(I am in intensive care recovering from surgery and infection. A nurse is doing her rounds when I ask her if she could pass me the lunch menu, as it was left on a table out of my reach.)

Nurse: “No.”

Me: “Sorry?”

Nurse: “People always think we’re their personal slaves, demanding this and that. The nurses agreed we wouldn’t be tolerating it anymore. You’ve got two legs; you can walk. Get it yourself.”

(I stare at her, confused, and lift my bedsheets revealing my lower half. The nurse’s face drains as she stares at my one remaining leg; I had the other removed two days ago.)

Me: “Believe me, I wish I could…”

(Instead of handing me the menu, she bolted for the door, leaving me to wriggle around for a bit and eventually letting a woman who had just had triple heart bypass surgery get it for me. I never saw the nurse again, but as I left I saw my name on the ward list being wiped off, with “LEG AMPUTATION” in big capital letters.)

(I am a junior volunteer at my local hospital with a decent amount of medical knowledge for my age stationed in the emergency room. As I am a freshly graduated high school student — and most volunteers are around my age — we aren’t really allowed to do much but answer call bells, put together blood draw tube sets, enter data, and, in my case, monitor the heart rate screen and alert nurses to abnormal changes. But this isn’t a story about an abnormal heart rate; this is a story of a complete doofus. I am coming back to Central from being over on North — two of the four sections of my ER — when I overhear this gem of a conversation.)

Doctor: *to a patient’s nurse* “We had [Patient] come in complaining of abdominal pain about an hour ago. [Hospital he was transferred from] suspects a small bowel obstruction, but he can’t think of anything to have caused it and said he was experiencing other symptoms.”

Nurse: “Was it?”

Doctor: “Well, considering his last meal was an entire jar of pickles and an extra-large bag of [Popcorn Brand], take a guess.”

(Spoiler alert, it was. Still my favorite story to date. I have no idea why that man thought it was a good idea to eat that in one sitting, and even less of an idea why he couldn’t figure out why he was feeling so bad.)

My mother-in-law is an amazing, sweet, kind, and generous woman, who I am lucky to call family. 

Yesterday, I was being released from hospital following major abdominal surgery. My husband was due to collect me after visiting his mum in a hospital local to our home. She had been in intensive care for the past three weeks with sepsis that wasn’t responding well to treatment. As he was about to leave his hospital, the doctor told him that his mum was not going to last much longer and he needed to stay with his dad and his sister for the end. He phoned me and told me the news and we agreed I would have to get a cab home despite the cost. 

I made the arrangements via the hospital’s concierge and sat to wait near another lady in the lobby. We sort of smiled at each other, and then she gestured to a bag the other side of her and asked if it was mine. I said no and pointed to my suitcase next to me and said that was all I had. 

We then struck up a short conversation about our reasons for being there. She asked what was wrong and said I seemed upset. I explained that my husband couldn’t collect me as his mum was dying and not expected to last long and that I was waiting for a cab. She instantly waved her hand and said her driver would take me home. I protested, as I already had the cab booked and it would be too far as I live the other side of the river, but she insisted and told the concierge to cancel my cab. Then, she told a gentleman outside the entrance to take my address and ensure her driver took me home as soon as possible. 

I was definitely overwhelmed by this point and forgot to ask for her name, but I did give her a hug and thank her for making my day so much easier. She then left with her assistant. When her car arrived, I got in with my suitcase, and then my husband called to tell me his mum had gone. Thanks to that incredibly generous stranger, I was able to be with him and the rest of our family when it really mattered and, yes, faith in humanity restored.

(I am in a hospital being treated for epilepsy. We have a button to push if we think we’ve had a seizure.)

Nurse: *to me* “You pushed the button, sir?”

Me: “Yeah, it felt like I had a tonic-clonic seizure, only I was awake and fully conscious when I was shaking so that shouldn’t be possible.”

Nurse: “You felt that shaking, too?”

Me: “Pardon?”

Nurse: “You didn’t have a seizure. I think there was an earthquake.”

(Note that earthquakes are very uncommon both where I live and where the hospital is, and this is the first time I have ever experienced one.)

Me: “Oh, okay. I wonder how many other people in this ward thought what I did?”

This story is part of our Epilepsy roundup.

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(I am a nurse practitioner, assisting my coworker inserting a vascular catheter for dialysis use. The patient is very restless.)

Coworker: “Please stay as still as you can; we don’t want to puncture the wrong blood vessel.”

Patient: “Okay, okay, sorry. It’s just that it really hurts.”

(My coworker continues with the catheterisation, but the patient still keeps wriggling.)

Coworker: “On a scale of one to ten, what is the pain level? I have given you lots of local anaesthetic already.”

Patient: “Nine to ten!”

Coworker: “Okay, let’s give you a little bit more local.”

(My coworker turns to me.)

Coworker: “Okay, let’s give him some more [anaesthetic].”

(I then point to the tray containing all the items required for the procedure, specifically the syringe containing the local anaesthetic — the FULL syringe that hasn’t been used.)

Coworker: *eyes bulge* “Oh, s***!”

(She turns back to the patient.)

Coworker: “Okay, we’re giving you some more local now. How is that?”

Patient: “Oh, much better!”

(The rest of the procedure went by without a hitch. To clear it up, my coworker has been working in the dialysis ward for almost twenty years and this was her first minor mistake at the end of a very long cover shift, but she d*** well hasn’t made that mistake again!)