CRAZY / GROSS / NASTY

[kvn813]

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.

[Farawyn]

Wow. Too many stories and I've only been an RN for 8 months!

all time favorite....

Upon completing a very thorough skin assessment on a 450 lb woman that was just admitted, I noticed an AWEFUL smell. Lifted her one of her multiple abd folds,found a spoon that was pretty much embedded in her skin. NASTY infection. Lots of pus. Almost made me gag...

that and the time I forgot to clamp the tubing to a g-tube when giving meds and nice pretty GI juice splattered on my lip

I wonder what she was using the spoon for...

[Farawyn]

During 2nd year of Med Surg clinicals an approximately 84 year old gentleman was admitted via the ER to the floor. He was unresponsive, had no family and had been in a rather unpleasant long term care facility. He was poorly groomed, not having been shaved for several weeks, nose hairs were sticking at least an inch out of his nose and were covered in dried mucus. I started the process of trying to get him presentable at least and began using warm cloths to soften the dried stuff from around his nose and mouth. After spending quite some time I was able to loosen the stuff and one particular piece of mucus started coming loose, I started pulling and found that it was somewhat moist farther back in his nose. I swear to God almighty that this piece of mucus went all the way to his lungs. I was sort of gagging at the back of my throat but kept working on it and finally came to the end with a big 4 foot long hunk of snot. The gentleman gagged once and opened his eyes and whispered "thank you" to me. That was what made me decide to work in LTC, I never wanted one of my patients to have been treated that way.

Awww. Seriously!

[sandiamts]

First time I saw a prolapsed uterus. What the heck is this?

A woman with a prolapsed rectum begging us to please reinsert it. It fell out each time she pooped. And she had c dif.

First time touring ER as a student. Seeing body of burn victim.

I'll never forget that smell.

Every morning having to take same patient with mucous- lined trach. It was an old metal one, which I hope isnt made any more. She liked me since I cleaned it well.

In room with a GI Bleed. He retched, I ducked, bloody emesis splattered the wall!

Elderly debilitated man with bad case of thrush. He coughed and it spattered on my face. In a few days I had a terrible sore throat & yes, thrush. we were both on the same sickeningly sweet med.

Re-inserting foley into a woman. She'd suffered a ruptured bladder. The foley came through her abdominal incision. I did it over and as luck would have it I got Urine!

[weirdscience]

End stage liver CA pt whose wife insisted on tube feeds despite comfort care status and very clearly impending death. Hospitalist allowed this grotesquery without any attempt to educate about why this was a bad choice. Pt died very shortly after I came on shift. When doing post-mortem care, turned patient and tube feeds poured from mouth and nose. He clearly hadn't been digesting--and I guess previous shift never checked a residual? So sad.

[Ruby Vee, BSN]

Senior nursing student was doing her practicum in the ICU. We couldn't let them give meds, but pretty much everything else was open season. We had this horribly obese woman with an enormous sacral decub -- the kind that you stuff with 8 or 9 rolls of wet-to-dry Kerlix. Since the student was the smallest of us, my large male friends and I held the patient on her side and I was talking Kim through the dressing change. She set up her sterile field and dumped sterile supplies on it, all the while explaining to me that she was SURE we didn't need 9 rolls of Kerlix . . .

And then she starts pulling the old dressing off and removing Kerlex from the decub. She was still pulling out Kerlex when I heard her say, in awe, "Holy (bad word that rhymes with "duck"), I could fit my whole HEAD in there!"

Necrotizing fasciitis. Patient was playing golf and noticed "a big pimple on the back of my leg." He didn't feel well; thought it was the sun. When he collapsed on the 16th hole, he was brought to the ER where it was noticed that MOST of the back of his leg was rather mushy. Within hours, his entire back half was eroding away. He died well before the sun rose again . . .

Chronic patient on a vent had a propensity for playing with his call light. He'd push that button over and over again for no good reason, and then just laugh when you went in to see what he wanted. As time went on, his call light went lower and lower on our priority list. When he realized that he got a lot of attention pretty immediately after his vent started alarming, he started taking himself off the vent. Over and over. We'd restrain him, and he'd work one hand out of the restraints, or curl up so he could reach the ventilator tubing with the hand still tied . . . .

