Well Alrighty Then

So I had this very elderly lady last night. She was having some difficulty urinating, but yet wasn't showing much on the bladder scanner and didn't give out much when we straight cath'd her (put in a very temporary catheter just to extract urine). She then felt it necessary to also remember she hasn't had a bowel movement in a week. Problem solved. Sometimes if you're anatomy is slightly strange and you're constipated and you're laying in bed a lot, your bowels can sort of impinge on your bladder, to make it easy. So new goal was to get her to poop. I knew I wasn't going to accomplish much medication wise with a closed pharmacy at 400 AM and an attending doctor that most definitely wouldn't want to be woken up at 400 AM with a request for a laxative.

So I decided to go with the good ol' fashioned.......prune juice! YAY!

I've heard the old age tale that it works best when you heat it up first. But It was 4 am and my brain wasn't working at full capacity, and when I was staring at the microwave and staring at my choice of cups, my brain couldn't remember which ones were OK to put in the microwave so I just decided to give it to her cold and call it a day.

So down goes the prune juice.

About an hour later, she presses the call bell. This is our conversation:


Patient:  "That prune juice you gave me...."

Me: ".....Yeah?"

Patient:  " It was cold."

Me:  "Oh. Yeah. I'm sorry."  *makes weird face*

Patient: "My husband heats it up at home and always gives it to me that way."

Me: "Oh...well next time we can heat it up for you."

Patient: "Actually,  I've always hated it warmed but never had the heart to tell him because he was sweet enough to make it."

Me: "Oh.......so you liked the cold prune juice?"

Patient: "Yeah."

Me: "Okay........"

*Awkward moment*


Me: "Um, is that all you had to tell me?"

Patient: Yep.




As I was charting a little bit later into day shift outside her room, I overheard her telling the day nurse how glorious the prune juice was and I had to work really hard at stifling my laughter in the hallway. Thank you to the confusing microwave!  o_O Win!


~ Another special nursing moment from WNB



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