What Freaks You Out?

panda_181 · Mar 16, 2001

Oh my goodness you guys are all HILARIOUS! Chicken feathers?!?!? And TIM, you're so funny! I laughed a lot reading these ones...

I can talk about anything, and it doesn't bother. And although some things gross me right out, it's not like it would make me loose my appetite. But I have to agree with some of you..."crotch rot" is something that really bothers me. Sometimes people let it get so bad that you can smell it down the hall. And old people's pee? Never have I smelled anything so strong! eek! (I work on a Long Term Care Unit as well)

But I had to save the best one for last. We have this small lady on our floor. Another NA and myself were doing last rounds and we could smell something in her room (we knew that she had been picking and fecal smearing the past few nights). So we went in to see how bad it was and we walked in and saw....that her lips were brown! She had eaten her poop and then gone back to sleep! We washed out her mouth and brushed her teeth and rinsed out her mouth, and it was still coming. I asked her..."Do you have a yucky taste in your mouth?" "Yes," she says...no doubt!

Amanda

And although I have never seen a trach, I have heard how gross they are.

MAGSNCM · Mar 16, 2001

Originally posted by moonchild20002000:
The thing that really gets to me is mucus.I had a patient bring me a lugie in a ziplock sandwich bag one day and I almost lost it!I do night/weekend call for my MD's and this patient had called with upper respiratory symptoms.I asked the usual questions and I guess she thought having a productive cough was pretty serious.When she presented for her appt.she presented me with the lugie! It was very hard for me to react in a professional manner.Once the wave of nausea passed, I calmly asked her to put the sandwich bag back in her purse and make sure she let the MD see it!Then I found a quiet place and laughed and laughed!

I am currently an NA soon to be RN and I must say the most horrific smell is the GI bleed. Infected stage IV pressure ulcers come in a close second. Peeeewwww!!!

duckie · Mar 16, 2001

We had a resident in our facility that had extensive surgery to her face, removing her eye, most of the roof of her mouth on one side and part of her nose, due to cancer. We had to clean her oral cavity twice a shift. I absolutely could not do this no matter how hard I tried. We had to take dressings down through her eye socket and clean all the mucous and food from her eye, mouth, and nose as is was open and allowed everything to mix. And to make it all even worse, she could watch you with her other eye. Even after 20 years experience with many kinds of situations I could not do this. Thank goodness my Supervisor was a gem and found someone else to do it that didn't hurl at the thought. I get the weemies just thinking about it!!!!

buck227 · Mar 16, 2001

Pancreatic drainage. That foul smelling milky-white drainage. Yuck

Originally posted by kday:
Okay, people. It's time for a nice, fun, light-hearted discussion to blow off some steam.

WHAT FREAKS YOU OUT? What bodily fluid can't you STAND? What wound gives you the absolute WILLIES? It doesn't matter if you're an ADN, BSN, LPN, CNA, PQRST, ABCDEFG...every body gets the heebie jeebies over SOMETHING...even you stomach-of-steel ER nurses!

Mine is eyeball injuries/surgery...aaaaaaaaaackkkkkkk!! Gross! Makes my skin absolutely CRAWL. Or when someone gets a little cut on their finger/toe/whatever and then squeezes it to make it bleed!! Bleah!! Then there's the ever-popular RESPIRATORY SECRETIONS. I can handle poop, pee, amniotic fluid, lanced boils, pus, whatever...but give me a nasty snot-filled trach, and I'm OUTTA THERE.

