Curious to hear from medical experts online, Redditor DrPloyt asked:
"Doctors and nurses of Reddit, what’s the most blatant lie a patient has told you about why they’re in the hospital?"
Those who felt ashamed thought they could get away with lying.
The STD Source
"Had a patient convince his wife he got an STD from a dirty toilet seat in the ER when he arrived to the hospital. He was in house for about a week or two after, his wife dutifully staying with him each day until about 6. She home cooked meals for him every night and would bring them to the hospital each day while trying to file complaints to us for his STD he got from us."
"A doctor had to kindly explain to her the impossibility of him getting that particular STD from a toilet seat and it also become active / symptomatic in that time frame. She never believed us."
"After she went home each evening at 6 to cook for him for the following day, his affair partner would show up from 7-10 each evening."
– Duffarum
Running From The Law
"I’m a paramedic. I had that. They called 911 to get away from the police and a fight that had been happening.Jumped in the ambulance and started screaming at us to just drive away. We locked ourselves up front and said that’s not how this works and he ran away."
– Fianna9
Substance Abusers
"I’m a paramedic, and it’s the ones who deny doing drugs and insist we don’t know our job. I had one patient swearing up and down he doesn’t do any drugs, he was just sleeping. On the kitchen floor. While cooking."
“Do you know why your mom is crying? She just did cpr on you because you stopped breathing”
"Then admitted to doing some weed. And crack. And heroin. And meth."
"ETA- this was after he woke up to naloxone. I always ask twice if drugs are suspected before moving on to other medical issues."
– Fianna9
Attention Seeker
"I've told this story many times before, but when I worked in the emergency department there was a frequent flier who would come in complaining of migraines, seizures and stroke symptoms. She was completely full of sh*t, just wanted drugs and attention. One time the symptom she presented with was that she could only speak Spanish, but the thing was that in reality she couldn't speak Spanish*,* so you had to ask her yes or no questions or she just wouldn't respond. If the answer was yes she would say 'si' and if the answer was no she would shake her head, because she didn't know the Spanish word for 'no' is no.'"
– PigWithAWoodenLeg
The Axe Thrower
"Psych patient told me she didn’t know why they were keeping her in the facility. She claimed nothing was wrong with her, wasn’t on drugs, and didn’t do anything to be admitted… after 30 minutes of talking she admitted to throwing an axe at her neighbor, unprovoked after use of meth."
– lanakame
Quick observations revealed these patients were untruthful.
The Ex
"I lied to hospital staff once before, my ex gf stabbed me in the hand and it cut me wide open. So I get to triage and I tell them I fell and accidentally cut myself, because I didn't want to get my ex in trouble (yes I know I'm an idiot blah blah blah I've heard it a million times) when I get into a room I look around and notice an unusually high amount of domestic violence posters on the wall, I thought 'huh that's weird' the first thing the nurse says is 'we know it can be hard to talk about being abused' like damn they were on to me from the start, I still don't know how they knew, but I ended up spilling the beans, they said they wouldn't tell the police if I didn't want them to."
– dayzers
Does Not Compute
"I was in the ER for a suspected testicular torsion, and we saw a guy with a pretty clear bullet wound on his arm. The lady handling intake asked him what happened, and he said he fell off his skateboard."
– doctordoctorpuss
What's Up, Doc?
"I had a frustrating itch inside my rectum and the carrot was the only object that I could fit in there"
– LithuanianLion
What The Ex-Con Did
"Easy. A guy came in complaining of being constipated and couldn't poop for 5 days. He reported rectal blood and difficulty passing gas. A CT was done and showed a 9 inch linear object bordering or slightly puncturing through his bowel with questionable free air. With the CT results in hand we confronted the guy. 9 MONTHS AGO, yep, 9 months ago this guy got out of prison where he stuck a prison shank in his butt to hide it during a cell search. It was already in there about a year before he got out. He didn't tell anyone for fear of adding on his prison sentence. He was never able to retrieve it and thought it would just pass naturally. He was just hoping we'd give him some prescription strength laxatives and he'd have better luck. He needed surgery."
– alwaysforgettingmypw
Things got out of hand for these patients with erectile dysfunction.
