Work Fun

Today at work we had some entertaining patient quotes. Thought you'd enjoy.

First patient, a 6 year old girl, frequently makes me laugh because she wants to sing and dance her way through therapy. Hey, whatever gets her to participate.

Today we walked in to our therapy room (which requires walking through the PT gym) behind a guy who had his arm amputated just below the shoulder. This girl has a medical history and has spent some time in the hospital so she has seen all sorts of things, but she was staring this guy down as we walked in (he was walking in front of us). When we got to our room she mentioned that he only had one arm. I brushed it off and responded that he probably had an accident. Left it at that and we moved on. She mentioned it in passing a couple more times, but we didn't discuss it in detail. Until she brought it up again toward the end of her session.

Her: "That man didn't have an arm like he is supposed to."
Me: "You're right, he didn't."
Her: "Do you think he just went to get a drink of water one day and it fell off?"
Me: (trying not to laugh) "No....I think he probably had some kind of accident. Don't worry, your arm can't just fall off. He didn't lose it getting a drink of water."

Lesson? Watch out when you're getting water-you might lose an arm.

Next was a story from one of the nurses working our ortho unit. Someone brought a patient a big yellow smiley face balloon that was sitting in the hall. She walked past a room and the door was open so the patient yelled that she needed help (a lot of our patients don't use their call bells) so she went in the room and the patient said,

"What kind of place are you people running around here? I've been laying here yelling for help, but that man is just standing out there smiling at me instead of helping!"

I just love my job :)