CRAZY / GROSS / NASTY

[calivianya, BSN, RN]

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 have no idea. The only patient I regularly took care of with a suprapubic came in every two months or so badly septic, needing an ICU admit and pressors, from a UTI. Seems like a higher infection risk to me.

Then again, he was a young 20-something vent-dependent quad who was being "cared for" by his mother after a catastrophic high spinal cord injury when he was very young - undoubtedly for the disability money, so I can't tell you if the suprapubic would have been better if it had actually taken care of properly.

His urine was always all kind of straight up chunky green goo by the time he got to us, so I guess that qualifies for this thread. When the urine is totally opaque from the pus...

[ScrappytheCoco]

Placing an NG tube on a pt who was vomiting feces...her gag reflex was enheightened so every time I tried to pass it she would vomit and the tube would come out backwards through her mouth. Another nurse came in to give it a try and ended up with the poop/puke vomit down her scrub top (inside).

A very obese elderly man stood up out of his recliner with a bowl of popcorn, broke his femur upon standing and fell back into the recliner. He couldn't get to the phone and sat in the chair for two days until a family member came by to check on him. It took me and a tech together more than an hour just to clean all the poo off of him and pick all the embedded popcorn out of his skin.

I think the one that takes the cake is the patient who sat her purse on the counter in triage...a roach crawled out and ran right across my computer keyboard. I was DONE after that!

[Christy1019, ASN, RN]

Stomal sex? I never remotely considered the possibility..

I haven't read this entire thread yet so forgive me if this has been said, but we had a pt who did this for money, I guess that made her a colostitute lol.

[poppycat, ADN, BSN]

I guess I'll add this little gem from when I was a student. We did a lot of our clinicals at a county facility that was part hospital part nursing home. One day I had a patient in the nursing home part that I was going to bathe. She wanted her comb from her purse which was in the bedside table. I opened the door of the table, reached in, & picked up her purse. As I lifted it, it started moving. Turns out it was full of roaches & mice! She laughed and said, "Oh, I see you found my pets!".

[No Stars In My Eyes]

I haven't read this entire thread yet so forgive me if this has been said, but we had a pt who did this for money, I guess that made her a colostitute lol.

:roflmao:Brilliant word play, Christy!!!! Loved it!

[No Stars In My Eyes]

This, more than any other, is the thread I always read to my husband. We had a long discussion about ostomies. The post that started it all was the one about the guy blowing off his colostomy pouch AND through his surgically closed rectum. "How on earth can that happen?" and then answered himself, "I know, I know, 'sh*t happens', but, but.....HOW?"

All I could say was that when a tremendous amount of pressure builds up, something's gotta give.

[Farawyn]

This, more than any other, is the thread I always read to my husband. We had a long discussion about ostomies. The post that started it all was the one about the guy blowing off his colostomy pouch AND through his surgically closed rectum. "How on earth can that happen?" and then answered himself, "I know, I know, 'sh*t happens', but, but.....HOW?"

All I could say was that when a tremendous amount of pressure builds up, something's gotta give.

Yes I was sharing this thread with my non nurse friends last night after a few drinks. I haven't heard screeching like that since I worked in the clinic.

[No Stars In My Eyes]

Hubby ain't one to shriek; he used to work with the Sheriff's Dept. when I first met him and he can describe some pretty gross things, himself! When we were first going out, I'd hear about everything, from the brain splatter on the wall behind the guy who blew his brains out to the decapitation of a teen girl in an auto accident.

To me, the worst was the not-quite-2 year old kid (child of addicts) whose diaper was soooo long past needing to be changed, it sagged and drooped heavily, practically dragging on the floor when the kid was standing.

When hubs went to get a diaper to change the kid and found none, he decided anything, as long as it was clean and dry, would work as a substitute. When he pulled the soiled diaper off, not only was there some bruising and a tremendous rash quite evident, but a few cockroaches skittered out and away.

After the child was clean and dry, hubs picked it up in his arms and it clamped its little arms around hubby's neck and wouldn't let go.

As his cohorts dealt with the adults' (chronologically anyway) situation, he always checked on the general physical welfare of any kids present, any dangerous items in the environment, (drugs, razor blades, weapons, syringes) then checked the contents of the fridge and cupboards (usually insufficient, as in no milk, cereal, or any other 'basics'....).

He has such a heart for babies and children, especially ones caught up in circumstances no child should ever have to go through. He says it is absolutely criminal, the amount of neglect some kids have to endure, and says the adult should be forced to experience the very same treatment; jail isn't bad enough to bring home the realization. He wants to give the parents a gut-slugging epiphany of how their extreme disregard affects their kid(s). Those parents, however, are, most of the time, too stupid to understand ANYTHING except getting effed-up on drug(s).

That is certainly "Crazy, Gross, and Nasty".

[Farawyn]

NSIME, my husband works with the Sheriff's Dept. too, and also worked down at Ground Zero.

He doesn't tell his stories, but I know he's seen brutal stuff.

[No Stars In My Eyes]

I certainly can understand not talking about something like that! I still am horrified by so many aspects of that day and the days following it, and I've never been at the actual site. No amount of time lessens the horror of the experiences of those who participated.. Obviously it's not one of those events you can turn around its impact on you by laughing about things you've seen, told long after, during a bull-session.

Hubby and I decided we could give a completely weird and gross tour of our city....he could point out places and tell of the law-breaking and tragic events that transpired there, and I could point out houses of former PD and HH patients and inventory their illnesses/surgeries/signs and symptoms/treatment/outcome, AND any strange family dynamics.

HIPAA kind of put the kibosh on that idea!

[Anna S, RN]

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.

i would bet that such a non-compliant diabetic would no longer be capable of erections.

[GoldenRoya]

The first time I ever witnessed a manual extraction.

The poor gal had not had a decent bowel movement in a week. She was a post-op LE joint replacement in a lot of pain, so she'd been getting a lot of narcotics, hadn't been moving, didn't have the most regular schedule to begin with, etc. Well, she finally started having liquid stools, lots and lots of uncontrolled anal leakage. We (a very specialized post op floor) weren't exactly familiar with the effects of massive constipation. I had no clue that liquid stuff would push past the solid stuff. Fortunately for all involved, an experienced float swung by and offered to help with yet another bed change. She recognized the signs immediately and we proceeded to spend the next 45 minutes breaking up and digging out huge chunks of petrified poop. We pulled out a mound that you could have played baseball off of.

The patient was more comfortable, though.