Hard Situation
"Back when Viagra first dropped, every grandpa in Miami with chest pain would lie about why they had a raging erection. Or the boner would be gone, and they'd be so much more confident in their answer. No matter how much we stressed how unsafe lying would be, no matter whether we ferried the ladies out of the room."
"It was quite a way for little baby nurse me to learn how low blood pressure could get. Being in Miami at the time was like being on the front of a boomer battlefield for erectile rights."
– MissAnthropicRN
Forever Stiffie
"Oh boy."
"I'm an admin in a hospital and just the other week we had a younger guy (30s) come in because he had injected viagra into his unit...his erection had lasted for a worrying amount of hours so he came to ED."
"After having 220mls drained from his member, he regained full function."
"My colleagues and I joked that he wouldn't be touching it for at least a day or two."
– HailCrystals
The moral of the story is, it's pointless to lie to your doctor.
The truth will eventually come out, and it should, because your life could depend on it.
And the truth of the matter is, doctors and nurses don't care about your situation, no matter how embarrassed you are. They just want to make sure you are properly tended to.
Any judgement from them will most likely be because you're a bad liar, not because you shoved a foreign object up your bum.
Redditor BOBO24PLAYZ wanted to hear the confessions of the dying, no matter how dark, so they asked:
"Doctors and nurses of Reddit, what was the creepiest/scariest thing you heard from patients before they died?"
If I say anything in the end, I hope it's happy.
But, you never know.
So one day we'll see.
Keep HIM Away!!
"Had 3 patients all pass away within a week, they were all on different parts of the ward and all asked who the little boy in their room was and within an hour of asking passed away." ~ gingercelticfan
Tonight
"I work on a ward for elderly with dementia. We had one patient who was pretty well in the beginning stages of dementia. She had very little medication and could still do a lot by herself. One day i put her to bed like every night and she asked me when i would be back."
"I told her I had an early shift and would see her in the morning. She looked me in the eyes and told me with a smile that she wouldn't be here. I asked her why not, and she told me that she would be dead. I discussed this with a fellow nurse because it was something she had never done before and decided to check all her vitals."
"Everything was well within limits, nothing raised a red flag. But when I came to work the next morning they told me she passed away an hour before my shift started. I still find it creepy how she could have known she would die that night." ~ Pitiful-Metal754
"Who's that man?"
"I'll share a few with totally different vibes."
"Creepiest ~ Patient looking not behind me, essentially looking through me, asks 'Who's that man?' When I assured her it was just the two of us in the room and that she's safe here she responded 'Ah, so you can't see him either'."
"After I had an ughhhh okay moment I got her comfortable in bed now that she received her pain meds, she smiled and said goodbye to me, as I walked away she mumbled 'I suppose it's time,"'she died about two hours later." ~ nicolewasnthere
“It’s time to die now.”
"My dad had a major stroke and was in the hospital for several weeks. He wasn’t in much pain, but he also wasn’t aware of what had happened to him, and was conversational, but a lot didn’t make sense."
"One afternoon his wife and I were sitting with him when he said, out of the blue, 'It’s time to die now.' We looked at each other and she said incredulously 'Can he do that?' He hung on for a few more weeks, but not very lucidly." ~ mel_cache
These Low Effort Jobs Have Surprisingly High Salaries | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Have you ever worked one of those jobs that paid you to kinda sit there? If you have, you know the joy that comes with watching the entirety of Breaking Bad ...Goodbye
"I'm not in the medical profession but the last thing my sister said to me was 'I've had enough now, time to go, I think' ...she died a few hours later." ~ floydie1962
So much sadness.
Let's discuss more...
Baby Boom
"When I was a student, a dying woman told me 'Congratulations on the baby, she will have beautiful blue eyes' I was confused because I was 18 and I wasn’t pregnant or planning (but 3 weeks later I find out I’m pregnant, and my girl have blue eyes)." ~ __Only_me_
They always know...
"Last week I took care of an older lady in septic shock, transferred to ICU so she could get levophed. She was getting a little more disoriented as my shift progressed and kept saying 'I'm so scared, I'm so frightened'."
