Freaky female anatomy

Nurses General Nursing

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I'm starting to get a complex. In recent cath attempts, I keep running into patients who have stuff prolapsed, holes in strange places, and generally not at all textbook anatomy. I confirm with a fellow nurse, who marvels at my ability to get patients whose urethras refuse to reveal themselves. Am I the only one? :eek:

Originally posted by LilgirlRN

Had a female patient a few weeks ago getting the little old lady with a fever work up and we all know that women absolutely cannot do a clean catch and make it clean...I'm rolling my eyes here, we have a doc that is biased and always orders cath UA's on all the elderly women. Went to cath the patient and had to push a tiny member and scrotum outta the way to get to the functioning stuff!!!

OMG :roll a true herm hum I thought they were only urban legends, LMAO:imbar

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Yeah, they do exist...still kinda takes me aback, and I've seen several now.

We just had a pt a few months ago who had multiple orifices, and it took the doc a couple tries to get her cathed (all that work, just for a straight cath UA that was totally normal).

And yes, Heather, I thought the same thing...

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Jamistlc! Where ya been? Good to see ya!

Heather

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Originally posted by fab4fan

And yes, Heather, I thought the same thing...

Great minds think alike ;)

Heather

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Specializes in LTC,Hospice/palliative care,acute care.
Originally posted by TheLionessRN

I got a patient back from a post op vulva removal, which left ZERO landmarks. She was swollen and had stitches in almost every imaginable area. There were holes all over the place, and I think we had the room littered with little the little caths in various sizes that 3 or 4 of us had tried to insert. Including the OB nurse we called up to try for us. The surgeon acted like we were all idiots, of course, but the patient came from PACU without a catheter and we were suddenly expected to insert a foley on this awake patient??

He ended up coming to the floor to try it himself, and had to take her down to the OB floor for a table with stirrups. He finally got one inserted with a guide wire of some sorts.

Never have seen anything like it since, and hope I never do.

good lord....I would think that the cath should have been inserted in the OR-if the pt were my loved on that surgeon would get an earful from me.....Most s/p vulvectomies have a supra-pubic cath anyway,don't they? Does anyone know-isn't that the standard of care? (cringing-squeezing my knees together)
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Originally posted by SmilingBluEyes

but then the cath is the last thing on their minds in a true emergency OB case.

I must disagree!

In a crash c/s, I'd opt for a quick cath insertion with poor aseptic technique & some antibiotic coverage over a perforated bladder !

At "my house", one pours prep while one slams in catheter....one plays anesth tech, you know the EKG leads, BP cuff, crycoid pressure thing...while another counts...etc. Typically incision

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Haze, I don't pretend to know 100% what she was saying, but I think SmilingBluEyes was referring to the patient. I took it to mean that she would prefer to insert a cath after anesthesia has been administered (for comfort reasons) unless it's a crash c/s, where discomfort from a foley is the last thing on the patient's mind. I don't think she was referring at all to doing a c/s without inserting one period.

Could be totally wrong of course, but I don't take Debbie as that kind of nurse.

Heather

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Every Friday night we have to cath a patient so she can go home overnight with her husband. It is the easiest cath I have ever, ever seen. We have to use a 30 fr (yes, you read that right 30)It is not really even necessary to visualize the urethra. We just carefully cleanse the area, lube the tip and aim in the general direction....Always we strike gold immediately....and she continues to soak her pad, too. I have never, ever seen a urethra that large!

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I thought I had seen it all after all this years as a nurse and much longer years as a sacred keeper of female secrets! (never mind what my admirers call me). But you guy's descriptions are making me feel shrink!

Could somebody please tell me if I need more study days and where to see some of these new discoveries before I retire from active nursing or "nuking" service soon.

:cool::D

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I had a lady on homecare who had to be cathed on a regular basis. Had a heck of a time finding the urethra. Turned out it was this itty bitty hole on the inside of one of the labia minora. Never seen that before or since, though I have had to cath pt's with the urethra waaay inside the lady parts.

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I read the following story in a doctor's humour magazine. The doc was worried about his femal pt. who had just had a hysterectomy, and seemed to be passing some blood in her urine. He left her in Recovery while he went for a bit of a break. When he came back, the first thing he did was look at her urine drainage bag. It was full of very sanguinous urine! Panicking, he ran to her bedside and followed the drainage tube up to where the catheter was inserted, and found....a member!!

Hearing laughter behind him, he turned to find the recovery room nurses in stitches. While he was gone, his pt. had been shipped up to the floor, and replaced with one of the urologist's TURP patients!

:D:D:D:D

Betcha they did it on purpose!!

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Originally posted by ptnurse

Watched a childbirth show on t.v. not long ago. One girl had a baby by c-section. The girl giving birth had two complete and seperate sets of reproductive organs. She was carrying a preg. in one uterus and still having a period from the other uterus every month.

That would suck!! The best thing about being pregnant is not getting your period!

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