CRAZY / GROSS / NASTY

Nurses General Nursing

Published

It's no secret. We all know that nurses see a lot of crazy/gross/nasty things when on duty. Would anybody be willing to share their story with us? Please, don't spare any details.

I'm interested in your stories because I know that it's not all rainbows and kittens. There must be things that sometimes you'd wish you could un-see or un-experience (I know that's not a real word). Whether that be sticking your fingers in a patient's wound (for whatever reason), or having phlegm coughed on you, etc. Don't be shy.

I'm very curious to know some of the things I might see and/or experience once I become a nurse. Being a nurse is so exciting!!!!! 😃😃😃😃

Thank you.

Specializes in ICU.
I meant to send to Joy but my sleepy brain didn't cooperate!

Can you imagine the lawsuit for this? This is a sad example why assessments need to be done.

This was regarding the member split down to the base, for anyone following along.

I'm just honestly curious - is this really something that can be sued for? All of the ones I've seen have been in spinal cord patients who've had their catheter for 10 years, 20 years, etc. I have never seen a fresh one. How could any one facility be blamed for 20 years' worth of damage to a member?

How would you even decide which facility to sue? Let's say the patient has been in six different hospitals, four nursing homes for rehab, and has used three different home health agencies in the past 20 years. Does everybody get sued? Only the facilities/services he's been to/used in the past year? What if it's obviously a perfectly healed wound with no open areas, so it's obvious it's not recent?

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Specializes in ER/Tele, Med-Surg, Faculty, Urgent Care.

Did a travel assignment to CA. Had male patient that was terminalDNR. Went to turn him (skin & bones, he was) & found what I thought were couple pieces of rice in the bed. But-he was not able to eat, SO noticed the "rice" was wiggling around, realized oh no, Maggots! Ran to get charge nurse (who was British) who asked if he was dead, to which I replied, "NO, worse!". She picked up the "rice" and popped them in specimen jar for pathology. Pt's skin was intact, no decubs/no pressure ulcers/no wounds. She figured the "rice" had appeared from pts rectum!

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Specializes in Hospice.
This was regarding the member split down to the base, for anyone following along.

I'm just honestly curious - is this really something that can be sued for? All of the ones I've seen have been in spinal cord patients who've had their catheter for 10 years, 20 years, etc. I have never seen a fresh one. How could any one facility be blamed for 20 years' worth of damage to a member?

How would you even decide which facility to sue? Let's say the patient has been in six different hospitals, four nursing homes for rehab, and has used three different home health agencies in the past 20 years. Does everybody get sued? Only the facilities/services he's been to/used in the past year? What if it's obviously a perfectly healed wound with no open areas, so it's obvious it's not recent?

What I've always wondered: with all the things that can go wrong with a long term Foley, wouldn't it be better to have a supra public cath?

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What I've always wondered: with all the things that can go wrong with a long term Foley, wouldn't it be better to have a supra public cath?

I hadn't seen a supra pubic in a long time, that would be the solution.

Sounds like this patient wasn't going to have any surgical measures done, and was transferred/shuffled along from hosp to ecf, etc.

Caliviania, If this patient had a family who wanted to sue, a lawyer had to be involved within 2 years of the problem. (This is what I was told by a lawyer). A lawsuit is a lot of work, stress and money. Suits aren't always won, especially in certain wealthy counties where Drs have a lot of pull. So there goes the family's money. The lawyer and family would decide who to name in the lawsuit. It's also the facilities, attending drs, not only nurses named in a lawsuit. Its so much work with reading charting, depositions, time off from work.

It's a shame that a patient would have this necrosis. The foley being taped securely to the thigh helps. But his nutrition and healing are factors.

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As a travel nurse on 11-7, I walked into a room where the pt had just expired. The smell was very strong. He'd recently had a trach placed and there was poo draining from it. Trying to do postmortem care was a challenge because every time was rolled him there was more poo...draining from his rectum, nose mouth, trach, everywhere! Of course the family was waiting outside to see their dearly departed. The CNA and I eventually tipped him over the trash can & I suctioned the s*** out of him, literally. Family was irritated we took so long, but I couldn't explain why. Really, who wants to remember grampa in a state like that?!

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Gosh, some of these are making me gag just reading them!

What I find super nasty is Yeasty Crotch. Male. Female. Doesn't matter.

The worst in my memory is a fairly young uncontrolled diabetic who was able to hold his urine but peed himself anyway. His A1C was 15 and his average sugar in the 300's. The sugar and the constant moisture were a perfect breeding ground for yeast. I literally could not clean all the schmutz off of his twig and berries no matter how many wipes I used. They were so swollen and inflamed a more apt description would have been branch and overripe, moldy, deflated oranges. I tried to pull back his foreskin to clean what appeared to be tablespoons of yellow gunk but I could not do it secondary to the swelling. I did the best I could and left the rest for my unfortunate coworkers w/ a warning and a request to get the guy an order for Diflucan.

