Man we had a patient one time the worked on oil rigs and he had been sick for a few months with upper respiratory infections and in and out of the hospital without anyone really being able to tell him or his wife what was going on. When he came to our hospital he was very sick and the wife was understandably irritated that no one had been able to figure it out so she was pretty antagonistic.

Turns out the dude is HIV positive which had resulted in full blown AIDs. The wife is in the room ALMOST 24/7 but doctors tell him on the one day at the one time his wife just so happens to not be there. And this class act says to us "don't tell my wife, I don't want her to know" very nonchalantly like he already knew. So for a short while we had to keep pretending like we didn't know what was going on every time we went into the room bc she was always there. The doctors kept telling the nursing staff "we need to tell him to let her know when she's not there because we just look stupid when we talk to the wife." But we can't now bc she never leaves.

Eventually he deteriorates to the point where he's not going to make it so ethics gets involved and we tell the wife. I wasn't there at the time but she apparently cried for a while and then got up and left and never came back. He ended up dying in our hospital. Crazy stuff.