Here it is, the best one-liner I have heard of from a patient, a terminally ill person fully aware of the prognosis, but with an inexhaustible zest for life and marvelous sense of humor:
BIDMC Nurse: Let me get you into this recliner and make you comfortable. Put your feet up, relax. Would you like me to get a sheet to cover you?
Patient: Actually, I'm trying to avoid that.
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6 comments:
I love being a nurse and being able to have a good laugh in the worst of life's circumstances.
Paul, you are doing a great job here at BIDMC. I just started reading your blog a few weeks ago after attending the Nursing Awards. I admire your openness and insightfullness. It makes me proud to work here. Oh, and by the way any news on the possible pay increase ? :)
PS- I'm so glad we are not a union hospital even though we benfit from there actions elsewhere in the city.
Have a great day.
And from another patient, post-stroke, submitted with great respect for all the nurses who don't say things like this:
Nurse: Take your medicine for me, honey.
(NB: "honey" is 73-years-old and doesn't take to being patronized)
Pt: "Why, are you sick?"
Great one liner there. Sobering as well for any health care worker.
I wanna meet the patient who said that.
I don't know if it's true, but supposedly when Oscar Wilde was on his deathbed, he looked around the room and said "Either this wallpaper goes, or I do."
Perfect. :)
My favorite comment from a dying patient, an elderly women who was paralyzed after a fall and was now on comfort care. One morning on rounds I asked, "how's breakfast" her reply, "foods fine but there is something wrong with the menu!", "What" I asked? She said "There's no cyanide on it" She died about 12 hours later.
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