Share, share, share people!

kewlnurse · Mar 16, 2001

Oddly, i enjoy suctioning trachs. The thing that grosses me out is having to put a foley in an obese female who hasn't seen a shower in a few days the odor just makes me gag. THE grossest thing I have ever encounterd end up not being soo bad, i floated to another floor to be at the desk and there was a agency LPN who was working that day and got a GI bleed as an admission, coming from snf she was in waaaaaaaaay over her head with this patient as she was crashing real fast, her hg went from 10 to 6 in an hour! Anyway i told the nurse i would take this patient and get her as stable as we could and get her to the unit, she was thankful and said she would get her off the bed pan, she comes running out to me and said in a real quit voice "I think her intestine came out her rectum" I bolted into the room expecting the worst and took a quick look and thought Damn, thats gross, upon closer review, and after catching my breath, I noticed that it was a tie from her gown that was in the bedpan and was bloodied, but it was still gross.

tangrene · Mar 16, 2001

Without a doubt, roppy sputum from a trach!! I can handle any amount of blood, drainage, and wounds..........but I have trouble not heaving when I encouter a trach with thick and roppy sputum that doesn't want to budge. I will never get used to it!

JulieW · Mar 16, 2001

thanks for the laughs everyone!

I agree that all of the above are totally nasty, but I can handle most without gagging (except colostomies, that's gag city).

In terms of what 'freaks me out', I really have to say that watching a chest tube insertion just sends me over the edge. It seems when I worked in the hospital I was never prepared for it. The first one I saw shocked me, but even after that.. oh I just couldn't stand it. It makes me squirm just thinking about it.

BillieICURN · Mar 16, 2001

I work in a MSICU with a lot of vent patients. Anyway, what REALLY gets me to almost want to puke is oral secretions. We have tons of pts on vents and tracheal secretions dont bother me(because they are usually contained within the ballard suction equipment), but when I get tons of THICK, NASTY,Bubble blowers on the vent, that i have to suck out of their mouth, that grosses me OUT!!!!!!!!!!! I most often have to use visual thoughts (eg., I am back in Jamacia snorkling, Ha Ha ) so I dont dwell on the GROSS thoughts of oral or tracheal secretions!!!!!!!!!

cmggriff · Mar 16, 2001

I've been an RN for 17 years now. Everytime I think I've seen it all, something proves me wrong. Colostomies ( those high up on the colon) get to me. In school it was a pancreatic abcess that almost made me hurl. The first time I cared for a third degree burn in the ER and that sickening sweet odor

of burned flesh brought me to the verge. I've

done those 20+ kelix abdominal wet to drys in the middle of my lunch break. I've laid down a half eaten sandwich to clean up a patient with c-diff and finished the meal while charting. But the one thing that still makes me tummy turn is that time in 1984. I had never heard of a pocket mask. A patient stopped breathing right in front of me. I called for help. I opened the airway. I gave the patient a quick breath (1984 standards) and turned my head to spit out the patients vomit from my mouth. I cleaned the patient's mouth out and resumed rescue breathing until one of co-workers arrived with the BVM. Excuse me, I have to go spit.

Michelle in Texas · Mar 16, 2001

Well, I guess the most abhorent thing I have found is fresh colostomys....makes me gag and just want to run....and I mean run...the smell permeates everthing...can't wait to get home and take a bath ....and use lots of soap!

------------------

Texan Frog

vablueyes · Mar 16, 2001

all of your comments are great, but have you not ever received a patient with maggots in a wound...ugh...not intentional maggots, either, but those little critters that fly's lay in dirty wounds. We have had several patients who come in to our ED who haven't seen soap and water in ages, have diabetes and terrible lower extremity wounds in many different stages, and when you take the dressing off, these little critters fall all over your shoes, into your pockets...it's just awful. Then the smell that goes along with it,,hooooweeee...I guess the mucous is the next thing that I just can't deal with. I always give the patiend a brown paper towel to wrap the loogie container in, so I don't have to see it. Be sure to label it first, so you have no reason to unwrap it.

ClariceS · Mar 16, 2001

Definitely thick sticky mucous!! I had a patient spit out what was in her mouth onto my (thankfully gloved) hand and it filled my hand. She had been holding it in her mouth!!!EWWWWWWW! But the smell of blood in vomitus really makes me gag too!

Silly, but I can handle someone vomiting, I can pat their back and hold a cloth to their head while they are heaving, but I cannot keep my stomach together when my dog pukes.

Weird.