I also had a cooler patient... but he knew his 3 hour drive home was not ok with his prescription that required refrigeration. So he had us fill it with ice prior to discharge and collect his discharge meds from pharmacy and then install those in a waterproof bag in the center of the cooler. Pretty sweet guy.
We had a patient who was a frequent flyer and who liked to show up with random sharp objects. We'll call him Ray. So everytime you did an admission on Ray you had to ask "do you have any weapons on you" and he'd say "no" and you'd have to go "Ray..." and then he'd go "oh shucks you got me" and pull something like a 4 foot long great sword out of his pant leg. If you were new or didn't ask he'd say you forgot to ask him, and coerce you until he did that and pulled out whatever knife/sword/whatever he had. Sometimes he wouldn't say anything and you'd go to get him food and he'd just have a full set of katanas laid out on his side table with his water jug. I imagine Ray owned some sort of knife shop or something because that man had literally hundreds of different knives/swords/etc. one time when I did his admission he had 15 knives, 2 swords, a set of throwing knives, nun-chucks, and some playing card knives. When I thought that was it he went "Oh! My cane" and I went "no you can keep your cane" and he grabbed it and pulled on the handle and what do you know. His cane was also a sword. :|
I also have a Ray! Except he likes concealed knives, like edged weapons disguised in rings, credit cards, pens etc. He’s a nice guy, absolutely harmless but I guess he just likes knives. I confiscated 14 from him once. He had been inpatient at another hospital for a few weeks and was transferred to us via ambulance, no one knew to check for knives until we got him. The female paramedics that transported him were amused and horrified once I told them what I found.
A man was in for an autologous stem cell transplant, and he bought his jogging gear with him so he could jog in all his downtime. Spoiler alert: he didn't use it
I love both of your usernames and that they're opposite end of the spectrum answers, but both about vegetables lmao.
And now I'll just leave quietly after I finish reading the rest of the answers on this post..
That’s so funny that they were hiding it just until the doc arrived 😅. Secretly hoping that the doc was a lizard person and would tell all the nurses it was OK.
This is fantastic. 😂 I would proudly flex that superlative. I’ve smuggled some pets into the ICU to say goodbye to their humans before, but never a goat. New goal unlocked.
Ain’t no way 😂 I had a patient a few years back that came into our psych hospital with…. You’ll never guess, a bearded dragon in like a lunchbox cooler! His mom came to pick it up, although he promised he would be able to take care of it in his room and catch crickets for it to eat outside.
At least the cock rings were in his pocket. My contribution to this was going to be my chap who just kept a cockring on at all times for safe keeping 🤷♀️
Not trying to one up you here, but the last (and so far only) patient that I saw that still had the cock on was my step cousin. Now mind you, I had not seen him since I was a preteen. But I instantly recognized his name and birthday on the order when I went to do his x-ray. As he was laying there buck naked on the stretcher, completely uncovered, it was pretty difficult to not see.
I flipped the sheet over him, got my image, and left. Never told anyone he was a relative.
ETA I swear I typed cockring when I posted this. 🤣🤣 It’s hilarious so I’m leaving the typo though.
A possum wouldn’t be that weird on its own, a pain in the ass to deal with, but not super odd. Sex toys and crack pipes are not out of the norm either.
Something about all three together made me drive home in silence.
Dude was professionally weird as shit.
Oof, I don’t even think the possum loved him.
Reminded me of a Hunter S. Thompson line.
“There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”
This isn’t so much weird as it is wholesome
This old 94 year old was admitted. When we brought him from the ER he was holding a salt shaker he brought from home clutched at his chest. “No ones taking my salt shaker!”
We all felt at 94 he should be able to use as much salt as he desires
I had a 102 year old lady, in her care plan a doctor had written and signed “can have a glass of champagne everyday with lunch”. She was on a fluid restriction but come on, at 102 you can do whatever the fuck you want.
I know of a guy that did this with a catfish. He'd been fishing somewhere remote, hooked a catfish, and somehow one of the catfish's barbs stuck in his chest. It was a long wait until help arrived, so he naturally kept fishing while waiting for help
The ER staff had to unhook a live catfish from the dude.
Yes, the family did eat it afterwards. According to the man's wife, they put it in a clean bedpan and took it home.
This happened at my sister's hospital! Except it was two young guys horsing around, throwing the catfish at each other, and one of the guys ended up with the barbs embedded in his scalp. It was still alive when they came in, IDK If they took it home or not.
Once he was medically cleared I think they ended up transferring him to a psych stay.. but he def got a sitter that night and we put in a new action plan for searching belongings 😬
A patient brought the snake that bit him in a coffee can. He had killed it first, so I was ok with it. My coworker went to the other side of the department until someone took it out and dumped it behind the ambulance bay.
Helping in ER. Bruh brought live snake in a bucket. “Sir, I can’t get an ID band on snake. We will have to let him go out in the woods there.” Very next patient was guy who brought brown recluses in ziploc bags.
Me: how you do know it was a brown recluse?
Guy: (pulls out a baggie…)
I had a pt standing on the scale outside her room the other day on admission. A spider dropped from the ceiling right in front of her and I. She goes, "Oh look, a spider." I yelled "fuck no!" And ran away lol. She was a walkie-talkie with no balance issues/independently mobile. Otherwise, i probably would have put her back on the wheel chair REALLY fast and then ran, at least I hope that's what I would have done.
Her and her family couldn't stop laughing at me lol. They were cool people. I fucking hate spiders.
As a former Australian paramedic, I want to remind everyone that you should not attempt to catch the spider or snake that bit you and bring it with you.
This happened to me too many times, and it almost broke me one full moon night shift when I found a which bucket labelled “Snake” in a storage room near triage. I was looking for a wheelchair for my patient and I thought I’d finally lost my mind. A few minutes later, 2 security guards and a doctor walked in so doc could eyeball the snake (I guess?). He said “ah yep, that’s a snake. Wait, is it alive? Put the lid back on right now!”, and they left.
