What Is Your Most Gross, Yucky, Disgusting Nursing Horror Story?

You know, I kinda wondered about that myself....he certainly had 'em set up that way........Wow, s**t boulders, what a concept:-)

Mine aren't that gross but I do have a few. Had to irrigate a foley and it was clogged at the connector. It broke apart and a big green ball of pus went right into my eye!!! i got pinkeye the following week and Bell's Palsy a week later! Dr said not related "Sure "

Next-we had a bowel obsessed resident- every 5 minutes I need MOM I need an enema I need a supp - etc... His wife says he ate 3 large jars of metamucil right out of can without mixing in water a day at home! so my cna says one day - Oh by the way I gave Mr so and so the toothpicks he was asking for - NEED I SAY MORE! about 100 toothpicks had to be plucked from rectum, sheets, pockets and yes we are still finding them in the oddest places 3 months later


last but not least - how could one copd'er cover an entire picture window drapery, bed, floor and even the ceiling with the most god awful brown sticky smelly mucousy phlegm and i think pieces of lung too in 2 hrs since last bed check? we thought it was vomit it was so incredible and just as i'm ending over the bed doing lung sounds - a large piece of brown organ material/phlegm? comes off ceiling and lands right in my bra!

How gross!

Yuk

That one about the COPD'er just about made me ralph on my keyboard!!! I've got a strong stomach, can deal with the gnarliest infected stage IV decubs and describe 'em to my co-workers during lunch. But anything that comes out of a human being's mouth is just GROSS....when I was a CNA and had to clean dentures, I'd stand at the sink gagging and trying not to think about what I was doing. I'll never forget the night I had this very large, pleasantly confused patient who had lost her lower plates sometime after lunch; the day shift aide had looked all over the room for them, but to no avail. It wasn't until I had gotten her to roll over onto her side so I could straighten up her linens (no easy feat, mind you) that the missing dentures surfaced. Actually, they were buried in her left buttcheek!! With food still on them. And she didn't even feel it. But the worst of it was when I removed them and she snatched the plate right out of my hand and popped it into her mouth, thanking me profusely for finding them for her............EEEEEWWWW.

Had a very sweet pt this morning...she had an abdominal surgery about a year ago, and has had incisional problems ever since. She came in this morning, dehisced. (sp?) Huge pocket of pus, clots, and some kind of red-brown seedy-looking stuff draining out.

OMG --- this was defanentaly not a good thread for a new nursing student to have read...I'm really starting to reconsider....~feeling a lil dizzy~

--CLaire

Cakarol----Don't let a little goop (yes, that's an acceptable medical term :-) ) get you down! Before I got into nursing, I couldn't even clean up after my own kids---I gagged just hearing them throw up. Now I can handle just about anything, except, of course, mouth goobers (see above). You'll probably have a couple of hangups even after you've gotten used to all the delightful sights, sounds, and odoriferous emanations; I know nurses who have been working for 40 years and still have to fight to keep their lunch down whenever they suction a trach. So don't worry---you'll do fine, even if you never learn to love the smell of a GI bleed in the morning!!

~LOL~....oh....I was just kidding about reconsidering nursing...but this sure does give one something to "look forward too"....YIKES!!!!

thanks for sharing everyone!

Picture this 2200 late shift. Phone call from A & E (or ER if you are in the USA)
"We have an admission for you"
A& E is not supposed to admit to general wards after 2130 (they usually go to the "holding ward" until morning, so we knew this must be a doozy.
A & E - "She is mobile, continent, orientated and alert, she has a lower leg wound that the registrar wants a dermatologist to look at ASAP"
Me - "Why isn't she going to the holding ward?"
A & E - "There isn't any room"
Me - "OK send her up, we'll cope"
So we start to get ready for this admission, put the water jug next to the bed in a six bed bay and all the rest of it when we smell this most disgusting smell! We start to wander around the ward and this smell is getting stronger and stronger. Then we look up and here is a wardsman coming down the hallway with an obese woman in a wheelchair with an enormous number of bluies tied around both legs. He has a mask on but still looks a little worse for wear.
We realise this woman can't be put in a 6 bed bay and have to rearrange beds to get her into a single room.
We do this eventually and I get to take the admission as I was the fool to take this patient at this time anyway. I remove the blanket from around her shoulders and the corners of the blanket stay stiff it was that dirty.
I ask her why she has come to hospital.
She says; "Coz of my legs"
Me; Ok what's wrong with them?"
She says; "They're sore"
Me: "Do you treat them with anything?"
She says; "When they get bad I give them a spray"
Me; "What with?"
She says; "Mortein or something"
At this stage there is a foul smelling semi opaque serous-looking fluid oozing from under the bluies and I know that what I am going to find there is not going to be pretty.
I take the bluies off and the skin underneath is undulating! She had an entire ecosystem living there!! It was horrendous, like something out of a horror movie!
Eventually the derm diagnosed this disease with a long name that excapes me that made her lower legs have skin like a crocodile, it would split occasionally and that is when the bugs would get in. This disease was primarily caused by simple poor hygiene it seems.
Anyway the treatment was to put her in a warm bath and exfoliate her legs. I won't gross you out with those details. Needless to say she wasn't called the Cornflakes lady for nothing!
To top it all off this woman was discharged eventually because of her innappropriate sexual behaviour. She would moan and call us darling when we massaged her lower legs with moisturiser to soften the skin. She would touch us innapropriately and smirk at us.
An all round disgusting person!
We were glad to see the last of her!

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!
On all counts!!!! Gag me...