A nurse’s enemy #1—Murphy

Image: Jeff Richardson

As a nurse, life is often reminiscent of the hit song “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette. Except instead of rain on your wedding day, you just found out that the patient you’ve been taking care of all week has C. diff. And instead of having 10,000 spoons when all you need is a knife, you develop a terrible itch on your nose mere seconds after putting on gloves.

Over on our Funny Nurses Facebook page, we asked you to share with us the Murphy’s law moments that are most likely to plague your workday. Your responses had us laughing, shaking our heads and crying—often at the same time.

Here are just a few you shared with us:

1. “The minute you walk out of the patient’s room that you just spent 20 minutes in, he/she will put the call light on again.” —Vicki D.
2. “As soon as you have an order for stool spec., the patient’s diarrhea stops!” —Candy C.
3. “I am a student, and my first dressing took an hour and it was beautiful…lasted about five minutes since the doctor finally decided to show up.” —Nicholas G.
4. “How about the moment you get your sterile field ready and sterile gloves on, your pager goes off?” —Leasa S.
5. “When you have to roll a patient to pack a wound and that’s when they pass gas right in your face.” —Chris L.
6. “The moment you sit down to eat, a code is called.” —Mary W.
7. “As soon as you remove a dressing/bandage/cast so the doctor can see the wound, the patient wants to pee!” —Daniel G.
8. “The drawstring tie on your scrub pants develops a wicked knot when you finally get the chance to pee!!” —Wendy G.
9. “When you just finished changing a C. diff patient and are pulling them up in bed for a better position…another stream of lovely scent of stool floods the air and your fresh pads are back to square one.” —Tracy M.
10. “Soon as you give an enema… you are told to go to tea.” —Frances M.
11. “When you’re about to exchange report to next shift nurse…is when three or four residents request for pain pill. Lol. Never gets old.” —Jessica A.
12. “One of my faves: You spend 30 minutes getting an IV started on a three-year-old and the doc dc’s it.” —Pam A.
13. “Thirty minutes before shift change, pharmacy loves to send all the labs…even the critical ones via fax…” —Ju A.
14. “When waiting for an MD to call, just go to the bathroom to pee; he will call and probably hang up before you can get out of the BR door.” —Norma S.
15. “[At] 3am, you finally get that patient [who] is on the call light every 10 minutes wanting something to sleep and it’s time to start 4am vitals.” —Dianna J.

Even though there are times that the universe seems to be mocking us, it does feel good to know we’re not alone. So go ahead and tell us about your most ridiculous nursing ironies in a comment below.