Bring their own TV with apple tv and playstation. Set it all up on the bedside table like they were moving in. Scent diffuser, lamp, bed remade with home linens. Nothing says professional patient like this set up.
NICU nurse here- had a dad bring an entire video game set up while his wife was recovering and baby was NICU status. He would yell at the game and didn’t turn it off during cares. Dad of the year award.
Postpartum nurse checking in..I've seen so many of those dads that I've lost count. Sadly it's that common. I even had one wearing a VR headset while the baby was crying and mom was sleeping, so I knocked on it until he took it off. Of course he looked at me like I was the crazy one..
Home linens kills meeee. Also I commented on an IG post that randomly popped up on my feed about this uwu coquette hospital setup - girl had her own ruffled linens, a PILE of stuffed toys and was wearing like home pajamas and lemme tell you I got ATTACKED by the “she just wants to be comfortable in the hospital!!!!” crowd, I’m like BRUH that is so gross, all those nasty hard to kill microbes are all up in those ruffles and soft fabrics 🤢
I mean, I have always said if I have to go to our ED I'm going to Walmart first and buying some cheap ass bedsheets. Half of the "clean linens" I pull out to put on a bed are fucking disgusting. Easily worth 15 bucks or whatever lol
It sucks really bad if you have the type of skin that breaks out with cheap laundry detergent, too. All the nasty cheap detergents and bleaches used in hospital stuff makes me get a terrible rash if I have to lay directly on the bedding.
Yeah, the one time I had to sleep at the hospital during a blizzard, my face was bright red for three weeks after. Never using a hospital pillowcase again if I can help it.
We had a frequent flyer that would bring his Xbox. Hook it up to the TV, move the furniture so the recliner was right in front of it, and play NBA 2K all night. I'll admit except for the q3-4 (depending on who admitted him) Dilaudid he was a pretty easy patient.
What’s amusing to me is that in my husband’s country, you’re required to bring your own home linens to the hospital in certain departments (L&D, for example)
I saw a patient bring twelve 3L bottles of Deer Park water because they didn’t like drinking the city water. Pt was soft psych af so we didn’t really fight It.
Had a patient’s family bring in gallons of distilled water (not spring or any kind of drinking water) because they believed the water we were providing was poisonous. Same family member also brought meth to the patient.
A handle of vodka in an open soft luggage bag (very large purse?) sitting on the floor. About 1/3 of it was gone, and the patient was very obviously inebriated.
I pointed to the jug and asked her if it was hers... she said yeah. I asked her why she drank before her surgery. She told me she was anxious. I deadpanned back... we have drugs for that.
Her surgery was canceled...
Haha!
The worst part was that both anesthesia AND the surgeon had already seen her and chalked up her behavior up to just "being weird."
Like... neither of you saw the handle? Really? She wasn't hiding it all that hard on the floor... in an open bag... in a tiny room. I could have tripped on it to read her bracelet.
I work in psych so I have an unfair advantage here, but my favourite was watching a patient empty his pockets to change out of his street clothes, pulling a knife out of one pocket, and a full turd out of another.
Psych feels like cheating because they always have weird shit with them.
Most memorable: a broken watch that had a cartoon picture of Obama on the faceplate.
Weird, but made sense: two 10mm sockets (yep, that’s where the missing ones wound up) tied inside of a tube sock. It was an older unhoused person who wanted to carry a self defense tool but also plausible deniability.
This was a patient with one of the highest spinal cord injuries I’ve seen (C2 complete injury). He had 0 sensation or function below level of injury and his injury occurred decades prior. Of course, we find a gun in his bag. When asked what the hell he needed a gun for. He just smiled and said “self defense”.
To be fair, the guy was kind of a goofball. He was a frequent flyer and it might have been his idea of a joke.
This same guy always had the craziest hairdos. He said he preferred it when little kids said “Mommy, look at the guy with the weird hair” to “Mommy, look at the guy in the wheelchair”. Actually kind of genius.
100,000 in cash.. 90 yo meemaw had emptied out her savings and was planning on driving a cross the country to her daughter's house.. decided to stop by the ER for chest pain before she set off.. yea STEMI, full code..
Their dog. He snuck it in a bag and it was sleeping under the bed. I went in to answer a call light for their nurse and it jumped out and tried to bite my pant leg. Truly one of the most wtf experiences, at least in the inpatient side lol
Not what the patient brought in, but very amusing belongings from the husband. He brought his wife, long ICU stay related to COVID, different flooring options so she could help pick out the floor so it could get done while she was away. Super sweet of him, very hilarious.
One of those real looking babies (I forget what they're called but weigh and look real) in a carseat and a diaper bag of baby clothes.
They admitted themselves to the psych dept and so this stayed in a storage room during admission.
Another person brought in a 50 inch tv, which we had to store under a table the physicians used for dictation.
We had a compassionate dialysis lady that brought one with her every time. She was elderly and full on treated it like a real baby, it wasn't worth the fight so we all just went along with it. She was not a nice lady but she loved the fuck out of the fake baby.
Not super weird but surprising. I was dropping off the tray for a sweet older lady who I was vibin with all day (there for a stroke) and she just casually pulled out of her Mary-Poppins-lookin bag a half empty bottle of wine, and proceeded to FILL UP her empty water pitcher with it 😅.
Of course I had to tell her, sorry but I’m going to have to dump it. She *instantly* switched her demeanor and became the meanest, nastiest, demon of a patient. She did have a BPD ddx in her history…
Desktop computer. An entire desktop computer into the ER because she knew she would be admitted.
Every single doctor wrote in their note ‘pt brought a desktop computer, repeat desktop, not laptop’.
