Another hospital story.....

One day I was doing a ventilator check on a patient in the ICU, these were done every two hours.
These checks mostly involve general vent settings and some physical measurments of the patients ability to move air on his own while off the machine.
This particular patient was post-op for extensive cancer surgery, which unfortunatly, wasn't succesful. His daughter was a nurse in our hospital, so we always took extra time to visit with him. Although he couldn't talk because of the breathing tube, we would joke and tease him, he did enjoy the company, and would respond with pen and paper.
The ventilator was at the head of the bed to his right. The space between the bed and the wall was narrow and my partner was standing at the foot of the bed, also on the right, effectively blocking me in.
All of a sudden there was the unmistakable odor of one hell of a gaseous emission.
I looked at my partner and said,
"Damn Mike, thanks a lot," and tried to get away from the brown cloud. Mike didn't budge to let me out and began laughing. Just then the ventilator alarms began going off from high presure in the system. I turned back to see what the obstruction was, and my patient was red faced, laughing his ass off. I looked at him and said, "That was you?"
Still laughing so hard the vent alarms were just a buzzin, he shook his head up and down "yes" with much vigor. He was laughing so hard tears were rolling down his cheeks.
I told him he should be ashamed of himself, and asked him if he could smell. He nodded yes, he could.

I had always thought that if you were intubated no air went through the nose, therefore no smelling.

I had just learned something new, after fifteen years in the field.

So on a personal note, after that I was a lot more contientious about where I let go, because here to fore I figured it didn't matter anyway if the patient was on the ventilator.
Just goes to show, ya never know till you ask......

Walt