Eventually, we got so even the vent alarms didn't get an immediate response. So then he'd yank the ventilator off the stand (in those days, the vents were about the size of a large cooler, sitting on a metal stand. That made a really satisfying crash and set off all sorts of alarms and people came running from as far away as the next ICU. It was my misfortune that I had him the day he pulled the ventilator off the stand, which yanked on his trach until the tubing came free. By this time, he'd messed around yanking his trach this way and that so much that he'd eroded the artery . . . When I got into the room, there was blood everywhere, and he was drowning in the stuff.

And then there was the colleague who gave her patient a bottle of Mag Citrate and a dulcolax suppository, tied her into a chair and went to lunch. I heard the call bell go off, and when I got down the hall I could see a literal river of poop coming out of the room. And the poor patient was sitting there crying and chanting "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."

[pyocianik]

I was working as surgeon assistant with a vascular surgeon friend of mine. He's a good surgeon and we're a good and fast team.

Iliac thrombectomy.

Iliac artery acces, he inserts the fogarty catheter and I say: "Wait! Let me get the suc..." I never got any further, I heard him say "Oops!" and then everything went red: I just got painted all over with the patient blood since the thrombus had been successfully removed and the patient had hypertension...

Had to cross back the whole OR dept and PACU to wash my face and glasses!

Of course the whole Or and PACU staff had a field day making puns and the usual silly jokes about gore, blody vascular surgeons and so on!

[pyocianik]

In my younger days I was working night shift in the Med-Surg CCU of a regional hospital near Paris. We used to have dinner around midnight after our rounds.

That night, a patient died just before dinner time. Of course it THE Special Dinner night (once a week to members made dinner for the whole team of 6+the MD who happened to be on duty that night: food is a serious matter in France!

We decided to prep the patient all togther for the morgue so we could start eating before everything got cold.

At that time (25years ago), the procedure was to fill throat and orifice with cotton so as to prevent body fluid oozing.

Patient's washed clean, all tubing removed, holes stitched.

Unfortunately, that patient had an acute diarrhea when he died...

So while my friend and team mate (she was as nurse assistant at that time) was waiting facing the patient's bottom with a forced holding the cotton in hand another nurse aid said: "Wait! i'm gonna push on his belly so you can insert your cotton when he's empty!" and applying her knee on the patient's belly pushed mightily... I heard a PPFFFRRRRTTTT! and saw a huge cloud of green brownish matter flying.

My team mate said all of a sudden:"I can't see anymore!"

I looked at her: she was covereed from had to toe with feces...

I grabbed her, ran her to the shower that was most fortunately close by, turned on the water and ripped off her gown and started rinsing her... That's when she realized what she was covered with!

My, my!!! Was she cussing!!!

We managed to have a fine and hot dinner that night despite this unpleasantness, but she told me that she had had to have 2 showers and 1 bath a day for 1 week before she felt clean and stopped having the impression that the smell clung to her!

[AliceTrout]

End stage liver CA pt whose wife insisted on tube feeds despite comfort care status and very clearly impending death. Hospitalist allowed this grotesquery without any attempt to educate about why this was a bad choice. Pt died very shortly after I came on shift. When doing post-mortem care, turned patient and tube feeds poured from mouth and nose. He clearly hadn't been digesting--and I guess previous shift never checked a residual? So sad.

Ugh this very same thing happened to me when I was on new grad orientation. I came home looking sullen and husband asked what happened....

I just looked at the floor and said in a shaky voice, dead people CAN vomit.

[Farawyn]

A similar thing happened to me while I flushed a stubborn G-tube. All over my face/eyes/nose etc. Off for a few days, come back to find voila! Pt on contact isolation for MRSA in g-tube. Warm and fuzzy!

I had a TLC squirt blood in my eyes in my first year during a hard flush. Never force a stubborn line!

[sandiamts]

Sorry about cleanup in aisle 5!

a young urologist inserted one and the room looked like a crime scene, blood on wall. I came in to see if he needed anymore supplies, he was cleaning up the entire room himself!

[VAnurse13]

Inpatient rehab patient had 4 teeth extracted during his stay and one day later, we had to sent him out 911 with suspected sepsis. He later admitted to sticking his toothbrush up his butt to combat constipation (caused by narcotics)...count 2-and-2 together!!!

[Nurse Leigh]

^^