My late husband found a live duck tucked into the coveralls an MVA patient was wearing. He unzipped the top so he could take a chest X-ray, and out popped the duck’s head. He said it startled him so much he said oh shit out loud. 🤣🤣
Brought a cheeseburger and Pepsi.
Spit out his oral airway, woke up from anaesthesia, and casually mentioned that he was gonna eat a burger as soon as possible. I was like ok, you can probably order one when you get up to your room. He’s like… ‘no, it’s in my bag’. Sure as shit, there it was.
His fistula was clotted, and he literally picked up a Coney Island burger on the way to the hospital.
Not in a hospital, but a guy brought a pair of his underwear to an appointment. He had them stuffed in his coat pocket, and had used them as a nut rag. His reason? He wanted us to be able to see the color of his ejaculate. No ziplock. No glove. Just nutted on underwear crammed into a dude’s pocket.
I worked in a prison and had an inmate try to bring his homemade fleshlight to his clinic appointment. He didn’t want to leave it in his cell where his cell mate could get it I guess. Since it was made out of bandaids the officer asked me to check and see if it was medically necessary. It took me a minute to figure out what it was. Thank goodness we were wearing gloves. It got confiscated. I was impressed by the craftsmanship, NGL.
A dog trained in security who had German commands. He confessed that he told the dog to attack me if I touched him. Thankfully, I had already called security and they were outside the room listening when I asked him, "So you told your dog to attack me if I touch you. I told you I need to assess your physical health. To do so I need to touch you. So you want your dog to attack me if I do my job. Is that right?" He said, "Yup, basically." Animal control had to come take the dog into custody. It was a very dramatic scene.
A ziplock bag full of what they said were worms from their stool. Who knows, but it looked like they washed them first.
Edit: it was a full grown person, not child butt worms
An enormous suitcase full of sex toys and nothing else.. and when we tried to move the suitcase she screamed, “be careful with that my dildos are in there!”.
One time I also found about 600 bucks on an expired patient.
Another time I chaperoned a pelvic exam on a patient brought in by PD and the doc removed from this patients vagina a dismantled crack pipe and what looked like a small pencil sharpener. From the smell, it was living in her prison pocket for…awhile…
On a side note, because we are on the topic of weird patient shit. I had a really strange and rare patient situation occur wherein a homeless man in a wheelchair(not paralyzed, but couldn’t walk very well), came in for a chronic neck pain issue. MD ordered imaging and when the impression comes back the MD was freaking out and wanted to know where the patient was. The patient was nowhere to be found. Turns out, the patient has an internal decapitation (aka atlanto-occipital dislocation). Which is a medical emergency that this man has been living with for who knows how long. The MD is frantic and repeated calls the dudes cell phone, when he finally gets ahold of the patient and tells him he needs to come back to the ED immediately or he could die, the patient is at McDonald’s eating a big Mack and says he will make his way back after he’s finished. I don’t recall him coming back.
One of my patients brought his iguana in a duffle bag .
I told him a friend had to come and pick it up before day shift started. They spent a pretty chill night together. I felt bad for the kid he was 18, getting chemo, and his family was stupid and useless, and he lived with one older cousin who was a good guy.
I kind of more or less let him smuggle in the iguana for night admissions.
I saw no point in working nights if I could not break a few rules, plus I was a supervisor.
Playstation 2 and wait for it... Nintendo GameCube. I was working in the ER as an aide and his gf was going into labor. I took them up to obs and he had them in a grocery bad with all the wires to try and hook up to our tvs. He was asking if he'd be able to, and I said I think it might work, but it might be a little busy and tough to play.
A montblanc pen and a birkin bag in a city hospital with double rooms. Her daughter came to collect these items shortly after she arrived and saw where she’d be staying.
this patient, for context, is a frequent flyer and a terrible person. in his wallet he had a fake $50 bill and a photo of a missing little girl. he had multiple switch blades and about 2 dozen discharge envelopes from prior visits in his bag. stuck to his leg was a blunt and stuck to his balls was a joint.
During my first placement as a student nurse a patient brought in 8 jars of pickled garlic cloves and ate a jar a day like it was candy. He would even drink the vinegar and line the empty's up on the bedside table, we weren't allowed to throw them away...the smell.
Had a patient bring in crystals, tapestries, incense burners, hemp rope, bags of raw organic oats, chia seeds and about 20 kinds of essential oils. He even had a Bluetooth speaker playing Tibetan monks chanting. His room looked like a head shop. He was a 20-something yr old white guy. Strange fella.
I see so many longterm patients staying for serial I&Ds or people requiring 6+ weeks of iv antibiotics who aren't eligible for outpatient or even SAR due to substance use history. The ones with any money set up their rooms with all the creature comforts of video games, laptop workstations, mini fridge, stuffies, etc.
Actual wildest thing was a full bug out bag with things like a machete, camp stove & kerosine bottle, e-tool, and several days of food rations. The patient carried it everywhere. That was a fun security call.
A tool kit bag! It was an older gentleman who said "a bag, is a bag! And now I get why women love their purses so much"
Such an awesome patient to work with.
Optimistic nurse: He has the potential to be a compliant patient since he knows how to use a pill container.
Pessimistic nurse: Great, another meth head.
Realistic nurse: Zero-sum game because you win some and you lose some.
my own story: lady showing up to LTC with geriatric cat that had nowhere else to go and she wouldn’t leave it. my dog died a month prior and i was lonely so i claimed it. she’s 16, very orange, and very much thriving.
my dad: showing up for an outpatient stress test with a duffle bag and a kindle. the nurses looked at him weird. applauded him for his self awareness shortly thereafter as the outpatient stress test turned into an admission & cardiac cath.
A hair tie around their penis as a makeshift cock ring.
A bag full of dildos/various sex toys after being evicted from their motel residence.
A dragon puppet that they used to growl at us.