"When I asked her what she was afraid of, she said she didn't know. I kept reassuring her that we were taking good care of her. She ended up coding and dying that same day on night shift. They always know." ~ callmesula
She's Gone
"My great grandmother went into a shock when she came to know my father passed away (we did not tell her about it but she overheard a conversation a couple of weeks after the cremation)."
"Within a few hours she had completely forgotten our mother tongue and could converse only in English and Bengali (which she had not practised for more than 80 years)."
"The next day morning she told us that her parents, husband, daughter (my grandmother) and grandson (my dad) are waiting outside for her. She closed her eyes and was gone." ~Jolarpet
Papa Gary...
"My grandma was dying of lung cancer she would always talk about dreams of fishes when someone was pregnant, the only people who knew my girlfriend and I we expecting was us and she wasn’t even showing any signs along with wearing baggy clothes to hide."
"My grandma had told me congratulations and that she and our baby are beautiful in the late stages... she ended up passing about 5 or 6 days later.. Fast forward 2 years…"
"My mom and dad have a picture of that same grandma and my grandpa hanging up my grandpa passed some time before her so my kids never got to meet them... my 2 year old pointed at that picture and Knew it was his 'Papa Gary.'" ~ Remixed_Ghost
Let's Go!!
'I didn’t think this would take so long.' He was gone within 2 minutes." ~ thr0wawaydoc
This is It
"My patient just came into my ward and I went to his bedside to do the necessary admission and administrative paperwork and questions. He had end stage kidney failure and has been adamant on not continuing dialysis, but came to the hospital because his family literally begged him to come."
"The creepy part was this: When I went to insert a IV line for him, he calmly and nonchalantly told me that it's OK if I can't get it in, as he was going to die soon. When I asked him why did he say that, he told me in a matter-of-fact voice that his deceased parents and grandparents are standing around his bed just waiting to help him into the afterlife."
"It was 3pm in the afternoon and the chill that went down my spine had nothing to do with the air conditioning, and said chill intensified when his exasperated wife who was seated next to him told me that he has been saying that for the past few days. True enough, he passed on within a day." ~ jayuscommissar
Peace & Brutality
"I've held the hand of an old woman, she was little more than skin and bones. I believe she was actively trying to die while I held her hand and stroked her hair. She asked me why it was so hard to die and if it was this difficult for everyone. I will remember her for a very long time."
"I sincerely hope she found the peace that she sought. Other patient end of life events have been disturbing, but not in the way that I think this question is asking about. The fear in the eyes of someone about to be intubated. That sticks with you."
"Y'all, have some conversations with your loved ones about your end of life care. CPR is brutal. Consider what you would or wouldn't want done to or for you. Talk about it with your family. Find out what their wishes are. It will make it easier if you ever have to make decisions for them." ~ vanael7
Similar Fashion
"A lot of people die in a very similar fashion, in an untouchable discomfort and pain, every time you ask them to rate their pain on a scale of 1-10 they say 10 and they just beg and beg and beg for help, and so eventually you just start bring the morphine dose up and up, the Ativan dose up and up until that, combined with their illness brings them into a state of unconsciousness that they stay in for a few days and eventually die. It's sad, but I can't honestly say it scares me, I'm confident that in the same situation I'll probably be able to take myself out before it gets to that point." ~ BangkokMohel
Hurry!
"Pre-oping a patient for an urgent, non emergent surgery in the middle of the night four or five years ago. His IV was infiltrated so I started to put a new one in before we went back to the OR. He panted ‘please… hurry… up’ then coded and died." ~ usafutbol5454
"Wasn’t creepy necessarily, but painful and actually caused me a lot of nightmares for years. Context- I’ve been a nurse for 9+ years now. I became an LPN at 18 after graduating early and became an RN at 19. This is a ton of responsibility for someone so young looking back."
"Was working on a medical floor, my first job. Had a 50 year old woman come in as a direct admit from her Dr’s office (not through the ER) with chest pain and started coding within minutes of me getting her in front of her spouse. She came back a few times begging me for her life while attempting to resuscitate her, but after hours of trying to bring her back she died in front of me."
