Things that make you go "EEEWWW"

[VivaLasViejas]

Stevielynn's thread about the nursing home with the signs on the food carts brings up (oops, no pun intended:D ) something that happened at work yesterday that turned even MY cast-iron stomach. I was the PRN helping with admits, and as I was charting vitals on one new pt., this lady came running up to me holding a patient gown literally dripping with fresh emesis and hollering that her mother was throwing up, and would I come quickly?

I followed her to the patient's room (even after she refused to give me the gown so I could deposit it in the linen barrel and NOT have a trail of slightly used vegetable soup running down the hall) and found a very confused elderly woman sitting up in bed, naked, with vomit EVERYWHERE--all over the bed, on the floor, even in her hair. Worse yet, she was just about to start eating again, apparently having already forgotten being sick, and seemingly unaware of the fact that she'd baptized the tray along with everything else!!

Well, it was all I could do to hang onto my own supper, and I had no choice but to deal with it alone because even the aides were too busy with vitals on the fresh post-ops we'd just gotten. Half an hour later I emerged from the room, smelling ghastly and feeling somewhat under the weather, but by gosh that little lady was nice and clean and her daughter pleased as punch with the service. At least I got a thank-you out of it.....but I hope I don't have to deal with anything like that again any time soon.

[Monica RN,BSN]

working in ER/Trauma and many other areas to experiance the guts and blood have never been an issue for me. even the snot and vomit... but that is were I have to draw the line. Not the site, not the cleaning, just better hope I don't get a whiff of the puke.. I assure you I will barfing right along with the patient!!

Kudos and gold medal award to nurse mjlrn97!!!!!!!... I think you take the prize on this one darling....... :)

[dianah, ASN]

Two instances come to mind:

One, when as a student I witnessed a Steinmann pin being inserted through-and-through a pt's knee (in the pt's room). Just couldn't stay for it!

Two, when assisting the Radiologist in placing abdominal drain(s) in a pt. When the pus came out it was VILE-SMELLING -- filled the whole CT room, the whole DEPARTMENT !! The CT tech and I and the MD closed the doors (and had masks on, of course), trying to contain the smell but one of the other nurses walked in, exclaimed, "It stinks in here!" and threw open the door to the CT control room.

Not too many of the abscess drain procedures smelled like THAT ONE, they're usually odorless . . BAD organism!

Agree w/puke smell and GI bleeds, yeccchhhhh!

[PilotJim68]

I&D of a Sebaceous Cyst the size of a softball...white purulent material with greenish streaks pouring out and dripping onto the floor...it wasn't so bad (as I stood there in amazement) until the smell migrated beyond my face shield.....:imbar . Was the only time I ever had to leave the room.

[Nightcrawler, BSN, RN]

I am a second semester student who started working at the hospital as a aid yesterday. I was orienting for the day with a CNA, and one of our patients was this sweet little old man who had been having problems with constipation for several days. We got all of our patients settled for the night when he rang his call bell.....

When we got to his room he was literally sitting in a puddle of diarrhea. It soaked the sheets, dripped across the floor as we changed the bed, and covered this poor man from knees to neck.

The odd thing was that included in the diarrhea were at least 20 of these pills (obviously several days worth) that had travelled through his GI system completely intact. We called the RN to take a look because the CNA that I was working with had been working for 8 years and had never seen anything like it. The RN promised to try to find out what the pills were because obviously the pills were not able to be used therapeutically.

I just thought that I would share.......:kiss

[gwenith, BSN, RN]

Okay I know a smell WORSE than Gi bleed Malena WORSE than Clostridium Difficille - Ischaemic Gut.

Has anyone encountered the diarrhea that occurs after a drowning/ out of hospital arrest where the gut has also become ischaemic? I think what makes the smell worse is the knowledge that the brain is irretrievably damaged.

[Rapheal]

Bone marrow biopsies. I feel woozy just thinking about it.

