients had been a hospital matron in her day – and she liked to help the nursing staff out with little jobs. Except that this lady was suffering from dementia, and really thought she was still back in her hospital ward ordering people about. One morning I went into one of the bedrooms to open the curtains, and I was met with a lot of even more confused women (they were confused enough to start with) trying to beat some of the very confused male patients out of their beds. Apparently our matron patient had believed they were married couples and had insisted that they shared beds.

Our matron patient also liked to clear all the dentures off the lockers by the beds, tip them into a communal bowl, wash them and return them back to the dishes on the lockers. The problem was, she was so confused that she didn’t match names to teeth, nor sets of dentures. So one morning, when I did my usual walking into the room and asking how patients were, I had a bit of a surprise when one old lady opened her mouth to answer. I thought I was talking to Mr Ed in a nightdress. The poor soul had been given two top sets of dentures from our matron patient and had been “ordered” by her to put them in, the result being that all one could see was teeth. Her neighbour in the next bed was having major difficulty talking without one set of teeth falling down, until I realised she had two bottom sets! It took a long time for a colleague and I to fetch back all the teeth, wash them thoroughly again and return them to their rightful owners.

The next story was a goof up by me. By this time I was a student nurse and I was in one of my first ward placements. I think I was about 19 years old. I was working a late shift and we were trying to get the surgical patients comfortable for bed, as it was coming up to 9.30pm, and the night staff were due on. One of the staff nurses had done the drug round and got called away to give report. She turned to me as she headed to the office and said, “oh Mr So-and-so needs his nightly dram. It helps him sleep. Could you sort that for him please?” and disappeared. She had told me where the whisky was kept, so I got the bottle and then…….wait a minute…..how much IS a dram? I should make it known that I have never been a pub/club fan, and my parents never drank whisky. I knew there was such a thing as a dram, but not how much it was in volume. I walked down the ward to see if anyone else was about I could ask, but the others were either handing over to the night staff, or were busy with patients. So, I was going to have to guess. Now, at this point I should say that now I believe a dram is about 30mls. Student nurse me decided to fill a glass ¾ full of whisky….surely that is a dram? Not too much, but yet not too little. Yeah….I’m sure that’s about right…..and I took this liquid nectar to its expectant recipient – an elderly man with Friar Tuck hair, and no legs. Well, the patient took the glass, seemed VERY happy with his portion, thanked me and I went out of the bedroom.

A few minutes later a call-bell from this six-bedded room was sounded and I went to answer it. On entering the room, I was met with loud raucous singing and laughing; as well as five other baffled male patients. My invalid patient had got so merry on the “dram” I had given him, he had rolled off the bed, and was rolling about the floor like a Weeble toy, singing his heart out. We had to put him in the ward sitting room, with glassfuls of water, until he sobered up. After that, he asked for me to give him his nightly “dram”, but I avoided it like the plague! The other members of staff found it highly amusing.

Three years later, I am about to finish my nursing degree and I am doing my management/senior student placement in a gynaecology ward. Students in these environments are nearly always given the enemas to do, and I was always glad when more junior students to me were working my shifts.

On the occasion in question, I was working with a second year student. I had worked with her a lot, and taught her a few things – including how to give enemas and suppositories. On this shift, I was exceptionally busy; I had dressings upon dressings to do and I was also conscious that one of the women needed a pre-op suppository given to her. The student was at a loose end, so I asked her if she would be happy to do the “pre-op supp” for me – she had watched me doing it enough times after all. Or I thought she had. Yes, she said she was fine to do it, and scurried off to get the necessary item.

About ten minutes later, I was doing an amputation stump dressing, when a face peeked around the curtain. “June”, said the student. “Mrs So-and-so is refusing her pre-op medication. Could you maybe try?” I waited until the dressing I was helping with was done, and then I went to attend to Mrs So-and-so, expecting her to be a bit “Bolshy”. Quite the opposite, I had a chat with her, gave her the pre-op supp, left her to it, washed my hands and got on with my duties. A short time afterwards the student cautiously approached me. “Did you manage to get Mrs So-and-so to have her medication?” she asked. I replied, “Yes I did; and for future reference – patients don’t normally agree to swallow suppositories!”

Another tale from my student days – this time in my Operating Theatre placement. It was my second day, the awe of the hallowed static-free room where you see bits of people you don’t normally see, was still pretty potent. The surgeons were some sort of gods who could perform miraculous healing surgery, and it involved a lot of standing. We had been warned at Uni that Theatre placements are notorious for staff winding up students, and had been told about the “Long Stand” trick, so we thought we were prepared for everything. On this day, I was just an observer. After the two surgeons had argued about which music should accompany the operation, the hacking began. I had been told that I was in to watch a varicose vein operation, it was apparently one of the bloodiest, and you had to be careful to dodge the blood when the vein was removed. At least, that was what I was told. So I was concentrating on waiting for the blood gush and trying not to feel faint, when the main surgeon turned to me and said, “You. Stripper!”. I looked round, not sure if he was talking to me. On blankly looking back at him he repeated, “you. Stripper”. I shyly replied that no I wasn’t that cheap kind of girl. “I need a stripper NOW! Go and get me a stripper!” he bellowed, and out that operating room I ran, trying to work out WHY a surgeon would want some floozy stripping in the theatre when he was meant to be doing an operation. The operating suite was busy that day, so I made a bee-line for the Recovery room and told the staff there what the surgeon had asked for. “Oh, he is wanting a new vein stripper, my dear”, said one of the nurses, who then showed me exactly where to find them. It was a very sheepish me who crept back into the Operating Room with the words, “the stripper is now ready for you”. A lot of hilarity ensued.

A year or two later, I was working in a large General Hospital as a Staff Nurse. One day, during my lunch break I went down to the WRVS to buy a newspaper for one of the patients who had missed the paper trolley on its visit to the ward. On my way back to the ward, along the main corridor, I was stopped by an elderly man who seemed a bit perplexed. “Excuse me nurse”, he said. “I wonder if you could point me in the direction of the Lawnmower ward? “ (He actually was meaning the Longmore Ward – the name of which was taken from the hospital from which the patients were transferred, when it shut down; a ward that dealt with breast cancer chiefly). I told him the correct name, and he seemed relieved. “Ah, that explains things,” he said. “I couldn’t understand why they had put her in Lawnmower ward when she doesn’t like gardening!”

My last humorous tale occurred in Recovery, just before I left to go on maternity leave. A patient had come out of Theatre after having had a Hickman Line inserted, and it was routine that they had an xray, in Recovery, to ensure that the line was in the right place. This particular patient was a very frail, elderly man, and he was on a new-fangled profile bed, to prevent pressure sores. This bed was quite broad, so we put some extra mobile screens around it for privacy. The radiographer wheeled in the xray machine and set it all up for the man to get his film. There were no other patients in at the time, and the staff were all ushered out of the room whilst the xray was in progress; but we could watch the still sleeping man through the window in the doors.

The radiographer was all set and ready to start the xray, when all of a sudden, the bed started heading heavenwards. The patient was hooked up to drips and monitors which all started alarming as the tension on the tubing and cables got too tight. Still the bed went upwards, and the patient remained asleep. Then, suddenly, the bed started going down, down, down, down…….and just as it was about to start its ascent for the second time, we all went in to find out what was going on. In actual fact, the radiographer had accidentally knocked a “demo” button on the bed as she was leaving it, after setting up the xray!

Eventually the xray was taken, the line was fitted properly, and the man woke up – unaware that his care in recovery had been of an unusually high quality……

Then of course, there WAS that surgeon who was the double of Mr Bean, who used to scare the patients rigid on his pre-op visits, especially when he told them he would be doing their surgery…….

I’m going to miss nursing, there is no doubt about it. As it is an extremely stressful job, and is getting more so, finding the humour in the smallest things is important. I hope you have enjoyed a few of the gems I have shared with you.