One night a couple of months ago, I had an elderly gentleman who was admitted needing blood transfusions. Normally this is pretty straightforward, but this guy was deep into Alzheimers Disease and his mind lived in his days as a WW2 soldier. He kept making comments like, "well, when are you going to start?" or "You sure are pretty!" I just thought he was confused and joked with him that he needed to get his glasses checked. He started to get more adamant about me starting the show. It took me a while to figure out who he thought I was, but the light bulb flashed on when he said, "You can just get up on that table there so I can see you and start your dancing and singing for me." Oops! This poor guy thought I was a pin-up model from the moving pictures!Then several nights ago I had a different patient who was very much alert and "with it." He had a difficult night feeling like all his rights were being impinged on. His nurse insisted on leaving his door open and set his bed to alarm whenever he tried to get out of bed because he had fallen on the floor of the bathroom the night before.
This is standard protocol for "fall-risk" patients. He had none of this and tried to leave "Against Medical Advice" at midnight but his wife wasn't willing to drive 200 miles from his home to come pick him up. Oops. He eventually came to me on a different unit. I was my normal friendly self with him and explained that we couldn't force him to do anything. I changed his now unruly dressing, helped him into his pajama bottoms, gave him a midnight snack, and helped him into bed. As I was leaving he said, "Are you a nun?" Startled I said, "No, do I look like one?" To which he replied, "No, but you're just so nice."Haha! A pin-up girl and a nun...all in a day's work for a nurse. :)
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