I hate those 1-to-1s sometimes...

I babysit a 69-year-old with Alzheimer's tonight who tested my patience to the extreme. The highlight was when she spit a mixture of applesauce and pills directly into my face. : /

Good part is, I got a lot of great quotes from her!


Henrietta: "Give me back my liver!"


Henrietta: "Look at my pretty bottom..."
 

Henrietta: "Can you reach my pumpkin? Or am I going to have to do it for you?"

For the Disturbed

85-year-old Patient admitted for 'Change of Mental Status': "Help! Help me! I don't know where my husband is! He isn't here with me at home, and I don't know where-"

Me: "Do you know where you are, dear?"

Patient: "Of course I do."

Me: "Tell me where you are."

Patient: "I'm... I think I'm in a place for the disturbed."

Me: (bursts out laughing)

Other Aide: "Oh, she has no idea..."

Shuffle Shuffle

Me: "You're funny, huh?"

89-year-old Patient: "Oh, I'm not just funny, honey, I'm hilarious. My friends would say, 'Marlyn, you're a card.' And do you know what I would say? I would say, 'No sir, I'm not just a card, I'm a whole deck, and you should take care how you shuffle me!'"


Our hospital is loaded up to full capacity right now, so they brought in a tray of pretzels for the staff tonight. We descended on it like vultures on a carcass. I love it when they deliver guilt pretzels. Guilt pretzels are the BEST!

Ohohohoho!

Had a horrible, horrible night that ended where me and one other aide were on the floor. Each of us had 20 or so patients apiece and a huge percentage were incontinent.

We set a goddamn record: Ten diaper changes, three of them necessitating a complete bed strip-down, in one hour and fifteen minutes. Beat that!

Plus, this:


Elderly Insane Female Patient, as we pull back her diaper to get her cleaned up: 

"Ohohohoho, cover my balls up!"

That's Why!

Sorry for the absence! I've been sick as a dog.

Or one of my patients...

Patient: "I'm a drinker!"

Me: "Why do you drink?"

Patient: "Because I have leukemia and I'm Irish, that's why!"

The Final Defecation

We need some background to this quote. I was taking care of a 98-year-old man yesterday who was firmly determined to die. Not only that, he kept telling me, "Today will be the day. I am going to die. I can feel it." It was freaking me out a little. I felt much better by the time I left because, of course, he hadn't died. We had quite a few nonsensical conversations about life, but the following is the best.


My 98-year-old Patient, sitting on the commode: "This is it. I can feel it. Here it comes."

Me: "Here comes what, Sam?"

Patient: "...I am having the final defecation." (strains like he's having a baby instead of a bowel movement)

Corn, I ask you?

Me: (creeps into a patient's room to try to empty his catheter without waking him)

Patient: (drowsily) "What are you doing down there... are you- are you pulling corn?"

Pink Elephants

Me: (after taking a 190/114 blood pressure) "Oh, wow. Do you usually run this high?"

Patient: "No, I'm not high. Though this one time, back in 1967, I did some crazy shit. Seriously crazy. I saw pink elephants. You've never seen pink elephants until you've done the shit that I did. Have you ever seen pink elephants?"

Me: "... no. But I said that your blood pressure is high. Do you have a history of high blood pressure?"

Patient: "Oh! Oh. Yes, I do." (laughs nervously)


(headdesk)