Some hospital patients are unforgettable, whether because of their terrible visitors or their wild antics. Occasionally, even their rooms become memorable to the poor nurses who had to care for them! Here are the top 10 craziest things patients have insisted on keeping in their hospital rooms, as told by you!
1. Every single med cup to use as shot glasses when she got home!
—Allison Baule
2. Her cherished, stuffed real dog, the family pet for 20 years who recently passed on!
—Angela Kinder Morrison
3. In our NICU, we had parents who insisted on keeping some “ceremonial” rocks, twigs and other vegetation in the bed. The baby had been born in the family pool and was very sick, requiring ECMO. The parents even insisted that the surgeon wear a certain crystal as a necklace while performing the cannulation!
—Kim Gutridge Zornow
4. A Wiccan altar set up in a room in the ER. The patient was being seen for a broken toe. Took longer to discharge the patient than it did to treat him.
—Carrie Bittay-D’Intino
5. A patient with a hairy back had a 10-inch serrated bread knife that he used as a back scratcher!
—Bob Hayward
6. My patient insisted she have her snuff with her, even though she was unable to see where her spit can was, and every time she would hear me walk by her door, she would holler for me to get her spit cup…ALL DAY LONG.
—Penny Russelburg Lloyd
7. I had a patient who insisted on keeping sliced raw onions in her socks to draw out any fevers she may have gotten.
—Lauren Mura
8. A snake…I had a patient who had been bitten by a snake, and he brought it to the hospital and then kept it at his bedside.
—Michelle Hurl Stapleton
9. A fridge, an ion fan, an electric can cooler, an ice cooler full of food, a twin-size blow-up mattress (for the comfort of the patient’s husband). The wife (the patient) was NPO during her stay and slept on an egg crate mattress. After Engineering had gotten wind of all the goodies, the husband was stripped down to his air mattress and ice cooler. Extension cords will do you in every time!
—Kim Henderson
10. Her service dog, a Chihuahua.
—Karen Empressive Charles
What’s the craziest thing your patient has insisted on keeping in his or her hospital room?
