Gross me out!

FLmomof5 · Nov 23, 2009

In clinicals right now.....

1.) Code brown. Our classmate came from one section of the floor to get all of us to help! Why? Pt was over 500 lbs and it took 4 of us to hold back her thighs, to roll her, etc. UCK!

2.) Obese woman - met. breast CA, HIV+, with a stage 4 decubitis ulcer on her backside that was 4 in deep.

(believe it or not....she was only 42, is going to die and yet was a full code!)

3.) Homeless man you could smell from the hall add in a code brown and you could hardly breathe! Funny thing though.....he was completely non-responsive and we had to do everything to get him cleaned up....then the reg. RN comes in with the man's lunch and asked him if he wanted to eat. I looked at her like she was crazy, but I guess not. This 'non-responsive' pt suddenly opened his eyes to sit up and eat! :angryfire Worse yet...he looked at his utensils like he didn't know how to use them and then ate like an animal...and yes, we had to clean him up from his lunch too.

DolceVita, ADN, BSN, RN · Nov 23, 2009

DolceVita-- the contents of a suction cannister, the glop noise when you dump it, oh. my. god. The stringy stu----- oh I'm sorry, I can't go on.

:hhmth:

Boog'sCRRN246, RN · Nov 23, 2009

A patient came into the hospital where I used to work. She was elderly and unable to care for herself. Her family had left her on the couch for so long that when the patient was brought in, the couch came with her. It had to be surgically removed.

~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN · Nov 24, 2009

This is probably nothing compared to what gets seen and 70% of it probably had to do with me being sick but it was still gross even if it is small potatoes lol.

So anyway I was sick and I normally have a super keen sense of smell. Like really good, well when I was sick not only could I smell everything it was almost like I could taste it in the back of my throat which happened to be all swollen. (I was no longer contagious so no worries) So anyway it made really bad smells be like 10% worse.

So their is a lady in the LTC facility that has a colostomy and for the most part she is self care with it. Although a lot of patients tend to be embarrassed and stuff about them this lady was all about teaching the students about it.

So we go in and it's already feeling like 100 degrees in her room and I am feeling really hot but I am trying to hang tough. One girl has a spray can of oust and the woman told her she will be in charge of helping keep down the smell. So she mentions she had stew so it probably won't smell very good. She is emptying the bag into a garbage sack. My class mate was doing little squirts of the Oust and then the smell hit me and hit me hard. It was the most putrid smell I had ever smelled (no I haven't smelled C.diff yet). Not only was it the worst smell but it was like I could taste it in the back of my throat and I was already dizzy. It took every being in my body not to loose it right there. Thankfully my instructor already knew I was still recovering and I very quietly headed to the door and left.

it was terrible. Small potatoes I know but my first semester was in the nursing home and their wasn't a whole lot going on lol.

allnurses Guide · Nov 24, 2009

Being sick, having it be hot, oh no. . . I probably would've lost it too. Sometimes the spray people use makes it worse! Now you really can't breathe! In home health the patients want to use floral room spray from Bath and Body Works! Diarrhea+ lilac or freesia= gaagggg!

shrimpchips, LPN · Nov 24, 2009

I currently work on a 40-bed internal medicine/telemetry unit (it used to be 80 beds before they split the floor into two different units) as a PCNA, or patient care nursing assistant (however, I won't be there for much longer...I just got a job as a nurse technician at a hospital that is MUCH closer to where I live (I drive about an hour with my current job and then 10 minutes with the new one!) on a renal/plastic & reconstructive surgery unit. I'm super excited! )

ANYWAY...there was one patient I had who had an ileostomy bag. That doesn't bother me, but the fact that 1) it had a lottttt of output so it needed to be emptied sometimes 5+ times...even if it was just full of air and 2) she had a GI bleed. Trust me, there are two things you will never forget when you smell them - a GI bleed and c.diff, but in my opinion a Gi bleed is MUCH worse. I dreaded emptying that thing...if you breathed through your nose you would smell it and if you breathed through your mouth, you would taste it! :barf01: And of course I couldn't hold my breath long enough to empty the whole thing, measure it to get the correct amount of output and clean out the container and everything and evacuate the room...so I had to suffer. The entire unit would smell upon opening that bag, even down to the other side. And it smelled no matter how much of the deodorizer spray you used.

Besides smelling & tasting it, I think what was worse was when the smell would stick to your hair/scrubs. ICK.

~Mi Vida Loca~RN, ASN, RN · Nov 24, 2009

Being sick, having it be hot, oh no. . . I probably would've lost it too. Sometimes the spray people use makes it worse! Now you really can't breathe! In home health the patients want to use floral room spray from Bath and Body Works! Diarrhea+ lilac or freesia= gaagggg!

Yeah it was so bad and the room was muggy and had like 5 of us in their and the air freshener and the stuff coming out of the bag it was to much. When I came out I was heading to the nurse lounge to sit down and another classmate was standing by the nurses station and was like YOU DON'T LOOK WELL, she said I was pale and my eyes were watery and I was sweating. I had to go sit for a few minutes and I was fine but the rest of the day I could still taste it in the back of my throat. I was so glad clinicals were over after that for the semester LOL

southern rn · Nov 24, 2009

https://allnurses.com/nursing-humor-share/what-your-most-20151.html
This has some pretty good stuff-- :barf01: :barf01: :barf01:

LMAO!!This is one of my alltime favorite allnurses threads! I found it and read thru it all one calm night. Me and my fellow nurse were laughing and gagging at the same time. I literally had tears rolling down my face. The worst one for me was the little guy in the ER picking up his ball of ear wax and eating it!! Right after that was when I decided to join the allnurses community.

Nepenthe Sea · Nov 24, 2009

Being sick, having it be hot, oh no. . . I probably would've lost it too. Sometimes the spray people use makes it worse! Now you really can't breathe! In home health the patients want to use floral room spray from Bath and Body Works! Diarrhea+ lilac or freesia= gaagggg!

Potpourri or rose + diarrhea = :barf01:

I think I would rather have just the plain diarrhea, thank you!

RNShenanigator · Nov 25, 2009

I am so glad that you guys put in the stories about the ileostomy bags. I am a senior nursing student and believe it or not this was my first ileostomy patient. I have been wrist deep packing MRSA wounds, had vomit and poo on my shoes, homeless people who haven't seen a shower in months, but for the first time I almost gagged! I was beginning to think it was never going to happen and that I was just hard to gross out.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for not making me feel like it was just me. :yeah:

rbytsdy · Nov 25, 2009

We had a patient in clinical 2 weeks ago who had a bowel obstruction and was vomiting feces. My instructor couldn't understand why they hadn't take the patient in for surgery yet. "If his bowel explodes, it won't be pretty" she said.

I took care of a mentally disabled patient who liked to masturbate. Silly me asked my instructor what I was supposed to do when he tried to masturbate. She looked at me and said, "Either stop it or clean it up wherever it lands." Eeeekkkk.....

I think the most disturbing thing I have done so far is attend an autopsy. If I concentrate, I can still vividly remember that smell. I will never forget the sound of the saw used to cut open the skull of the body.