What freaks you out?

laurasc, aren't our co-workers great, especially other mom's!!

Okay, here's a few good ones. One time at the gastroenterology ward a resident was trying to assess what was causing a mysterious GI pain for the last 24 hours. The patient was kind of vague about it, and none of the history seemed to match anything. The resident decided to do a PR, put on gloves and went in. In next to no time he pulled out a vibrator that was still buzzing, and remarked: "isn't that a great advertisement for Eveready!" Another patient had an x-ray and they found a mouse skeleton in his rectum. In the ER there was this woman who dropped her husband off, saying he was bleeding. On her way out the triage nurse noticed she threw something in the bin. It turned out to be his penis. Luckily they were able to sew it back on.

When I worked in the psych unit I got used to seeing some pretty strange behaviour, but no-one is exempt from being surprised from time to time. There was one patient who pulled out both his eyes and ate them - the voices told him to do it. The doctor used to affectionately refer to him as "socket head". I thought nurses were the twisted ones!!! One of the psych nurses who was like a veteran - had been there 30 years - told me there were two people that used to get their rocks off by putting their members in the wringers on the washing machines and rolling the wringers up and down. OOOOOOOW!

I personally can handle sputum, urine from catheterised patients, vomit, eyeballs, cauterized flesh, maggots and all that sort of stuff but I can't stand the sound of bones being sawed or the stench of malaena. Most people haven't seen true malaena. I once had to clean up an elderly guy who was swimming in malaena - the real black stuff. The only thing that smells worse is a cadaver that has been left for a few days.


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The one procedure that really freaked me out and almost made me pass out was watching a neurosurgeon insert a ventriculostomy drain at the bedside. The patient was fully awake (think "Hannibal"). The doctor was standing at the head of the bed, drilling away with the hand drill and cracking jokes about the man not having osteoporosis because his skull was so hard. The worst part was when he threaded this long needle into the guy's head and out the second hole. I felt my knees about to give out. (This happened during my orientation in Neuro ICU.)

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Sorry about all the edits to the last post - I was playing with the smilies.

Actually, I think all she got was a 30 minute shower and a scrub suit to wear that day. By the time I left the floor, she was still known as the bile nurse. We would all scatter when she would approach an NG tube.

BTW...I just noticed, you're in Richmond Hill? We're almost neighbours...I'm in Burlington. Howdy NeighboUr! (written like a true Cannuck! )

Laura

try large open wounds i had a pt with a hemipelvectomy many years ago. it was the 24 fluffs and abd etc. full isolation, and it still stunk!!

also drilling burr holes one time in the icu made me a bit ughhh

Don't ya think that the wives of male gyns use alot of douche? ROFLMAO!!!

Hi, Laura! Our landlord lives in Burlington, he's the minister at a church there, and his wife works as a nurse at St. Mike's in Toronto! Small world!

Isn't it great being able to laugh about this stuff? How often have you had your family throw up their hands just as you're getting to the good part, and say, "STOP! NO MORE NURSING STORIES>>>>I' DON"T need to hear this!!"

About the woman who tossed her husband's penis in the trash: remember the Bobbitt case? Didya know that after it was all over, both John and Lorena got new jobs? She works for Magicuts, and he works for Snap-on-Tools!

Yuk, yuk, ain't I awful!!

Boy did I ever jinx myself by posting on this one. I went to work today (in the ED) and we had 3 GI bleeds! The first one was an elderly woman that was having melena stools about every 15 minutes (eeewwww, the smell!). The next was doing the same thing and was going into hypovolemic shock, but the last one takes the cake. He was in liver failure and came in having huge amounts of coffee-ground emesis. We put an NG down him and he was filling up those cannisters FAST. Gastro came down with their portable endoscope and did their thing but the doc had to pull the NG. Of course he started puking again and this time it had big chunks of fecal material in it (YUCK, YUCK, YUCK!) It then started coming out the other end and by this point he was just swimming in it, we turned him over to clean the bed and I felt something liquid run down my leg (AAACCCKKK!) I had pretty much had enough at this point and after I came back from changing my scrubs, I found out he was VRE positive.

God this brings back memories. Well, gangrenous leg ulcers and psuedomonas trache secretions absolutely REEK!

But you guys made me remember something I found right after I got out of nursing school. Dean, a fellow new grad, and I were spiffing up a new admit from the LTC. She was very young, but had a neuromuscular disorder noone could put a diagnosis on. I had worked in the ICU as a SNA for 2 years, but poor DEAN had only been in the ICU for 5 months. I started doing mouth care, and found something hanging in the back of her throat. He got a tongue blade and I had the tonsil suction and we pulled out this huge glob of GOOK. I mean it looked like a RAW OYSTER! I looked over at Dean and asked him if he had a cracker. He turned green and almost passed out. I had to leave the room because I was laughing so hard I was about to pee my pants....whew! Thanks for a good laugh!