"Dreamt about her begging for her life nightly for almost a year, drank a lot of alcohol to cope. Made me very angry that her physician made the choice to not send her to the ER first because they were more equipped then the critical access medical floor I was working on without a physician. Anyways... I hope her family has found peace." ~ bsn2fnp1
Begging
"I don't wanna die, please. Sounds cliche but if someone seriously tells you that with all his fear and panic and you're the only One this person hold on to then it's fucking scary. You have that first rush of 'I have to do something' but you can't do more. It's straight up traumatic when someone dies sudden, kind of awake before in an emergency situation compared to the sleepy sedative deaths over a few days." ~ Old-Banana5410
Goodbye and thanks!
"A giant bald patient that everyone became familiar with shows up on the fifth floor asking if his family showed up yet. The nurse told him he was on the wrong floor, 'maybe they’re visiting you on the third floor where your room is.' She said. His sad voice answered: They’re not down there. Goodbye and thanks!'
"The nurse called the third floor desk and informed them of their wandering patient. 'It couldn’t have been him. He died this morning.' She looked up and he was gone. We never heard the electronic door behind him open and never saw him again." ~ banditk77
In 20 Seconds
"I once had a patient who was super sick, close to the end, and just chilling the bed as the soon to die do. Out of nowhere they were suddenly, vehemently, terrified. Screaming, saying things like 'oh god no' and 'please no' etc. Then died. Whole thing was probably 20 seconds." ~ TheVapingPug
Restless
"I was a CNA both in hospital and long term care centers until I messed up my back. I spent many hours on light duty after I hurt myself holding the hands of people who had no family to come while they died. But my most memorable patient was when I worked in the hospital."
"We had an older gentleman who was a 1:1 and in full restraints as he died because the meds they were giving him actually made him very combative. Shortly before he died he managed to get out of all the restraints, took about 5 of us to get him in new ones, he ripped out his IV and my shirt in the process. I will never forget him because of how restless he was before he died. It broke my heart honestly." ~ SoilAffectionate492
Shattered
"Clock in the room fell down & shattered on the floor. Patient died 20 mins later." ~ Decent-Sea-7321
Time Clock GIF by MOODMANGiphyLesson?
Get your affairs in order.
Live the best life possible.
Be as ready as you can be.
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I have no guilt. So I'll be taking it all to the grave. Unless of course my mind is rattled and I have no control over my senses. But if stay in control, my lips are sealed. Let's hear about the souls who felt the need to purge.
Be Sure
Animated GIFGiphy"I had a client (90 year old male) confess to his wife and children that while he was away on business, he obtained another family."
"He lived another two years. Wife and children kinda cast him off. He thought he was dying immediately of cancer, they were multimillionaires, he tried to spend as much as he could out of spite so his children wouldn't inherit any of it."
"22"
"Took care of a WW2 veteran with dementia. He would say the number "22" over and over and the family never knew the significance of it. The number didn't line up with any significant events or dates that they were aware of. The day before he died his mental state became incredibly clear and he started telling the staff "22 men. I killed 22 men over there." Poor guy. He lived with that anguish for 50+ years."
- Nurse317
He knew this...
"Kind of similar I suppose. I'm a scrub nurse. My job is to assist the surgeon during surgeries. I was preparing an elderly patient for a pretty high risk surgery. There was a good chance he was going to be fine but there was also a decent chance things were going to go south. He knew this."
"While the CRNA is doing her thing getting the anesthesia ready I'm standing next to him going over his chart and signed releases and he says to me, "I need you to tell my wife I'm sorry for all the times I raised my voice at her. There weren't many times. But right now I wish there weren't any." That was the first time I ever got choked up at the bed side. Thank goodness for masks because it helped hide my expression."
"I so badly wanted to tell him everything was going to be okay but no one knew if it was going to be. I said back to him, "I'll do anything you need me to, but right now let's think about some happy memories before you go under." I asked him to tell me about he and his wife's first date. Once he was under I excused myself before scrubbing in to stop myself from crying. He made it through surgery and his wife was waiting for him after being transferred from the PACU."
Speak Spanish...
