Cathy, is that you?

Once while I was working on a med/surg floor at the hospital, I had the good fortune to have two patients in the same room. This isn't always a guarantee as a student, but it works out great when it does. You end up doing a lot less running around. Anyway, as I was listening to the heart and lungs of the patient in bed A, I heard one side of a conversation from behind the curtain:

"Would you like some too?"

I was pretty sure the gentleman on the other side of the curtain was alone, so I said, "Mr. Bed B, what's that you're saying?" (thinking maybe I had misheard him and he might have been talking to me). He said, "Oh, I was just asking Cathy here if she'd like some coffee."

I finished up with Mr. Bed A and I walked to the other side of the room. "What were you saying?" I repeated, to insure that I heard him correctly.

"I said I was asking Cathy here if she'd like some coffee."

"Who's Cathy?"

"Oh, she's a friend of mine. She's sitting right over there," he said, gesturing toward a chair.

"Right there in that chair?" (He nods.) "I don't see anyone sitting there, Sir."

"You don't? Oh. Well, then... one of us has something going wrong in the head!"

Ha ha ha. I smiled my warmest nursing school smile and said, "Well I guess maybe one of us does."

The rest of the shift was a dream. He was the most pleasant patient I have ever had. Completely hallucinating (seeing each of his sons, daughters, and his wife; planes landing outside his window; watches on the floor....), but very pleasant just the same.