Scared Of Poop!!!!!!!!! Help!!!!!!!

Nurses New Nurse

Published

I'm starting my nursing program on Jan.25th, and i'm really, really excited. Ever since I can remember I've always dreamed about being a nurse. I'm a medical assitant at a cardiologist office and I love working hands on and I love my patients to the point that I can't wait until I become a RN and work at a hospital. During orientation we were told that our first practice cite will be at a nursing home :uhoh3:. One thing I'm actually not looking forward to doing is looking at poop!!! I could deal with blood, I can deal with pee, but i'm actually scared of my reaction to looking at poop and changing patients, I'm scared I might:barf01:

I've changed a childs diaper before and i've had no problem...but I have never changed a adults diaper nor smelled or been up close and personal to it. I'm so afraid of how i'm going to react to it...does anyone ever felt this way? Does anyone have some advice or suggestions??? Is it true that it's just like changing a child. I'm scared of the smell and how i would react to it. HELP!!!! i feel recidiculous...:trout:

I'm starting my nursing program on Jan.25th, and i'm really, really excited. Ever since I can remember I've always dreamed about being a nurse. I'm a medical assitant at a cardiologist office and I love working hands on and I love my patients to the point that I can't wait until I become a RN and work at a hospital. During orientation we were told that our first practice cite will be at a nursing home :uhoh3:. One thing I'm actually not looking forward to doing is looking at poop!!! I could deal with blood, I can deal with pee, but i'm actually scared of my reaction to looking at poop and changing patients, I'm scared I might:barf01:

I've changed a childs diaper before and i've had no problem...but I have never changed a adults diaper nor smelled or been up close and personal to it. I'm so afraid of how i'm going to react to it...does anyone ever felt this way? Does anyone have some advice or suggestions??? Is it true that it's just like changing a child. I'm scared of the smell and how i would react to it. HELP!!!! i feel recidiculous...:trout:

I 2nd that!! I start CNA training in 2 weeks and am terrified of this also...

0 Votes
poop is part of nursing, if you don't like it then you shouldn't be a nurse.

Your post is just like my friend who after seeing poop on an old naked man quit nursing school after the second month of the first semester.... he had school paid for with a hospital scholarship, a job when he finished..... and he would tell me things like what you just posted.

I don't buy that at all..(poop is part of nursing, if you don't like it then you shouldn't be a nurse).

There are many different fields open to you in nursing so make sure you look for the job you want to do. If it takes more education than that's what it takes. Just because poop makes you sick does not mean an entire profession is off limits!!

0 Votes
Specializes in Neuro ICU.

I agree that poop is part of nursing, and if you don't like it then you're just like every other nurse. How much you dislike it is a matter of degrees.

The first time I had someone pass faltus very near to me when I wasn't expecting it I thought I was going to vomit in the sink in his room. I managed to supress the heaving and get out. I took a few moments in a quiet area to compose myself and then went back to work.

The first time I really had to get upclose and personal with some poop was for a pt who'd been in bed with a gout flare up following a prostatectomy. He'd been pretty motionless for 4 days or so without a BM. I got him out of bed for the first time that morning and not long after that the colace and colchicine caught up with him in a very big way.

I cleaned up the first couple from the bathroom floor (he was on a shower chair with no bucket under it and declined to be wheeled over the comode) but it wore me down. I think round 3 I was dry heaving. The next time I went and asked a friendly CNA for help and told her why I needed it. She laughed and took pity on me and told me I'd get used to it.

A few months later in the ED an old lady was found at home unresponsive and was on a vent when I first saw her. She was falling apart and her bowels were just pouring out everything she had in her. It wasn't C-diff but she was going like it was. We couldn't change her enough to keep up with it (she was going every couple of minutes and there were no FMS kits down there. So we'd clean her up and wait 15 minutes and do it again. It was so watery that rolling her to change her would make a huge mess, so I grabbed a big syringe and a urinal and sucked it up and dumped it. By that time I had learned to breath through my mouth and it was no big deal, just another day at the bedside.

SO my advice is not to worry. You might feel ill at first, but you'll get past it. And if you reall,y really end up hating it there's lots of specialties or non-hospital jobs you can do where it won't be an issue.

Good luck.

0 Votes

I have two baby cousins and I regularly babysit them so I can do diapers no problem. However, I highly doubt healthy baby poop (in baby quantities) is anywhere near intestinal problemed adult poop (in adult-to-explosive quantities). Just saying.

0 Votes

Reading through this thread has been funny, inspiring and scary! lol

I'm not even a nursing student yet, still doing my pre-reqs to apply to my school's nursing program, but I'm glad the OP got so many reassuring replies to this concern b/c it's also a concern of mine. I made myself look up pics of the colostomy bag, and I actually wasn't feeling any gag reflex. But who knows how I will react when I have to deal with a real life patient. At least I will have the Vicks solution! :D I think what will bother me more is vomit. Whenever I see someone else vomit I have to fight really hard not to follow suit...

0 Votes
Specializes in acute rehab, med surg, LTC, peds, home c.

Just a quick poop story...

I was transfering a pt from toilet to wheelchair after they had a bm when my worst nightmare came true. They started to fall and I had no choice but to lower them to the floor using my leg which I had no choice but to strategically place between their dirty but crack to lower them down. It was either that or grab their upper body and squeeze but they would have definitly been hurt.

I was quite traumatized by the whole thing and still had to fill out an incident report. :(

0 Votes
Specializes in Geriatrics.

I've worked in a nursing home for 5yrs now and believe me you get used to it! Not the most pleasant thing to get used to, but you do. Granted you won't be doing your clinicals there for long. It's like changing a child's diaper, but 5x bigger mess... Just have your supplies ready and get the job done quick! : ) You will be just fine, I promise!

0 Votes
Specializes in I dream of ICU...one day. ;-).

Poop doesn't bother me, never has. If you really want into this career, you get used to it. You also find out that poop is small potatoes. Try a necrotic foot with gaseous gangren. Now THAT will make your stomach turn. Or a patient in DIC who is bleeding out of every orfice and you are pouring blood products into him, knowing he's dying before your eyes. Looking in his eyes and knowing that he knows it too. You'll get used to poop. Trust me. It's other things that will haunt you. And those haunting moments will (hopefully) make you a better nurse and give you a new appreciation for life.

0 Votes

Poop used to bother me so much in nursing school; I never thought I would get over it but you know what it did. It doesn't phase me, I get excited to help my CNAs clean my patients! Sure I still don't like the smell, but I no longer gag like crazy like I used to back in nursing school! I can deal with massive code browns no problem!...Never thought I would get there!

I think sputum, vomit bothers me more.

0 Votes
Specializes in CCU.

I'm still working on getting over poop. I still rather deal with sputum or vomit. But working where I work, I've learned to not let it bother me so much

0 Votes

if you want to know i have been nursing for 15yrs and find poop the most difficult ( esp when pregnant) but like all things you get thru it .... i find every nurse has a smell or look ometer for something that they find most difficult ... remeber this that you can overcome smells and so long as your prepared to have a go.... there will be smells and things thoughout your training and practise you will find hard.... rather than being scared go in being preppared is good.... i know people that hate sputum , and others that hate vomit , we all have things that trigger our senses.... over time you will get better.... and just make yourself aware , prepare and get in there and go for it...

0 Votes

Just think of it as used food....a necessary part of a healthy patient....no poop = having to go hunt for poop... :) Better to have it come normally :D

Puke almost kept me out of nursing school.... as time went on, I just made sure to jump back far enough so it didn't hit my shoes. :):eek:

0 Votes
+ Add a Comment