"Kind of a confession. My grandmother was from Spain. At some point in my life I was like "Why don't I know how to speak Spanish?" So I asked my mom, as I've never heard her speak Spanish either. She said, "My mom came to America and was one of the 'we are in America now, so we speak English now' people."
"When we started pestering her to teach us Spanish, she claimed that she forgot how to speak it. We all kind of thought she was full of crap, but she was adamant about it. She was sharp as a tack until her mid 90s and lived alone. Finally, it was too much and we moved her to our house, and then to assisted living because she wanted to be closer to her friends."
"When she ended up in a nursing home because she was on her last legs, and her mind started to go, we caught her speaking Spanish to the mostly Hispanic staff. Basically, she had to go senile to forget that she told us that she couldn't speak Spanish. It was an unintentional confession that she always knew how to speak Spanish, but she just didn't want to because it wasn't the American thing to do."
- EatATaco
Bye Now...
sad miss you GIF by PBS KIDSGiphy"Just the people who die alone. The next of kin is usually a distant niece or nephew. I hated those calls because I would inform them of the passing and they would just say, "Ok, thank you." And hang up."
Oof. See there? Now is why I say "lips are sealed." What if there is an eleventh hour miracle after I've confessed to some ludicrous sin? How embarrassing. No thank you. Who else spilled some tea?
I hear Toni...
excited toni braxton GIF by Soul TrainGiphy"My Grandfather lived into his 90s. According to my Grandma, his last lucid words the day before he passed was when he called out, "Unpoop my pants!" Not very profound, but very memorable, because that song was popular at the time, so now I always imagine that line sung in Toni Braxton's voice."
People Share The Most Selfless Thing They've Ever Secretly Done | George Takei’s Oh Myyy
Nonna...
"Nurse here. An old lady gave me some questionable advice. She was this 90-something Italian Nonna, all dressed in black skirts and dripping with rosary beads and crucifixes, very Catholic. She told me "to be happy in life, you need 3 men. 1 for the money, 1 for the love, 1 for the boom-boom-boom" (sex). Can't say I agree with her, but it's certainly memorable."
Visiting Hours
"I recently cared for a woman who had multiple acute strokes in a short amount of time. A week before she had been independent, riding her horse every day, still teaching part time at the local school, despite being in her 80s. By the time she got to me she was completely nonverbal, incontinent, and unable to feed herself."
"I had a feeling that she was neurologically intact enough to understand what was going on, so I talked to her as much as I could when I was in the room. Talked to her about her daughters who had called every day, her husband (who hadn't called, but I left that part out), the weather, her horses, her students who had sent a card. On the last day of my workweek, her daughter from out of state had finally found a flight up. They sat in silence and held hands for hours."
"Visiting hours ended right at shift change, so I walked in to give report as the daughter was saying goodbye. The patient then spoke what I knew were going to be her last words- 'I'll always be looking after you." And pointed to her daughter, and then at me, and then she fell asleep. Two days later when I came back to work, I was informed she had passed away in the night."
"adventures"
"One of the most challenging moments I had with a patient that was passing was a woman in her 80's with advanced dementia and trying to recover from a severe bed sore that had gone septic (from a nursing home with a bad reputation). She often confused me with her second husband, her daughter told me I looked a lot like him. The patient would often talk about "our" sexual exploits including swinging and partner swapping as well as very wild "adventures."
"I had given up on trying to tell her I was not her husband because I just confused her and upset her so I learned to just play along. She talked to me often about "our" children and other family and many non-sexual adventures they had. It made her happy to talk about it and often left me with a smile."
- Hobie642
"quite a few"
alfred hitchcock noir GIF by Warner ArchiveGiphy"My husband isn't a nurse, but he is a police officer. He has heard "quite a few" dying declarations at crime scenes. People confessing to crimes, witnesses to crimes or telling cops all the info about something. It is admissible and he had to write everything down. Crazy stuff."
It Happens...
"I was speaking with a nurse and she said that a lot of patients pass away alone because they don't feel right passing over with other people present. That is why you have a lot of people waiting bedside, then go home and 10 minutes later... the person passes away. Apparently happens all the time."
A Sliver Lining
"My dad loves small town auctions and over the years he collected all those boxes of stuff that would go for the lowest bid. He amassed quite a collection, filling the garage and a workshop out back. He always promised Mom he'd sell it all some day in some big garage sale or auction of his own."
