A funny thing happened on the way to the medcart...

The doctor summoned me urgently to the patient's bedside. He pointed to her ileostomy bag and said,

"Please page the ostomy nurse, STAT! It looks like pieces of her intestinal tissue or stoma are sloughing off into the bag!!!"

I whispered in response, "It's watermelon...she had it for breakfast!"

He blushed and said, "Well, don't I feel silly!"

To be fair, the patient had no teeth, so she regularly had pretty big chunks of food in her collection bag!


Then there was the patient who didn't seem to be arousable. Calling his name, gentle shaking/jostling, nothing was working. So I fired up the good, ol' sternal rub and hoped it would work its magic...

nothing. I kept rubbing and rubbing, harder and harder, knowing I was surely hurting him as he was pretty damn hairy.

Without opening his eyes, he suddenly said,

"You're rubbing the wrong spot..."

Alrighty, then! Gotta love the night shift...