25. Lay Off The Pickles, Please!
I had this patient with congestive heart failure. Basically, for a whole bunch of reasons you’re not supposed to eat salt with CHF. One of the side effects of the condition and too much salt is fluid retention. He was this nice old Pennsylvania Dutch guy. I was his nurse when he was in for a CHF exacerbation. He was on our unit for 8 or 10 days strengthening and removing excess fluid. All he could talk about was eating deli pickles.
We were trying to tell him it’s bad for his health, and he insists on having some to only have enough to get a taste. We release him. He goes home and eats something like 4-6 whole deli pickles. For those who haven’t had one, they’re full sized cucumbers.
He was right back on the cardiac unit within 48 hours blown up like a balloon.
iStock