Not only was the situation naaaasty, it was very awkward. The guy was fully competent but was completely o.k. w/ the clean up. He was watching T.V. and cheerfully chit chatting w/ me the whole time. I am kind of a pushover type nurse but he made me mad. I wanted to scream, "I don't get paid enough to socialize w/ you while cleaning your nasty, neglected junk!"

This type of situation makes me angry. I would feel used. I just find it down right inappropriate to clean someone who is completely capable of doing it themselves. I would have the patient clean what they can, then I'd do the rest. Neglect is the right word in this scenario. How does a completely alert and oriented individual allow themselves to get to the point of it requiring a licensed professional to clean them? It may sound mean of me, I don't know. But this bugs me.

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I have yet to see a doc clean up after him/herself!

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Specializes in Hospice.
I have yet to see a doc clean up after him/herself!

I worked with a Neurologist years ago who totally shocked me by cleaning up after himself after doing a spinal tap.

Of course, he may have just been feeling guilty because he liked to use Betadine spray...very liberally. By the time he was done I looked like an Oompa Loompa lol.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

Had a patient who was retired military physician; he had, for years, taught the young female military (VA?) nursing students (not sure of subject). But it was teaching done in the days of The Doctor is God, and Intimidation of Nurses was an accepted practice.

He required PD for some reason, at his home where he lived alone; and though he was capable of bathing himself, he would lay stretched out on the bed, legs splayed, arms folded up behind his head, and an anticipatory half-grin on his face which he could not suppress.Yes, the lowly nurse was supposed to give him a complete and thorough bedbath to provide "TLC" to him while he obviously took extreme pleasure in the process. He would get an erection which we were supposed to professionally ignore, yet handle to wash. And Rinse. And dry. Thoroughly.

When he did this in front of me, I gave a concerned look to his groin area and said "What's that?" When his head popped up and he reached down to pull things aside so he might see the area in question, I took his hand by the wrist and pressed a wet soapy washcloth in his hand and said,"You can carry on, and I'll be back in a minute," and I left the room. No handmaiden, no scared little nurse-whore, no audience. It just ruined his morning!

Found out when I requested off his case, he had done the same and requested a different nurse. HA!

Too bad, so sad. (jerk!)

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Had a patient who was retired military physician; he had, for years, taught the young female military (VA?) nursing students (not sure of subject). But it was teaching done in the days of The Doctor is God, and Intimidation of Nurses was an accepted practice.

He required PD for some reason, at his home where he lived alone; and though he was capable of bathing himself, he would lay stretched out on the bed, legs splayed, arms folded up behind his head, and an anticipatory half-grin on his face which he could not suppress.Yes, the lowly nurse was supposed to give him a complete and thorough bedbath to provide "TLC" to him while he obviously took extreme pleasure in the process. He would get an erection which we were supposed to professionally ignore, yet handle to wash. And Rinse. And dry. Thoroughly.

When he did this in front of me, I gave a concerned look to his groin area and said "What's that?" When his head popped up and he reached down to pull things aside so he might see the area in question, I took his hand by the wrist and pressed a wet soapy washcloth in his hand and said,"You can carry on, and I'll be back in a minute," and I left the room. No handmaiden, no scared little nurse-whore, no audience. It just ruined his morning!

Found out when I requested off his case, he had done the same and requested a different nurse. HA!

Too bad, so sad. (jerk!)

Did you ever know that you're my hero?

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Specializes in Trauma Surgery.
A breast cancer patient in her 50s that ignored all the signs and symptoms for so long that by the time she went to the ER the tumor had eaten through her breast and embedded in her bra. The smell was overwhelming. I wasn't her primary nurse, I was charge the day she came in but I remember trying to help her nurse to remove the remaining bits of bra from the tumor. (She was not a surgical candidate. Very end-stage.) After what seemed like hours of trying, we ended up calling wound care. Denial is a powerful thing

What I don't understand is... it embedded into her bra, so she literally never took the bra off? WHAT!?

The grossest one that I have HEARD is of a guy in his 60s being admitted to our floor (surgical) for having a cock ring around his balls. How does that even happen?! The nurse who had him said it was the most awful smell she had ever experienced and the surgeons were talking about amputating the balls because it was necrotic.

The grossest one I have seen so far, I was helping a fellow nurse with a meticulous dressing change. It was a diabetic patient in his 30s who had came in with an abscess on his balls. It was not pretty, they I&D'd it and it looked like his groin was all filleted. And the smell was even worse. Felt so bad for him.

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This type of situation makes me angry. I would feel used. I just find it down right inappropriate to clean someone who is completely capable of doing it themselves. I would have the patient clean what they can, then I'd do the rest. Neglect is the right word in this scenario. How does a completely alert and oriented individual allow themselves to get to the point of it requiring a licensed professional to clean them? It may sound mean of me, I don't know. But this bugs me.

I agree. I felt p'd off and violated. I am working on getting a backbone. I should have just handed him a bucket of soap and water and a stack of washcloths and told him to have at it but, quite honestly, it was 0615 and I just wanted the hell out if there.

If he had gotten an erection like the pt. in No Stars' post, I would have wrapped it back up in his (unnecessary) brief and walked out. THAT, I would have had a backbone for.

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