"Then one day my mom's cancer returned and the doctors told us this time it wasn't a fair fight. Two weeks before she passed I was sitting with her in the hospital. We'd run out of things to say. She looked up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the pain, and said, "Thank God at least I won't have to deal with your dad's stuff." Me and mom burst out laughing. Don't tell my Dad."
See ya soon...
"The last conversation my grandma and i had before she died was when she was dozing off and i was watching Ghost Adventures. She asked if i really believed in that kind of stuff. I told her yes and when she died she can come back and haunt me to prove me right. She just said, "oh ok" and went back to napping. She died the next week."
"speeding up her pass"
Love You Goodbye GIF by truTV’s At Home with Amy SedarisGiphy"My aunt was a nurse and had some pretty strange stories about it. I think the worst of all was about another nurse that was brought after a car crash. She was terrified about someone "speeding up her pass" because of her injuries. She told my aunt that was a common practice and admitting doing it herself several times."'
School Daze
"There was a gentleman on his deathbed at 56 years old. He was pissed off yelling that he started at an early age going to preschool-- to get into the right grade school --to get into the right high school-- to get in to the right Ivy league University and high paying job. That was the year he was to set up his family for life being able to fund their college and pay off the mortgage. This went on for about 4 hours before he passed. Truly tragic."
For Grandpa...
"My mom and I look very similar, the only difference is our hair color (she's got black hair and I'm blond). But when she was my age, she bleached her hair, so functionally I just look like my mother in her 20s. My grandfather went downhill in his last year and his Alzheimer's got worse, to the point where he didn't know a lot of people. But he could recognize me, not as his grandchild, but as his 20-something year old daughter. I played along, and got a lot of stories out of him. They're fun memories, but they hurt all the same."
A Memior
"I'm an intern and I work with the elderly at a day centre. A 90something year old man (who was very loved by everyone) was committing euthanasia (which is legal in the Netherlands) that afternoon. He still wanted to come to us. All the nurses and social workers were pretty emotional for his last day. It can be weird to talk to someone in the morning, knowing they will end their lives that afternoon."
"I got to go on a walk with him. I was pushing his wheel chair and we just talked about life. That one hour he taught me so so so much about life. He told all about his trauma from WW2, about how it affected him and about how he overcame it. He never told anyone, not even his wife, about everything that happened. He gave me so many life lessons that day, and I will be always be thankful for that."
"Zoot Suit Riots"
"Worked in a nursing home for about a decade doing hospice, rehab, and all kinds of long-term care stuff. Anyway, I had a fellow who had worked at the Army Film Unit in LA during the war. As he was dying, when it looked like he wasn't going to make it through the night- I sat with him and just talked. He was remarkably lucid the entire time. He told me that he'd been present at the "Zoot Suit Riots" and had stabbed a man to death and was never prosecuted."
"I never could find any evidence of anyone having been killed during those 5 days in LA when the riots took place. Maybe he killed someone not related to the fray at all. Anyway... he also told me about getting a BJ from Rosemary Clooney in a bar on Sunset so, who knows."
Accept People
Episode 9 Hug GIF by The SimpsonsGiphy"Doctor here - working in the deep south I've heard a lot of patients regret disowning their gay/lesbian children and the relationship they could've had."
"Unfortunately rigid religious/political dogma tears apart more families than most people realize. Life is short. Accept people, especially the ones you love, for who they are and not who you would like them to be. That's always been the takeaway lesson I got from hearing these stories."
Leaving Canada...
"My first year as a nurse I worked in palliative care. Had a 28yo dying of cancer. She moved here from Canada to be with her boyfriend who left her a year after moving. We weren't expecting her to deteriorate so fast. I held her hand as she died alone without her family or friends."
"But right before she died, she told me she wished she never left Canada and cried. Her family were overseas and couldn't make it in time. It's memorable to me because it reminds me to tell my family I love them regularly and to spend time with friends and to stop making excuses."
I hope the nurses and death crews out there are keeping journals. Some of this is tragic, but most of it is comedy gold. Oh my.
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