Uninvited Visitors

Last night I had a patient who was probably legitimately crazy, but then went and did meth on top of that.  She was completely irrational by the time I took over, hallucinating, talking to imaginary people, mumbling to herself, wandering around. She told us numerous times there were people in her room when there were not, and she told us she didn't want them in her room.  After three doses of a sedative, she finally fell asleep for a few hours.  No one went in or out of her room, I was seeing other patients and happy to have a break from her.  A little before change of shift she poked her head out of the room, looked at me like I was the biggest idiot and said "I TOLD you not to let any visitors in!"  I said "No one went in or out of your room" and again she looked at me like I was an idiot.  Sensing this rational explanation wasn't going to cut it, I quickly said "but I will tell everyone in there to leave now."  She was happy with that.  I yelled from the nursing desk "All visitors leave her room!".  The patient looked satisfied and then went in and laid back down.  Sometimes you just have to join the crazies to make things work.

ps - they could make a sweet Twilight Zone episode out of that...like if I had gone in and there had been remnants of a party or people or something in the room after she had been telling me there were people in there all night and I told her there weren't ;)