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OK c'mon fess up everyone. There is ONE absolute most worst nursing proceedure that everyone can't stand to do, but you have to when the time arises...what turns your stomach and ties it in a knot for hours after and makes you dred doing it it hours before?????
For me, it's trach care! Uuuuuuugggggggghhhhhhhhh!
I dred doing it. I love when I come on duty and the traches are all nice and clean, but it seems they never stay that way for long. After awhile they become all gooey and bubbly and crusty and then I have to come along and clean this stuff. My God! It's times like this I wonder why I couldn't wait to be a nurse! I mean what was I thinking??? And it's times like this I'd rather be cleaning my cats litter box! The most disgusting part of it all is when I'm almost finished and Joe patient gives a good cough and out flies a loogie and lands on the freshly made bed linen...I can't stand it!!!Why people find this stuff fasinating I'll NEVER know. I'd rather be doing a code brown in all honesty.
So what makes you want to launch your lunch? Don't be shy, tell us why!
Trach care ranks up there pretty high with me too BUT, I really hate to do ostomy care on ileostomy patients. The ileum is especially runny and super-stinky. The odor seems to cling to my hair and clothes, you know, like the smell of decomposition (I heard that on CSI).
Hey, trach care is a piece of cake. Mucous? No problem. Let me have it all day long. But please don't make me empty the bedpan of a GI bleed. The smell permeates the whole unit, gets on the elevator and goes downstairs.
I would have to say from an OB perspective, doing a vag exam on a "hygenically challenged" patient. It's so hard not to make a face! Next would probably be any kind of ostomy care. Never had to deal with a GI bleed, but have smelled them, and I don't care if I never have to deal with one of those!
The absolute worst thing I've seen had to deal with is changing a packed wet-dry dressing on a woman who had a femoral central line that became outrageously infected. I'll never ever, ever, ever forget it. The wound was so deep into her pelvis that you could see bone, ligments, and tendons and it invaded into her vaginal space and part of her abdomen. This poor woman died from massive infection. I have been involved in many autopsies, they paled in comparison. I don't know how stoma/wound nurses do it day in and day out!
Actually, i hate some patients' spitting. It really annoys me the one's that spit everywhere, on the sheets, on the floor, on themselves, on us!!! I really dislike when they're "calling" the spittle while talking to me.
Another thing i think is particularly disgusting is doing an enema, especially preparing an older patient's colon ready for surgery. It can get very dirty.
By the way, i can't help sharing one of the worst smells my nose ever experienced and that almost made my stomache react (and that's NOT very common): a PATIENTS' FEET!!!!!!! That's right, i had a patient whose feet smelled so bad (after being cleaned, well cleaned, even by us!!!!!!) that whenever i entered the enfermary where he was in i never breathed in and out, just out and out!!!
I don't mind poop, pus, puke, blood, mucus, colostomies, ileostomies, huge gaping gag a maggot wounds, projectile trach boogers, necrotising fascitis or GI bleeders spewing from either end...but please, for the love of all that is pure and good in this world, I beg you PLEASE do not make me do anything that involves eyeballs or eye sockets.
Oh, and I forgot dentures... I CAN'T STAND to touch, handle, or even SEE someones nasty dentures!!! GAG me! If they are clean, then no biggie, but when I see the ones that haven't been cleaned in days with food all caked on them, or even the "spit stringies" coming from them as they are removed, oh, .... just, GAG!
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Worst nursing proceedure ever....
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