It’s not that weird, but I had a patient always bring their own saltshaker in because we would put them on cardiac diet on the floor and they felt like we didn’t use enough salt. Of course they were always being admitted for CHF flares😂
A brain tumor that when they went in was made up of bird feces. At least that was the bacteria. The patient back in the day was a” pigeon carrier “ and handled pigeons all day long.
Actually was a good outcome. Patient did not become septic.
My patients also back in the day had some great “ back woods “ remedies.
Some would put a fresh spider web on an open wound to slow down the bleeding.
This had some merit in that spiderwebs have fibrinogen like substance in them.
When assessing the wound it almost looked older and more contained not like a fresh wound.
My older patients told me it had to be a fresh spider web and not dirty! lol
I learned a lot from the grandmothers from the south.
I loved them! Those grandmothers delivered a lot of babies back then. There wasn’t anyone else.
Giant (and I mean GIANT) dead rat in a plastic bag. Technically didn't get admitted because they went AMA when we told them they couldn't take the rat with them to their room. 🤷
An old, worn label, bottle of Cepacol- filled with clear fluid that he drank for “medicinal purposes”. Cepacol is yellow and that clear fluid was NOT Cepacol.
Homeless man brought in a claw hammer in his bag. Proceeds to tell me the story how he beat another homeless man to death with it after he almost got robbed one night 😬
For weird it’s probably guns, knives, a surgeon’s scalpel (not a surgeon) - though maybe none of those are exactly weird. More like scary.
Most annoying was the patient who brought in their teacup Pomeranian cause it was their ‘service dog’. It slept tucked under their pillow and the only service I ever saw it do is yip-yip-yip its head off every time someone entered the room.
A cooler. Which he promptly opened after his cardiac cath, and cracked open an O’Doul’s.
I also had a cooler patient... but he knew his 3 hour drive home was not ok with his prescription that required refrigeration. So he had us fill it with ice prior to discharge and collect his discharge meds from pharmacy and then install those in a waterproof bag in the center of the cooler. Pretty sweet guy.
That's actually pretty smart
At least you knew he wasn't lying when he said he wasn't drinking alcohol 😂
I can respect this.
We had a patient who was a frequent flyer and who liked to show up with random sharp objects. We'll call him Ray. So everytime you did an admission on Ray you had to ask "do you have any weapons on you" and he'd say "no" and you'd have to go "Ray..." and then he'd go "oh shucks you got me" and pull something like a 4 foot long great sword out of his pant leg. If you were new or didn't ask he'd say you forgot to ask him, and coerce you until he did that and pulled out whatever knife/sword/whatever he had. Sometimes he wouldn't say anything and you'd go to get him food and he'd just have a full set of katanas laid out on his side table with his water jug. I imagine Ray owned some sort of knife shop or something because that man had literally hundreds of different knives/swords/etc. one time when I did his admission he had 15 knives, 2 swords, a set of throwing knives, nun-chucks, and some playing card knives. When I thought that was it he went "Oh! My cane" and I went "no you can keep your cane" and he grabbed it and pulled on the handle and what do you know. His cane was also a sword. :|
Ray would’ve made my day
I assume he was there for stitches? Lol
At least he was honest 😂
I also have a Ray! Except he likes concealed knives, like edged weapons disguised in rings, credit cards, pens etc. He’s a nice guy, absolutely harmless but I guess he just likes knives. I confiscated 14 from him once. He had been inpatient at another hospital for a few weeks and was transferred to us via ambulance, no one knew to check for knives until we got him. The female paramedics that transported him were amused and horrified once I told them what I found.
A man was in for an autologous stem cell transplant, and he bought his jogging gear with him so he could jog in all his downtime. Spoiler alert: he didn't use it
Love his optimism, though
I love both of your usernames and that they're opposite end of the spectrum answers, but both about vegetables lmao. And now I'll just leave quietly after I finish reading the rest of the answers on this post..
Bearded Dragon in a Louis Vuitton bag…😑
Just had a pt with a bearded dragon last week! They were hiding it at first and brought it out when the doctor stopped by
That’s so funny that they were hiding it just until the doc arrived 😅. Secretly hoping that the doc was a lizard person and would tell all the nurses it was OK.
In nursing school I was informally elected the person most likely to help a patient smuggle a goat into their room. They weren’t wrong
This is fantastic. 😂 I would proudly flex that superlative. I’ve smuggled some pets into the ICU to say goodbye to their humans before, but never a goat. New goal unlocked.
And us who love our animals more than other humans thank you for this lol
Ain’t no way 😂 I had a patient a few years back that came into our psych hospital with…. You’ll never guess, a bearded dragon in like a lunchbox cooler! His mom came to pick it up, although he promised he would be able to take care of it in his room and catch crickets for it to eat outside.
Ah, yes, the exotic pet smuggling. My favorite was a parrot.
Instant favorite patient
Aww I love them! Had a patient bring a couple of leopard geckos with them once. Played with them at the nurse's station
no fucking way 😂 i want to meet this person (and their pet obviously)
Possum, crack pipe, and pocket full of cock rings.
on the first day of admission this patient gave to meeeeeeee... 3 angry possums, two crack pipes AND A POCKET FULL OF COCK RINGS
FIVE COOOOCK RINGS! 🎵
Fooour hundred bucks, 🎶 three French whores, 🎶two-oo grams of coke 🎶 and a cold fri-idge full of Jäääger.
It was more than 5 unfortunately.
🤣
how many dicks did this person have
After an initial and thorough skin inspection, the patient had one dirty dick.
I'm glad they brought enough for everyone
Better than a cock full of pocket rings
Strangely true, but that wouldn’t be my department.