[MomNRN, BSN, RN]

I think one of the nastiest things I ever encountered was an older gentleman whose wife brought him into the ER for leg pain. He was a diabetic and had a "sore" on his leg.

Well the sore had turned into gangrene and involved the entire lower leg. She had started to make him sleep in the basement because his leg smelled so bad.

As we were checking him and wanted to cut his jeans off due to the swelling in the leg, he made us call his wife in registration to make sure it was okay!

Anyway, we did get the okay to cut off the jeans after much insistence. As we unwrap the soiled dressing, I'm sure you can imagine what was squirming around in the "sore" - maggots! It was the nastiest, smelliest wound I have ever seen. The stench invaded the entire department and then some!

He lost the leg to above the knee and was in the hospital for many weeks! I think his hospital stay was probably a vacation compared to how he had been treated at home. It was very sad.

[WhiteCaps]

While I agree that maggots are the grossest thing to encounter, they actually have a wonderful, natural debriding effect on the wounds.. true! But eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeuwwwww

[lynn1967]

We had a wound recently that I could literally fit two fists into, this guys whole buttocks/coccyx, etc. was gone, you could see his tail bone. The smell was horrendous. We would fight over who would do the dressing change. Many nurses would actually throw up. It got so bad that you couldent tell what was old guaze and what was parts of tissue--yuck!!

[nowplayingEDRN]

Originally posted by mjlrn97

UntamedSpirit.....I'm older than you, so I hope that's not the case...Your post brought back memories of nursing school (not ALL that long ago, really) when all of us---young and old---would try to out-gross each other with stories from clinicals. It was a sort of unofficial contest to see how "tough" we were, how much blood, snot, puke etc. we could handle....Unfortunately, we often did this at lunchtime, in the cafeteria and much to the disgust of anyone sitting within earshot! One time a woman looked at us and said, "Hey, I'm EATING here", and one student replied brightly, "So are we!".

I'm still pretty tolerant of the various sights, sounds, and odoriferous emanations we deal with in nursing (with the exception of dentures---ICK), but that episode a couple of days ago almost did me in. Maybe I AM getting too old and experienced......!

Reading the part about grossing each other out while eating had me laughing till I cried. Been there, done that and still try it on a rare occasion.....:rotfl:

Funny how certain things just gross a person out. I do have to say that due to a eventually fatal epistaxis in a 3 yr old that had failure to thrive due to GI problems and a mental handicap, I can not longer eat egg fu young.....especialy shrimp. That was what I was eating for lunch when the child started to become shocky and require BVM ventilatory assistance before going to the OR and eventually being shipped out to another facility, where she died 2 days later......But the denture comment has my mind whirling......POLL TIME!!!! :chuckle

[NurseStacey143, ADN, RN]

Originally posted by lynn1967

We had a wound recently that I could literally fit two fists into, this guys whole buttocks/coccyx, etc. was gone, you could see his tail bone. The smell was horrendous. We would fight over who would do the dressing change. Many nurses would actually throw up. It got so bad that you couldent tell what was old guaze and what was parts of tissue--yuck!!

I experienced that in my first semester of school and of course she was my first dressing change. There was BM getting into her stage 4 ulcer and it was a terrible mess! That was the worse smell I have ever encountered. On top of that she also had a terrible ulcer on her heel, I could have fit a baseball in that one. (I hate hate hate feet!) Poor woman. Watching the debridement on her foot was something I could have done without. To this day when I see a pair of tweezers it brings back memories. Good thing I didn't get sick from it though! IF I had....I would have caterpillars for eyebrows LOL!

[WhiteCaps]

oooooh I've got another gross one (future nurses may not want to read this one)! We had a man with a failed suicide attempt. He had taken a shot gun put it under his chin & fired. All he did was blow off his face!!! He was alive! We had to do dressings to a big hole with a couple teeth & one eye! Extremely nasty!