Saturday, April 11, 2009

Hello? Hello? Who am I?

I got dragged into the hospital this morning to see a guy for Alzheimer's disease. He was in one of the 2-patient rooms, with them separated by a curtain. And both of the guys were old and demented.

So while I"m talking to the guy in bed 1, he moves his arm, and immediately his IV pump says "downstream occlusion" and starts beeping annoyingly, a series of repeating chimes "beep-beep-boop-bop-bop".

So the guy in bed 2 thinks it's his phone ringing, and starts answering it! "Hello! Hello! Who is this?" slams it down. "Those damn kids"

And it keeps going! Every 30 seconds the pump chimes, and the other guy does the same thing "Hello! Hello!" I was in the room for 15 minutes, and he answered the phone 12 times.

It was still going on when I left the room.

5 comments:

Edric said...

Don't you juts love it when that happens? When I'm in the ER doing some medication reconciliation, I would say that 90% of the time, the IV pumps go off, or the patient in the next bed is yelling his head off for a nurse, right in the middle of me asking questions.

Although, I haven't had a time where both patients in the 2-in-1 rooms are demented...I suppose that would be pretty amusing...

Jen said...

Comedy at it's finest! Never a dull moment in the hospital.

John said...

That's just hysterical. Like Lloyd Bridges in Hot Shots, talking to the painting on the wall.

Anonymous said...

Bwahaha! Made my day! CP

Eileen said...

But think what it would be like if one was demented and one not - pity the non-demented one!

 
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