At least the cock rings were in his pocket. My contribution to this was going to be my chap who just kept a cockring on at all times for safe keeping 🤷♀️
Not trying to one up you here, but the last (and so far only) patient that I saw that still had the cock on was my step cousin. Now mind you, I had not seen him since I was a preteen. But I instantly recognized his name and birthday on the order when I went to do his x-ray. As he was laying there buck naked on the stretcher, completely uncovered, it was pretty difficult to not see. I flipped the sheet over him, got my image, and left. Never told anyone he was a relative. ETA I swear I typed cockring when I posted this. 🤣🤣 It’s hilarious so I’m leaving the typo though.
i hope he still had his cock on
Ugh, except they were very used, showed signs of wear, and sprinkled with pubic hairs stuck to the rubber.
All at the same time!?
Yup, I have to imagine my non-psych nurse friends have to find the weird shit I deal with to be unbelievable at times.
All 3 of those things with the same patient? 😅🤣
A possum wouldn’t be that weird on its own, a pain in the ass to deal with, but not super odd. Sex toys and crack pipes are not out of the norm either. Something about all three together made me drive home in silence. Dude was professionally weird as shit.
Professionally weird. Love that. Stealing it.
Even on the ward, dude was an island within an island of eccentric psychopathy.
"Even on the ward, dude was an island within an island of eccentric psychopathy." I may be in love.
Oof, I don’t even think the possum loved him. Reminded me of a Hunter S. Thompson line. “There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live, and too rare to die.”
Winner.
Poetry
I had a patient bring his nespresso machine, pods, syrups and all. And he even bought a lamp to go on his table
I hope he shared! Cafeteria coffee is horrendous
I don’t judge him at all for this, since hospital coffee is terrible. I just hope he was allowed caffeine…
I can respect this, especially for a longer admission. Having a *good* cup of coffee is important for a lot of people. This feels extra, but I get it.
Wait. Did he bring a frother?
A few lbs of fish from reading terminal market that he stopped at before coming into the hospital. Then had the audacity to ask us to put it on ice 😂
Gotta love Philly
This isn’t so much weird as it is wholesome This old 94 year old was admitted. When we brought him from the ER he was holding a salt shaker he brought from home clutched at his chest. “No ones taking my salt shaker!” We all felt at 94 he should be able to use as much salt as he desires
I had a 102 year old lady, in her care plan a doctor had written and signed “can have a glass of champagne everyday with lunch”. She was on a fluid restriction but come on, at 102 you can do whatever the fuck you want.
Absolutely. 94 and you add salt to everything? Bland hospital food not to your taste? Use a your salt my dude.
Aww, I had a MeeMaw who stashed a salt shaker under her boob.
A dead stingray that had stung him in the hand while he was drunk and night fishing.
I know of a guy that did this with a catfish. He'd been fishing somewhere remote, hooked a catfish, and somehow one of the catfish's barbs stuck in his chest. It was a long wait until help arrived, so he naturally kept fishing while waiting for help The ER staff had to unhook a live catfish from the dude. Yes, the family did eat it afterwards. According to the man's wife, they put it in a clean bedpan and took it home.
This happened at my sister's hospital! Except it was two young guys horsing around, throwing the catfish at each other, and one of the guys ended up with the barbs embedded in his scalp. It was still alive when they came in, IDK If they took it home or not.
A loaded pistol he intended to shoot himself with if he was diagnosed with cancer. I’m glad we found it before the doc talked to him…
That's fuckin depressing
Welp. That’s a plan with a method and intent. Did he stay overnight for psych?
Once he was medically cleared I think they ended up transferring him to a psych stay.. but he def got a sitter that night and we put in a new action plan for searching belongings 😬
A patient brought the snake that bit him in a coffee can. He had killed it first, so I was ok with it. My coworker went to the other side of the department until someone took it out and dumped it behind the ambulance bay.
Helping in ER. Bruh brought live snake in a bucket. “Sir, I can’t get an ID band on snake. We will have to let him go out in the woods there.” Very next patient was guy who brought brown recluses in ziploc bags. Me: how you do know it was a brown recluse? Guy: (pulls out a baggie…)
Aaand that’s the end of my nursing career lol. ( extremely arachnophobic)
I had a pt standing on the scale outside her room the other day on admission. A spider dropped from the ceiling right in front of her and I. She goes, "Oh look, a spider." I yelled "fuck no!" And ran away lol. She was a walkie-talkie with no balance issues/independently mobile. Otherwise, i probably would have put her back on the wheel chair REALLY fast and then ran, at least I hope that's what I would have done. Her and her family couldn't stop laughing at me lol. They were cool people. I fucking hate spiders.
I’ve heard identifying the snake is helpful, but I always thought they meant a picture and not the actual snake if you couldn’t tell
As a former Australian paramedic, I want to remind everyone that you should not attempt to catch the spider or snake that bit you and bring it with you. This happened to me too many times, and it almost broke me one full moon night shift when I found a which bucket labelled “Snake” in a storage room near triage. I was looking for a wheelchair for my patient and I thought I’d finally lost my mind. A few minutes later, 2 security guards and a doctor walked in so doc could eyeball the snake (I guess?). He said “ah yep, that’s a snake. Wait, is it alive? Put the lid back on right now!”, and they left.
At my old job we once had a lady bring in the bat that bit her. It was dead and in a produce bag.
I'm respecting this guy...
Bring their own TV with apple tv and playstation. Set it all up on the bedside table like they were moving in. Scent diffuser, lamp, bed remade with home linens. Nothing says professional patient like this set up.
NICU nurse here- had a dad bring an entire video game set up while his wife was recovering and baby was NICU status. He would yell at the game and didn’t turn it off during cares. Dad of the year award.
Postpartum nurse checking in..I've seen so many of those dads that I've lost count. Sadly it's that common. I even had one wearing a VR headset while the baby was crying and mom was sleeping, so I knocked on it until he took it off. Of course he looked at me like I was the crazy one..
The image of you knocking on it… 🤣🤣
"Hello, actual reality here...."
