The funny things my patients say . . .

My patients are hilarious. I don't know if they fully understand what they are saying, but it is still funny.

Here are some of my favorites:

1 - One of the long term residents for whatever reason I had something against me. I would try to be nice to her but she continues to try to egg me on. As I was at the nurse's station writing up an eval she comes by and tries to push some books onto my paperwork. I told her nicely to stop doing that and she continues to mock me. "stop doing that" she would say it in a very mocking voice. Quite funny. So throughout the day I would walk by her and she would hit me in the arm. Not hard but it was funny that she did it because she usually doesn't remember who people are 10 minutes later but for some reason she remembered me. One day, I walked by her and since I knew that she would punch me I kind of moved away from her, but she looked at me raised her fist up at me and said . . . "You want to walk into my fist?"

2 - My patient that I had the pleasure of working with for about a month had a change in medication and made him act very funny. This is how our conversation went. I was wheeling him down to the gym and he proceeds to tell me that I am a great teacher and I am so compassionate. I thanked him and I had him work on some fine motor activities. While doing the activity he looks at me and says in a quiet voice . . "I love you" I say, "that's very nice, continue working." Then he says, "I want you" I look at him shocked . . . and then he says, "I want to kiss you." I politely decline. I thought it was a fluke of attitude and then when I returned to work on Monday I was helping him with his shower and as he is getting dressed he looks at me and says, "Would you like to put your hands all over my body?" I look at him and say no. Then as I am helping get dressed he bends over to try to kiss me. I quickly duck my head. He says, "you are tight." I say, "what do you mean?" He looks at me with a very serious face . . . "I am 94 years old and a widow." I then tell him that is very inappropriate and he needs to stop. After talking with the nurses we discovered that his medication changed and it made him act inappropriate. I was just the one of the lucky ones.

3 - My british patient said, "you have spanish eyes," "you are very pretty but you are rounder than most," "you look very pretty when you look down"

4 - I was talking to a patient about relationships and she asks me how old I am and I tell her that I am 27, she then asks me if I am dating anyone and I say no. She looks at me very serious and says, "Oh . . . I don't think you are going to get married." I told her I disagree and i think I can still can. And she says, "no, I dont think you can, its best when you are married young." That made me feel real good about myself. :0)

5 - A patient said that if a person is a little more heavier than most he said, "there's just more for you to love"

6 One of my patients had a tattoo on his arm and I couldn't tell what it was so I asked him what his tattoo was. He said it was a heart that said "Carla" on it. I thought about it and asked "Is your wife's name carla?" he looked at me all serious and said . . "no." So I guess he was in the army . . . got drunk and woke up with "carla" on his name. It wasn't even some girl he dated. Just a girl he knew from home.

7 As I was having my patient do arm exercises, she looks at me all serious. "this is fine but what can you do about these?" (As she grabs her boobs). "I mean pretty soon I am going to be tripping over them."

8 me: So are both of us your girlfriends then?
Patient: If you are, then I am in trouble.

9 One of my favorite patients was A.S. He was a 92 year old man who was about 6'2" and very thin. He had dentures in his mouth that were way too big for him. So when he talked it sounded like he had a mouth full of marbles. I was one of the few that could actually understand him since I worked with him everyday. He was very witty for his age and he also had very good spirits. His daughter just passed away and he had such a good attitude about it and he knew that she was in a better place. He was one of the very first people to sing at the San Francisco Opera and he would try singing to us but since his mouth had the old dentures it really didn't sound good. One day when he was on the bike, he saw my co-worker and he said, "Diane!" and he proceeded to gesture with his hands one with a hole and the other he put his finger through the hole. So dirty!! Another time his pants were falling down and my co worker helped him pull up his pants and was tying it in front. He said, "you can look but there isn't much to see!" For such an old man he was pretty dirty. But he was hilarious!

10 I was working with an older gentleman and he was all done with therapy and I asked him, "do you want to go back to bed?" he looks at me and starts laughing and has a very mischevious grin on his face and says, "we might."