What is your Achilles heel?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Let me start by saying I am a last semester student. I have also been a tech at the hospital for 2 years.

Give me poo, vomit, anything... but please oh please not sputum....

I am desperately trying to get over my hatred of phlegm. Crazy right? Trach patients, I can't even.

Obviously, I am perfectly professional in the room, and care for these patients like any other, but seriously, I cannot be the only one, right?

Does anything gross you out, about the job, at this point?

Wow, thanks; I learned a word I'd never even seen before! :up: (Sounds like I am going to need it, too!)

[h=1]Definition of squick in English [/h][h=3]verb[/h] [with object] informal

[*] cause immediate and thorough revulsion:was anyone else squicked by the potential adoptive parents?

[h=3]noun[/h] a person or thing that causes immediate and thorough revulsion.

Well... This is unfortunate. I had no idea "squick" was a real word (with a not so positive definition) ...it's a term I've always used to describe fussy premies!!

The tiny ones just don't have that sustained, lusty cry that the big, term babies have. They don't cry, they squick! Especially NAS babies.

Uses:

"Hey Joan, your baby was squicking so I patted him a bit and put his pacifier in."

"All right, you naughty little squicker, you've been fed, changed, and rocked, time for you to settle down and sleep for a while."

Huh.

Anyhow, back on topic...

I don't like eye stuff either, but I can usually suck it up enough to deal, even though I'm cringing on the inside.

Once I have ALMOST vomited at work and once, I DID and both times it was triggered by someone else vomiting. Usually it doesn't bother me, I can hold up an emesis basin and hold back hair with the best of them. Usually.

The first time was really unexpected. The pt wasn't even mine, I was just helping with the admission (transfer/vitals/etc) and she was continuously dry heaving and spitting out her saliva into a bin. After a few minutes in her room, I started gagging right along with her- had to flee the room, eyes and throat watering, face burning with shame.

The second episode was an elderly psych patient that decided to medically crump on me at 0300. He'd had a large "normal" emesis all over himself in bed, and had a fever of 101. Paged the MD, then the aide and I got him into the shower chair and started cleaning him up, when he again vomited- not gastric contents or bile this time- but liquid feces. It was awful, and the sight and smell of it coming out his mouth was just too much- without even having a second to try and control it- I was bent over next to him, also vomiting onto the floor of the shower. It was that quick- nothing I could do except swallow hard, wipe my mouth and yell to the aide to call the RRT as the pt was now unresponsive. Managed to get him generally clean, dry, and onto a cart in time for RRT to show up and get him to the Unit. :(

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Oh...my...gosh... :yuck:

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Strong smelling vomit the chunky stuff. Vomiting blood, feces or bile is fine, but give me that partially digested food and we are sharing a basin! :barf02:[/quote']

I was gagging just reading this!!! I can't even help my kids when they vomit with out me doing the gagging, coughing, trying to hold it down thing lol

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What's with all the trach hate? Love em! Sputum can't touch me. Ostomies though......

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not sure i dont mind suctioning work with tracheys all the time. ok with vomitt as well. if someone is decscribing body fluid it can i can find it hard but not often

I dont like stale body odur from days/weeks of not washing that take several showers baths to clear.

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Specializes in Geriatrics, Dialysis.
Omg, RNsrWE just reminded me of one of my colleagues. We were having a discussion similar to this on and she told me the worst thing she has had to deal with was a morbidly obese pt that never cleaned herself. As they were checking for skin breakdown between her abdominal folds they found ulcerations with maggots crawling around. She said it wasn't just a couple either but tons of them,that there might just set me off.

Yep! Had an elderly lady come in that just couldn't take care of her hygiene anymore and had been home without help way, way too long. No family to help her, and nobody else stepped up to the plate and looked out for her. She had the worst body odor I have ever come across, and when we removed her very crusty old socks maggots came pouring out. I imagine that poor old gal was in agonizing pain from the ulcers and infection under that layer of maggots.

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Maggots have been used (and still are) for debridement. Google "maggot therapy". pretty unusual.

Links (no gross pics in case you're wondering)

pubmed

national geographic

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Specializes in Oncology.

Eyes seriously gross me out. I couldn't do trauma for that reason - if I saw an eye out of socket, bloody, or with something stuck in it, I would probably faint.

I work in oncology, so I got over puke a long time ago since so many on our floor get chemo and experience n/v. Trachs don't really bother me either. Really, anything extreme can get me for a moment.

Strangely enough, I am so much more grossed out and anxious over something I see on TV, whether real or fake.

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25 years at the bedside.. I could handle anything coming from a patient...

Administration grosses me out.

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Specializes in I/DD.

Well... This is unfortunate. I had no idea "squick" was a real word (with a not so positive definition) ...it's a term I've always used to describe fussy premies!!

The tiny ones just don't have that sustained, lusty cry that the big, term babies have. They don't cry, they squick! Especially NAS babies.

I think your babies squeak, while squick grows between my patient's toes!

As much as I hate the crud that I find in crevices that don't exist, I LOVE the feeling when I finally get them clean! Sometimes it takes several shifts in a row but by golly I will lotion up that dry scaly skin until it softens up and just peeeels off.

Here is my favorite story of the summer: guy came in from home, had a HUGE pannis- I am not kidding this thing had to be at least 100lbs. It took two people to lift, and 4 if you needed it up for any amount of time. This thing was so big that it swallowed his member. He simply had a hole on the underside of this giant belly, and his member was somewhere up in there. I spent 2 hours trying to place a foley. This involved jimmy rigging a number of devices to help us, including a hoyer, a speculum, and a headlamp. We were unsuccessful unfortunately :( so this guy was admitted about a year and a half ago before I was on this particular unit, and a nurse had actually been successful, but when her hand went up she got a fistful of white gunk. Makes me shiver just remembering about it...

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OMG you guys are HILARIOUS!!! I once watched a patient drink the VOMIT she had vomited into a cup!!! By the time I processed what I was watching, vomit was gone! Poof! Back to where it came from! I retched all the way back to the nurses station. :arghh:

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I could never be a dental assistance. The thought of a broken tooth or tooth extraction gives me the willies. Have gotten better though because doing H&P in jailhouse which includes checking on dental health. Can't believe the things I have seen in people's mouths! Just didn't realize how bad teeth can be and people don't go to the dentist. Vomit bothers me at home, even from my kids and dogs, but strangely not on the job. Weird.

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