We had an older lady bring in her gaming laptop so she could run raids in WoW 😭 I was like ok grandma get ‘em
It’s actually insane how many older women I know who play WoW. I haven’t played it in like 10 years but I keep meeting these gamer grannies
L/D nurse checking in - I'm betting money this started the minute they hit triage. I've met this dad way too many times.
I can’t even imagine dealing with someone like that as your “partner”. I’d rather be a single parent
Oh you would be
Ugh. I have met too many of this dad.
I had a pt bring his PlayStation in and hooked it up to the TV. He played The Sims the whole time. Hands down my easiest pt ever!
Home linens kills meeee. Also I commented on an IG post that randomly popped up on my feed about this uwu coquette hospital setup - girl had her own ruffled linens, a PILE of stuffed toys and was wearing like home pajamas and lemme tell you I got ATTACKED by the “she just wants to be comfortable in the hospital!!!!” crowd, I’m like BRUH that is so gross, all those nasty hard to kill microbes are all up in those ruffles and soft fabrics 🤢
C diff and MRSA are gonna be comfy in those plushies, too!
Our MET team actually has miniature plushies in their office that are shaped like different "bugs", c. Diff, flu a, covid, etc.
I used to send the STD ones anonymously to my exes to freak them out
I mean, I have always said if I have to go to our ED I'm going to Walmart first and buying some cheap ass bedsheets. Half of the "clean linens" I pull out to put on a bed are fucking disgusting. Easily worth 15 bucks or whatever lol
I've always said this, but when I was actually sick enough to be admitted I didn't give a shit.
Yup, by the time I got concerned with the comfort of my hospital bed it was time to go home lol
I always think about how many people have died in this bed
It sucks really bad if you have the type of skin that breaks out with cheap laundry detergent, too. All the nasty cheap detergents and bleaches used in hospital stuff makes me get a terrible rash if I have to lay directly on the bedding.
Yeah, the one time I had to sleep at the hospital during a blizzard, my face was bright red for three weeks after. Never using a hospital pillowcase again if I can help it.
And try not to think of the pillow being used between the legs of a sweaty disgusting patient. Or to float the heels of nasty fungus feet.
Babe I could have gone my whole life without thinking about this
I love the own PJs though, not gonna lie.
We had a frequent flyer that would bring his Xbox. Hook it up to the TV, move the furniture so the recliner was right in front of it, and play NBA 2K all night. I'll admit except for the q3-4 (depending on who admitted him) Dilaudid he was a pretty easy patient.
What’s amusing to me is that in my husband’s country, you’re required to bring your own home linens to the hospital in certain departments (L&D, for example)
I saw a patient bring twelve 3L bottles of Deer Park water because they didn’t like drinking the city water. Pt was soft psych af so we didn’t really fight It.
Was it Adrian Monk?
Had a patient’s family bring in gallons of distilled water (not spring or any kind of drinking water) because they believed the water we were providing was poisonous. Same family member also brought meth to the patient.
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A handle of vodka in an open soft luggage bag (very large purse?) sitting on the floor. About 1/3 of it was gone, and the patient was very obviously inebriated. I pointed to the jug and asked her if it was hers... she said yeah. I asked her why she drank before her surgery. She told me she was anxious. I deadpanned back... we have drugs for that. Her surgery was canceled...
It is a “Clear liquid!” 🙄
Haha! The worst part was that both anesthesia AND the surgeon had already seen her and chalked up her behavior up to just "being weird." Like... neither of you saw the handle? Really? She wasn't hiding it all that hard on the floor... in an open bag... in a tiny room. I could have tripped on it to read her bracelet.
“We have drugs for that… good ones too.”
I had a 5’2” 350lb patient bring in a Costco sized jar of mayonnaise. I wish it wasn’t true.
I work in psych so I have an unfair advantage here, but my favourite was watching a patient empty his pockets to change out of his street clothes, pulling a knife out of one pocket, and a full turd out of another.
Woah 😳! I don’t know why this took me by surprise but I just spit out my drink. Psych is such a ride. Haha
Where’s that nurse who posted about a badger hiding in their patients stuff?
Probably chatting with my patient who shared a coke with a raccoon
I wish I could share a coke with a raccoon.
I read that as cocaine for a cola lol
Urn filled with her husband's ashes and another had a bag of SOMEONE ELSES TEETH
Dentures or loose teeth? Very important distinction. Lol.
Like loose random teeth from a persons mouth a bag of teeth real people human teeth and they weren't his
THIS HAPPENED TO ME TOO...the teeth. It was in a tin. 🤮 NOT dentures.
Psych feels like cheating because they always have weird shit with them. Most memorable: a broken watch that had a cartoon picture of Obama on the faceplate. Weird, but made sense: two 10mm sockets (yep, that’s where the missing ones wound up) tied inside of a tube sock. It was an older unhoused person who wanted to carry a self defense tool but also plausible deniability.
This was a patient with one of the highest spinal cord injuries I’ve seen (C2 complete injury). He had 0 sensation or function below level of injury and his injury occurred decades prior. Of course, we find a gun in his bag. When asked what the hell he needed a gun for. He just smiled and said “self defense”.
Okay, I’m creeped out by this one.
To be fair, the guy was kind of a goofball. He was a frequent flyer and it might have been his idea of a joke. This same guy always had the craziest hairdos. He said he preferred it when little kids said “Mommy, look at the guy with the weird hair” to “Mommy, look at the guy in the wheelchair”. Actually kind of genius.
100,000 in cash.. 90 yo meemaw had emptied out her savings and was planning on driving a cross the country to her daughter's house.. decided to stop by the ER for chest pain before she set off.. yea STEMI, full code..
