Nurse Humor is Not For The Faint of Heart

The one thing most Nurses have in common is a wildly inappropriate sense of humor.  We share that with Police, Paramedics, EMS, Paramedics and Firefighters.  To the lay person some of the comments we make are met with horror.  On the one hand, we are among the most caring and selfless people on earth.  On the other hand, we have to censor ourselves among the lay people.  I can’t tell you how many times someone has said to me, “OMG, I can’t believe you just said that”.  I have to be extremely careful on dates.  I basically have to act like a normal person, which poses a challenge for me because I have been a Nurse since I was 19 years old.  When my kids were younger, I was constantly waiting for that phone call from school telling me one of my kids said something that they thought was funny but, the teacher thought they needed a visit with the school psychologist.

Now, I am not going to lie and say that watching a lay persons jaw drop by something I’ve said, isn’t enjoyable to me at times.  In fact, it makes me laugh even harder.  I know that’s a whole new level of inappropriateness.  I can’t help it.  It’s fun.

The things Nurses say are generally uttered under our breath so that no one is hurt by our comments.  We are masters of holding our composure until we are in a place where we can bust out laughing to the point of not being able to breath.   Our humor is never intended to hurt anyone.  It is a well-known defense mechanism designed to make all of the tragedy we encounter on a daily basis more tolerable.  When you come home from a tough day to your lay person significant other, and talk to them about what you’ve experienced, you know they don’t get it.  They mean well but, there is no way for them to truly comprehend the gravity of what your heart has to endure.

I have seen Nurses cry.  It doesn’t happen often because we are the help, not the ones who need the help.  You learn early that a well-timed joke about something that breaks your heart is a more acceptable outlet.  You don’t want to be labeled as the nurse who cries.  That never ends well.  You literally lose your credibility among your peers.  The eyes begin to roll.

Compassion is a huge part of being a Nurse but, you have to giggle a little when that 40-year-old man comes into the Emergency Room with 7 (SEVEN) pens stuck up his penis and his reason for doing it was because he was mad at his Mom.  It really isn’t funny because there is a very serious problem if someone self harms like that but, if we didn’t laugh and throw one liners we would have to think more about the sadness of the situation.  There isn’t a human alive who can take all that in and remain serious without themselves being psychologically harmed.

So, next time a Nurse tells a story in a room full of lay people, that is intended to be funny, and the room literally goes silent, try to understand that sometimes we forget about how unique our work life experiences are.  Lift up your jaw and fake a bout of laughter.  Know that he or she is just trying to cope.

We have to laugh, otherwise we would cry all day long.