The top 10 funniest explanations your patients have given you

Sometimes patients just do some wonderfully weird stuff. From the crazy things they try when they’re alone to the odd things they tell you, our patients have been known to make us laugh on more than one occasion! We got to wondering about the explanations they give you for why they’re hospitalized in the first place and what, exactly, they’re doing right now—so we asked our Facebook fans for the funniest excuses and explanations their patients have tried to give them. Which of these have your patients used on you before?

The top 10 funniest explanations your patients have given you

1. An elderly woman came in because she had “fireballs of the universe.” She was very insistent! It took us a few to realize she had fibroids of the uterus!
—Kathy Berg

2. Working a 28-day MICA program, we had to check in all belongings, since it’s an addiction unit. Imagine our surprise when we found a bunch of Viagra that a female patient had on check-in! When asked, she responded, “I’ll be damned if my ol’ man is going to be out cheating while I’m in here!” LOL! Sounded quite logical to us. 😉
—Tonya Snodgrass Hendershot

3. I had a patient refuse to use her O2 for fear of “getting addicted.” I told her, “Hon, that happened the second you were born; hold your breath and see how long you can go without it. Now put it on please?” She did!
—Roxy Dengler-Hauck

4. In the ER, a patient came in with a carrot inside his rectum. When asked to explain, he said, “I fell over in the garden.”
—Jodie Priestley

5. Cardiologist to patient: “You need to quit smoking.”
Patient to cardiologist: “I will quit smoking 10 minutes after I am cremated.”
Too funny. I don’t think the doc liked it too much…
—Jodi Cacioppo Stoafer

6. I got a call from our local 911 dispatch stating that they had my patient on the phone, requesting a ride home. When I went back to her room and asked her why she would call them, she said it was because that’s how she got to the hospital, and figured that’s how she’d get home, too. I was thinking to myself, “Reeeeeeaaaaaally?”
—Christina Hope Combs

7. A patient who tested positive for cocaine said she was cleaning her bathroom and the cocaine must have been in the Comet…oh lordy.
—Morgan Jarrard

8. I had a young male TBI patient saying that his sprinkler was sprinkling. I lifted up his sheet and noticed he was urinating…yep, his sprinkler was sprinkling all right.
—Cherie Francis

9. In the NICU we had lots of transports from a smaller town in a neighboring state. I asked a young mother one time why we had so many babies from there. She said, “Well, we don’t have cable.”
—Gayle Sherman

10. “Jesus told me to keep pressing the call button.”
—Danielle Louque Arceneaux

What’s the funniest explanation or excuse a patient has ever tried to give you?