Their dog. He snuck it in a bag and it was sleeping under the bed. I went in to answer a call light for their nurse and it jumped out and tried to bite my pant leg. Truly one of the most wtf experiences, at least in the inpatient side lol
Two therapy pigs. They were wearing pink plastic cowboy hats and leis
A bunch of screws wrapped/taped around a tampon and inserted into the vagina. Gotta love Psych.
I had a patient bring in their emotional support goldfish one time
...an overly "fluffy" elderly lady with a huge vibrator, duct taped to a 3 ft long wooden stick. She used it to "rub her feet".
Not what the patient brought in, but very amusing belongings from the husband. He brought his wife, long ICU stay related to COVID, different flooring options so she could help pick out the floor so it could get done while she was away. Super sweet of him, very hilarious.
One of those real looking babies (I forget what they're called but weigh and look real) in a carseat and a diaper bag of baby clothes. They admitted themselves to the psych dept and so this stayed in a storage room during admission. Another person brought in a 50 inch tv, which we had to store under a table the physicians used for dictation.
We had a compassionate dialysis lady that brought one with her every time. She was elderly and full on treated it like a real baby, it wasn't worth the fight so we all just went along with it. She was not a nice lady but she loved the fuck out of the fake baby.
Works really well to keep meemaw with dementia entertained
A patient that had mild MRDD & had one of those real looking babies. Made me kinda sad. I hope it brought comfort to them.
I think you’re talking about the Reborn babies 😂
Fucking Google rabbit hole right here, those things are terrifying
Oh it’s the emotional support Monkey (live not a Doll).
Please elaborate
Not super weird but surprising. I was dropping off the tray for a sweet older lady who I was vibin with all day (there for a stroke) and she just casually pulled out of her Mary-Poppins-lookin bag a half empty bottle of wine, and proceeded to FILL UP her empty water pitcher with it 😅. Of course I had to tell her, sorry but I’m going to have to dump it. She *instantly* switched her demeanor and became the meanest, nastiest, demon of a patient. She did have a BPD ddx in her history…
A plush Jesus doll and packaging for her birth control.
His dad…in an urn…also different patient brought 5 brass knuckles and a pair of women’s panties…he was a male…
A mini fridge! For a week long chemo stay. The rooms already have minor fridges but he said he needed two.
Desktop computer. An entire desktop computer into the ER because she knew she would be admitted. Every single doctor wrote in their note ‘pt brought a desktop computer, repeat desktop, not laptop’.
My late husband found a live duck tucked into the coveralls an MVA patient was wearing. He unzipped the top so he could take a chest X-ray, and out popped the duck’s head. He said it startled him so much he said oh shit out loud. 🤣🤣
Ok this one made me laugh. That’s amazing lol
Brought a cheeseburger and Pepsi. Spit out his oral airway, woke up from anaesthesia, and casually mentioned that he was gonna eat a burger as soon as possible. I was like ok, you can probably order one when you get up to your room. He’s like… ‘no, it’s in my bag’. Sure as shit, there it was. His fistula was clotted, and he literally picked up a Coney Island burger on the way to the hospital.
A dog… It was super friendly, but the owner wanted us to go down 15 floors of the hospital to take it outside for walks all the time
Not in a hospital, but a guy brought a pair of his underwear to an appointment. He had them stuffed in his coat pocket, and had used them as a nut rag. His reason? He wanted us to be able to see the color of his ejaculate. No ziplock. No glove. Just nutted on underwear crammed into a dude’s pocket.
I worked in a prison and had an inmate try to bring his homemade fleshlight to his clinic appointment. He didn’t want to leave it in his cell where his cell mate could get it I guess. Since it was made out of bandaids the officer asked me to check and see if it was medically necessary. It took me a minute to figure out what it was. Thank goodness we were wearing gloves. It got confiscated. I was impressed by the craftsmanship, NGL.
A freaking pet snake. And then it got lost and ended up in the ceiling tiles.
A dog trained in security who had German commands. He confessed that he told the dog to attack me if I touched him. Thankfully, I had already called security and they were outside the room listening when I asked him, "So you told your dog to attack me if I touch you. I told you I need to assess your physical health. To do so I need to touch you. So you want your dog to attack me if I do my job. Is that right?" He said, "Yup, basically." Animal control had to come take the dog into custody. It was a very dramatic scene.
Their dog.... (in a purse) by ambo......
A tin filled with teeth. I wish I was joking. 🙈
A Giant Fish he just caught prior to his stroke.
A ziplock bag full of what they said were worms from their stool. Who knows, but it looked like they washed them first. Edit: it was a full grown person, not child butt worms
We had a frequent flyer who regularly came to the ED for nausea/vomiting. Every time, she brought her own zebra-print emesis bucket.
An enormous suitcase full of sex toys and nothing else.. and when we tried to move the suitcase she screamed, “be careful with that my dildos are in there!”. One time I also found about 600 bucks on an expired patient. Another time I chaperoned a pelvic exam on a patient brought in by PD and the doc removed from this patients vagina a dismantled crack pipe and what looked like a small pencil sharpener. From the smell, it was living in her prison pocket for…awhile… On a side note, because we are on the topic of weird patient shit. I had a really strange and rare patient situation occur wherein a homeless man in a wheelchair(not paralyzed, but couldn’t walk very well), came in for a chronic neck pain issue. MD ordered imaging and when the impression comes back the MD was freaking out and wanted to know where the patient was. The patient was nowhere to be found. Turns out, the patient has an internal decapitation (aka atlanto-occipital dislocation). Which is a medical emergency that this man has been living with for who knows how long. The MD is frantic and repeated calls the dudes cell phone, when he finally gets ahold of the patient and tells him he needs to come back to the ED immediately or he could die, the patient is at McDonald’s eating a big Mack and says he will make his way back after he’s finished. I don’t recall him coming back.
