I’m a nurse. I’m required to get my titers drawn, a physical, an eye test, and a hearing test as part of my pre-employment screening for a new out-of-state job. I’m sent to one of the local urgent care centers that handle these requests.

Everything is going well until we get to the hearing test. This is not a fancy hearing test, just a screening where the nurse faces the wall several feet away and whispers words for you to repeat back. 

Nurse: “Please cover your left ear and repeat the words I whisper.”

Me: “Ummm, that’s going to be a problem since I won’t have any idea you’re speaking when you do that. I’m deaf on my right side. It would be better to do the left first.”

Nurse: “This is part of the exam you must pass. Are you seriously claiming you can’t hear anything?”

It should be noted that my chart CLEARLY states that I am completely deaf on my right side. 

Me: “Yes, I’m deaf on the right side, and with a mask on and your back to me, I won’t be able to hear anything nor read your lips, so it’s rather pointless.”

Nurse: “Well, you have to pass it.”

Me: “Actually, I don’t. It’s noted in my medical record and I have an ADA accommodation already in place. Trying to tell me I have to pass isn’t true. Please just finish the test for the left side and send the doctor in.”

I covered my left ear and stared at the wall until she turned back around, all huffy, because guess what? I couldn’t hear her tell me to switch ears, either! Duh! I passed the left side with no problem.

The doctor came in and said we were all done. She asked if there was anything else I needed and was happy to give me a form letter regarding my latex allergy. She was rather confuzzled by the nurse’s declaration regarding my hearing, or lack thereof, and stated that, of course, that’s not a test you have to pass to get a job as a nurse… especially if it’s already known and documented.

I was just starting to work as a nurse at a new hospital, and I was still pretty new to everything. I was checking on one of the patients and was surprised to see that his room was much larger than the usual rooms, with only one person in it and a nice view out of a window, as well.

Me: “Oh, wow! Looks like you got the fancy room today. What do you have to do to get one of these?”

Patient: “Well, you know some men would give an arm and a leg for this place. Me, I only had to give a kidney.”

And that’s how I first learned that my hospital gave organ donors extra nice rooms as a thank you for their sacrifice.

My job requires yearly blood work, as I work with chemicals on a daily basis. I am phobic of needles and have hard-to-find veins, so the onsite health services usually refer me straight to a lab with a trained phlebotomist to make things easier on everyone.

This year, they apparently switched which company they contract through, so I am told to go to a new place, which turns out to be an Urgent Care clinic. I warn the nurse about the issues getting blood from me before and about my phobia, but despite me trying to point her to the best spot, she insists she knows better and ended up digging in my arm for a good two minutes before I beg her to stop and have a minor panic attack.

Once I calm down, not wanting to have to come back, I give them one more chance, but ONLY in the spot that I indicated. After about fifteen seconds of digging while I cover my face and try not to shake:

Nurse: *Surprised* “Oh!”

Me: *Shaky laugh* “Told ya.”

I keep it together long enough to finish the blood draw and get out to go have another panic attack in my car. Whatever, it’s over, and I don’t have to do it for another year.

And then, a week later, I get a call.

Nurse: “[My Name]?”

Me: “Yes?”

Nurse: “We’re going to need you to come back in. We lost your sample.”

Me: “You what?!”

Nurse: “It got lost in transit.”

Me: “It took half an hour and two panic attacks to get that sample!”

Nurse: “I apologize, ma’am, but…”

Once the call finishes, I immediately call health services, and their reaction is a similar, “They WHAT?!” followed by an apology that I have to do it again and a promise to send me straight to a lab. Unfortunately, I have to return to the Urgent Care to get a referral from them, though health services send me with additional paperwork and a number to call if there are any issues. Sure enough:

Nurse #2: “Oh, we don’t do referrals.”

Me: “Please call the number listed here. They should be able to clarify things.”

I am not sure what was said on the phone, but from a combination of [Nurse #2]’s expression and how I was meekly given a referral several minutes later, I can make some educated guesses. Thankfully, the lab I went to had a trained and experienced phlebotomist on staff, and the second blood draw went much smoother.

I was a nurse in a hospital. I had a patient and his name was Mr. [Patient] Comdon. I was explaining his discharge instructions, and before I walked out I said:

Me: “It was a pleasure, Mr. Condom.”

Then, I realized what I said. Neither one of us said a word, and I just walked away as fast as I could.

This happened when I was eleven years old, in year seven at secondary school. I was running late one morning, due to my younger brother throwing a strop over not wanting to go to school. As a result, I was riding my bike as fast as I could down the pavement on the street my school was on. Until, that is, I saw a fire officer’s car coming the other way. Being a pre-teen obsessed with shiny things — which a red and reflective yellow livery most definitely was — I lifted a hand to wave to the car’s occupant.

And I promptly fell off my bike. 

To his credit, the fire officer immediately stopped his car and came over to check on me. I was mostly unhurt, apart from a few grazes and an impressively skinned knee where I’d slid along a few feet. I remember being more worried about my brand new tights — completely shredded — than the multiple places I was bleeding from.

The fire officer got me loaded into the front seat of his car and my bike into the back, and he turned round to take me the rest of the way to school. He carried me to the visitor’s reception and plonked me down into one of the chairs there.

He asked the receptionist to call the nurse up from her office to come take care of me. The receptionist was unwilling to do so. I don’t remember the full conversation, as it’s been quite a few years since then, but the receptionist was arguing that the school, and therefore the school nurse, was not responsible for dealing with anything that happened off of school grounds, even if it happened on the way to school and practically within sight of the gates.

An offer was made to have an older student, a sixth-former who’d made the mistake of wandering into sight at the wrong time, escort the fire officer and me down to the nurse’s office. The receptionist dismissed the possibility that the nurse should be the one coming to a student with an injured leg. I was just faking it, by her estimation.

The sixth-former wasn’t stupid, though, and ran off during the argument — straight to the nurse’s office. He did what the receptionist wasn’t willing to do and told the nurse that she was needed in the visitor’s reception. A few minutes later, she arrived, and she promptly tore a strip off the receptionist while simultaneously reassuring me and getting all the bleeding bits bandaged up.

The fire officer left once he knew I was being taken care of, leaving my bike in the care of the groundskeepers, whose office was next to the bike sheds. The nurse had the helpful sixth-former carry me round to the student reception and pastoral care area — through the staff corridor, which was a big treat at that age — so my parents could be called to come collect me and take me for a checkup and proper wound clean at hospital.

My leg was fine, but the experience left me with a nice scar on my knee. And a few days later, some of the little jerks I went to school with decided to shove me along a pebble-dashed wall so that my other knee was also ripped up.