[Franemtnurse]

Originally Posted by Daywalker

Poor you! Are you getting some relief? Has your doc managed to arrest the kidney failure? Feel better soon. I'm thinking of you.

Oh hon, I'm a lot better now. It took me a year to regain my strength, but I'm back. I have an excellent physician who knows what he's doing, and who believes me. I do have to take furosimide for the rest of my life though. Hey if it's going to keep the fluid off of me, I'm willing to take it.

[NOTEWORTHY]

Maybe It Was Peas He Was Saving For Later. Ha! Ha!

[Advocate1]

nasty... ok so i work on a tele floor and am just beginning my RN career (read RN <6 mos). Anyways, I have seen some nasty stuff but this is by far the weirdest and most disgusting...

My pt, A/O x3, 70 y/o F, came in with CHF and was on a Lasix drip to pull off fluid- she had a foley in for an accurate I/Os. She presses the call button asking for her RN. So I come in and she says to me-- I think the foley is leaking b/c i feel kinda wet down there. So I take a look at the foley and noticed what looked like diarrhea- it was really foul smelling and brown/black. i told her it look like diarrhea but she denied having a BM. After she gets cleaned up it is apparent that she was right- no BM- the rectum is totally clean... Turns out the stuff is comming out of her vagina- Nasty nasty Nasty. A sample was sent to /the lab as well as a U/A. The urine in the foley was clear yellow w/o any blck stuff.

lab calls back... sample is stool. Ends up she has a fistula btw her bowels and uterus and stool was comming out the WRONG hole. can u believe it.

[Daywalker]

So glad you're doing better, and lucky you to have a great doc!

[Alois Wolf]

Though I'm not a nurse, I'm pretty sure I can participate in this. I work as a direct care staff for individuals with mental disabilities...One night one of my clients was very ill and looked as if he was going to vomit at any moment. He rushed to the bathroom and when I followed him to make sure he was alright, he turned around and projectile vomited allllllllllll over me. I had just started the job and I just stood there, in shock. I didn't know how to react. My supervisor came running down the hall and looked at me and she was as white as a ghost... I felt so bad for the ind. that after I cleaned up and cleaned him up, we both went down to the clinic to get checked out because this particular ind. had hepatitis and I was ultra paranoid about that. Lukily my tests came back fine, though I did wind up with a stomach bug for a couple days... *sigh* but I guess that's not as bad as one of the ind. decided to see what his on feces tasted like and I had to brush his teeth afterwards.... not too fun either.

[Artemis2]

Lets see... the one about my first day as an RN and the OD who threw his charcoal up all over me? No I can do better than that. Um the first case of HIV we saw when we didn't even know what it was and the projectile diarrhea was hitting the wall? Nope not that one. The maggots? Nope someone already told a maggot story. The piece of lint in your nice, clean, just bathed patient's hair that stands up and waves at you. Shudder, thats a good one but I think I can do better.

Ok, here goes...

There is a little known and rarely used treatment for a severe ileus that involves neostigmine injected sq into the abdominal wall. It is a little risky so you pull the crash cart up to the door (not a huge deal in the ICU). I hadn't done this before so my co-workers gave me the run down and explained that the results would be dramatic.

So this patient is so distended she looks like she is going to blow. I gather plenty of towels and washcloths and give my injection. Very quickly the results begin...large amounts of liquid stool. Unfortunately I didn't fully understand the meaning of the warning that the results would be "dramatic". The next thing I knew there was a river of stool filling the bed! I'm throwing all of my towels at it, spare sheets whatever I can find but to no avail. Now it is running off both sides of the bed and onto the floor! By the time it finally quit the floor was covered with layers of blankets soaked in stool and the bed was... well I'll leave that up to your imagination.

Fortunately in 25 years of nursing that is the only time I have had to do that!

[Alois Wolf]

Originally Posted by Artemis2

Lets see... the one about my first day as an RN and the OD who threw his charcoal up all over me? No I can do better than that. Um the first case of HIV we saw when we didn't even know what it was and the projectile diarrhea was hitting the wall? Nope not that one. The maggots? Nope someone already told a maggot story. The piece of lint in your nice, clean, just bathed patient's hair that stands up and waves at you. Shudder, thats a good one but I think I can do better.

Ok, here goes...

There is a little known and rarely used treatment for a severe ileus that involves neostigmine injected sq into the abdominal wall. It is a little risky so you pull the crash cart up to the door (not a huge deal in the ICU). I hadn't done this before so my co-workers gave me the run down and explained that the results would be dramatic.

So this patient is so distended she looks like she is going to blow. I gather plenty of towels and washcloths and give my injection. Very quickly the results begin...large amounts of liquid stool. Unfortunately I didn't fully understand the meaning of the warning that the results would be "dramatic". The next thing I knew there was a river of stool filling the bed! I'm throwing all of my towels at it, spare sheets whatever I can find but to no avail. Now it is running off both sides of the bed and onto the floor! By the time it finally quit the floor was covered with layers of blankets soaked in stool and the bed was... well I'll leave that up to your imagination.

Fortunately in 25 years of nursing that is the only time I have had to do that!

You know you've been in this line of business too long when that doesn't even gross you out... just makes you wish you could have been there to see it.

I have two words for everyone though: Pin Worms
I hope I never have the unfortunate experience of helping a nurse gather a specimen ever again.

[Artemis2]

You know you've been in this line of business too long when that doesn't even gross you out... just makes you wish you could have been there to see it.

Now that made me giggle! i know exactly what you mean!

[grace90]

[quote=Artemis2;2479850]
So this patient is so distended she looks like she is going to blow. I gather plenty of towels and washcloths and give my injection. Very quickly the results begin...large amounts of liquid stool. Unfortunately I didn't fully understand the meaning of the warning that the results would be "dramatic". The next thing I knew there was a river of stool filling the bed! I'm throwing all of my towels at it, spare sheets whatever I can find but to no avail. Now it is running off both sides of the bed and onto the floor! By the time it finally quit the floor was covered with layers of blankets soaked in stool and the bed was... well I'll leave that up to your imagination.QUOTE]

So did she recover okay? What are the risks of doing that? In my short 3.5 years I've never heard of that and perhaps there's a reason for it.

[cotjockey]

Originally Posted by allthemadmen

People manage to "lose" all sorts of things, as we know...what really disturbs me is that people can have all kinds of funk happening and still be too alienated from their bodies to wash hands really well and see what's going on in there themselves!

I always wondered about that! When I worked in the ER, we used to get calls all the time for lost tampons. I encouraged people to sit in the bathtub and reach down there and try to find it on their own...I was dumbfounded by the number of women who seemed mortified that I told them to do that. "You want me to put my fingers where?" Are people really that uncomfortable or squeemish about their bodies or what? I would much rather sit in my own bathroom and find the thing than come to the ER and have the doctor and nurse who drew the short straws fishing after it.