Describe your worst...

Tweety, BSN, RN · Oct 21, 2009

I've had many hard assignments.

My worst was as a new nurse, for four hours I had 11 patients, there were 3 of us with 11 med-surg patients. One of them went critical on me. By 11pm when help arrived there still was four patients in my assignment I hadn't seen. I told the next shift "no telling what you'll find, I hope that they are at least alive." I decided then and there never again would I put myself in that situation again and when I saw the manager the next day I told her this. She apologized profusely saying I did good and there was nothing she could have done. It was a one-time event the whole time I worked there, so it wasn't common practice thank God. But it was so dangerous and scarey.

Next worst shift was a trached patient with frequent suctioning, a patient going bad needing critical, a patient that pulled out her central line and looked like the Texas chain saw massacre had arrived, and when I returned from critical care, I found a patient on the floor covered in poop. All I could do was just get through it because it was a fair assignment, just bad luck. I stayed 2 hours after shift (again relatively new nurse).

Some of my worst times were those first couple of years.

CaLLaCoDe, BSN, RN · Oct 21, 2009

Sputum didn't really bother me much until that dreadful day when I was in a double occupied room and tending to the neighbor's needs, when the respiratory therapist mention to me subtly that the other patient needed some attending to, something to do with mucous. I proceeded to check him out when I noticed what appeared to resemble a huge amoeba covering the man's lower face. I began by gathering up cleanup supplies and spent what felt like 10 minutes cleaning up sticky, gooey, clear as glass goop which in addition had migrated down his neck. ..."Man, this is gross!" I said to myself, thinking it not saying it. I didn't want him to see my being grossed out at this event, so I kept it well hid and just put on a happy face.

So, nowadays, if there is any large amount of goop anywhere on my patient, I can't help but want to wretch badly.

Super_RN, BSN, RN · Oct 21, 2009

Oh my goodness...there are some patients you will never, ever, ever forget no matter how hard you try to

One day I was floated to ED (ICU was my home unit) and the squad brought in a patient, spiraling downward quickly. The patient was an Amish female, almost 400 pounds, 35 years-old, who also had Down's Syndrome. She had the mentality of an extremely young child, yet she was in a large adult body. The kicker? She did NOT speak English, she only spoke German. Great.

It took 5 people to hold her to get a stinking blood pressure and I cannot even relive the memories of the IV start. She was in acute CHF and an absolute disaster. Her mother finally got there and we could communicate much better. After 4 hours in the ER, the doc gave the order to transfer her to ICU so I was thrilled---I was shipping her off upstairs, wooohooo!!!

I then got the order from the nursing supervisor that I had to float back to ICU to care for this patient because they didn't have enough staff to handle the patient without me!!!!!!!!!!!!! :crying2:

Yeah, definitely a bad, bad, bad time.

student200977 · Oct 21, 2009

great experiences so far...keep em' comin :)

TiffyRN, BSN, PhD · Oct 22, 2009

Heaviest was a team assignment. Myself, a good friend LPN and a CNA to care for 19 patients on a general med-surg floor. One was on dopamine drip for renal perfusion. We did okay because myself and the LPN were already a good team and had both been pulled to another floor, but we worked so well together (the CNA they gave us was fabulous) that it was just a moderately busy night.

meluhn · Oct 22, 2009

Once when I was emptying a very full leg bag and not sure how to do it, the thing squirted all over me, soaking my pants, shirt and even my socks.

Another time I had a patient with a code brown so bad that it spanned the entire room and into the bathroom.

Oh and has anyone else experienced the joy of getting sprayed in the face with a trach? :barf02: