Allergic To Common Sense, Part 13
Extra Stupid, Hospital, Illinois, Patients, USA | Healthy | March 23, 2018
(I work in a hospital in a mid-sized city as a CNA. We like to refer to our dietary service as “Room Service” for some reason. A patient hits the call light.)
Patient: “I need to talk to you about my diet. Room service won’t let me order hardly anything on the menu.”
(I call down to room service. Apparently, the patient has eggs listed on her allergies in her chart, so naturally, they won’t allow her to order anything with eggs in it. This is kind of a problem at breakfast time. I head back into the room.)
Me: “It seems that our dietary department has eggs listed as one your allergies.”
Patient: *deep sigh* “No, I’m not allergic to eggs. I’m allergic to egg yolks.”
Me: *with a look of confusion on my face* “Um, I’ve never heard of that. What happens when you eat egg yolks?”
Patient: “They make me gag, but I can eat scrambled eggs with no problem. As long as they’re mixed in, they don’t bother me.”
Me: “I don’t think that’s an allergy; I think you just don’t like runny yolks.”
(It took me a full four hours of bugging the nurse and the doctor to change this woman’s diet, because this woman in her sixties didn’t know the difference between allergies and foods she doesn’t like.)
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