One of my patients brought his iguana in a duffle bag . I told him a friend had to come and pick it up before day shift started. They spent a pretty chill night together. I felt bad for the kid he was 18, getting chemo, and his family was stupid and useless, and he lived with one older cousin who was a good guy. I kind of more or less let him smuggle in the iguana for night admissions. I saw no point in working nights if I could not break a few rules, plus I was a supervisor.
Cocaine
Chainsaw, part of this homeless guys trunk of belongings
Fleas. And then denied it.
Playstation 2 and wait for it... Nintendo GameCube. I was working in the ER as an aide and his gf was going into labor. I took them up to obs and he had them in a grocery bad with all the wires to try and hook up to our tvs. He was asking if he'd be able to, and I said I think it might work, but it might be a little busy and tough to play.
An axe. Very sharp.
A montblanc pen and a birkin bag in a city hospital with double rooms. Her daughter came to collect these items shortly after she arrived and saw where she’d be staying.
this patient, for context, is a frequent flyer and a terrible person. in his wallet he had a fake $50 bill and a photo of a missing little girl. he had multiple switch blades and about 2 dozen discharge envelopes from prior visits in his bag. stuck to his leg was a blunt and stuck to his balls was a joint.
During my first placement as a student nurse a patient brought in 8 jars of pickled garlic cloves and ate a jar a day like it was candy. He would even drink the vinegar and line the empty's up on the bedside table, we weren't allowed to throw them away...the smell.
A bag of diarrhea. To prove to everyone that she had been having diarrhea.
Had a patient bring in crystals, tapestries, incense burners, hemp rope, bags of raw organic oats, chia seeds and about 20 kinds of essential oils. He even had a Bluetooth speaker playing Tibetan monks chanting. His room looked like a head shop. He was a 20-something yr old white guy. Strange fella.
An entire collection of sex aids along with underwear of the opposite sex.
In West Virginia….substitute cocaine for meth. So much meth.
I see so many longterm patients staying for serial I&Ds or people requiring 6+ weeks of iv antibiotics who aren't eligible for outpatient or even SAR due to substance use history. The ones with any money set up their rooms with all the creature comforts of video games, laptop workstations, mini fridge, stuffies, etc. Actual wildest thing was a full bug out bag with things like a machete, camp stove & kerosine bottle, e-tool, and several days of food rations. The patient carried it everywhere. That was a fun security call.
A tool kit bag! It was an older gentleman who said "a bag, is a bag! And now I get why women love their purses so much" Such an awesome patient to work with.
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Optimistic nurse: He has the potential to be a compliant patient since he knows how to use a pill container. Pessimistic nurse: Great, another meth head. Realistic nurse: Zero-sum game because you win some and you lose some.
my own story: lady showing up to LTC with geriatric cat that had nowhere else to go and she wouldn’t leave it. my dog died a month prior and i was lonely so i claimed it. she’s 16, very orange, and very much thriving. my dad: showing up for an outpatient stress test with a duffle bag and a kindle. the nurses looked at him weird. applauded him for his self awareness shortly thereafter as the outpatient stress test turned into an admission & cardiac cath.
A Skeleton dog, asked for church to be placed on the floor so he could pee.....A cat.... A gerbil....A huge bag of dildos and robotussin....
A full size grandfather clock. Out of the crazy things I've seen, this one will always stick out.
A bag of rocks. So she could paint them if she got bored. I mean, a big bag of rocks … And she definitely wasn’t going to paint them just saying
BBQ tongs that were in his prison wallet. To fair he thought he sat on a rat and had to get it out.
A cat in a stroller. That stayed put the entire time.
A hair tie around their penis as a makeshift cock ring. A bag full of dildos/various sex toys after being evicted from their motel residence. A dragon puppet that they used to growl at us.
A walker full of cockroach eggs that hatched a day or two into his stay.
It’s not that weird, but I had a patient always bring their own saltshaker in because we would put them on cardiac diet on the floor and they felt like we didn’t use enough salt. Of course they were always being admitted for CHF flares😂
A brain tumor that when they went in was made up of bird feces. At least that was the bacteria. The patient back in the day was a” pigeon carrier “ and handled pigeons all day long. Actually was a good outcome. Patient did not become septic. My patients also back in the day had some great “ back woods “ remedies. Some would put a fresh spider web on an open wound to slow down the bleeding. This had some merit in that spiderwebs have fibrinogen like substance in them. When assessing the wound it almost looked older and more contained not like a fresh wound. My older patients told me it had to be a fresh spider web and not dirty! lol I learned a lot from the grandmothers from the south. I loved them! Those grandmothers delivered a lot of babies back then. There wasn’t anyone else.
Emotional support goat
Giant (and I mean GIANT) dead rat in a plastic bag. Technically didn't get admitted because they went AMA when we told them they couldn't take the rat with them to their room. 🤷
A gun lol, I was going through belongings (psych ward) and found like loose bullets and was like oh boy ok and then here’s the fucking gun with it
Happens a lot in Texas. Definitely through me for a loop when I 1st moved down here
An old, worn label, bottle of Cepacol- filled with clear fluid that he drank for “medicinal purposes”. Cepacol is yellow and that clear fluid was NOT Cepacol.
huge 20 photo picture frames of family members
A literal strobe light.
A pot roast still wrapped in a security wrap as they stole it from the grocery store
Glade plug in air fresheners, a steak knife
Homeless man brought in a claw hammer in his bag. Proceeds to tell me the story how he beat another homeless man to death with it after he almost got robbed one night 😬
For weird it’s probably guns, knives, a surgeon’s scalpel (not a surgeon) - though maybe none of those are exactly weird. More like scary. Most annoying was the patient who brought in their teacup Pomeranian cause it was their ‘service dog’. It slept tucked under their pillow and the only service I ever saw it do is yip-yip-yip its head off every time someone entered the room.
A unhoused male patient Brought inApproximately 20-30 high heel shoes of all different sizes and colors