What Freaks You Out?

OneChattyNurse · Jan 12, 2002

OK...I know I was meant to be a nurse...I have been eating potato chips while reading this thread!!! Anyway, most things do not bother me too much in general BUT, I currently have a patient that is a double amputee. His legs are totally gone...no stumps. Anyway...he has a decub on his coccyx that has been there for several years. It is approx 10X12cm at the opening, but is tunnelling about 4 inches on each side. It has now eaten through to the colon and you have to clean the BM out of it when doing the dressing change. The SMELL of this ulcer kills me everytime.

The other thing that really got to me was a 50ish patient that was a IV drug abuser and alcoholic. He was HepC positive and received HUGE amounts of lactulose. He had to have 5-6 loose stools a day to keep the ammonia from building up and causing him to become comatose. One time he had an incontinent loose stool and I had to clean him up. Now let me tell you...this was the absolute worst smell I have ever encountered. I heaved the whole time and had tears streaming down my face. I felt bad for him, but I just could not stop heaving! Thank goodness it was BEFORE lunch!

Shari

Dazedgiggle · Jan 12, 2002

For me it's definitely mouth care! When I was a CNA worked in a nursing home where the CNA's did the post mortem care. One lady was quite dehydrated near the end, so her mucus secretions were pretty dry. When I swabbed her mouth the mucus stuck to the swab and was the consistancy of pizza cheese! It just snapped back. Gross!! I still have a really hard time with mouth care! I'm also not crazy with anything that has to do with eyes. Otherwise, I can handle anything.....I think. LOL

VAC · Jan 12, 2002

1) Watching an orthopedic surgeon placing a stienman pin into someone's knee using one of those huge drill things.

2) Applying leeches to plastic surgery's handiwork. Well, the leeches are OK once you know how to make them go where you want...

But the appearance of some of the plastic surgeries flaps, etc...EWWWW

Goofball · Jan 13, 2002

We have speakers that project into the nursing

station from our TB isolation rooms, so that alarms can be heard while the room doors are

shut. People tend to forget all about those speakers sometimes, and you overhear all sorts of things that shouldn't be said. One time a nurse walked into one of those pt's rooms. This pt. had

starting becoming incontinent of BM's. A loud scream and cursing was heard on the speaker (from the nurse in the room) then, "SOMEBODY GET ME A GUN OR SHOOT ME! A WHOLE TEAM OF CLYDESDALE HORSES

HAS BEEN UP ON THIS BED!" so the other nurses ran in there, and there was loads of green stools that filled the bed and were dripping off the sides!

leesonlpn · Jan 13, 2002

melena stool, and suspension bridge sputum specs, the pstachio green ones.

farts in your face when you are pushing a pt over to do the tidy bowl cleanup.

colostomies. This one patient wanted tme to wash it out and put it back. Not. Hospital supplies yes.

coffee ground emesis

it's amazing how much we deal with, and how much it turns our tummies, but boy can we chat about it over lunch and not blink an eye. You can sure tell when going out, who the non-nursing guest is.

Nurses are a fine breed.

RN-PA, RN · Jan 14, 2002

I've gotten through almost six pages of this topic and have been laughing so hard and yelling out "EEEWWWWWS" and "YUUUKS!" that my husband had to come find out what was so funny. (My stomach hurts from laughing!) He told me to tell my "soft-serve" story.

I was a new nurse and was changing the diaper of an elderly CVA patient with the help of a nurse's aid. It took us a LOOOOONG time to change his stool-filled diaper and all the bedding. We finally got him cleaned up and were replacing his diaper when, suddenly, stool started coming out like Dairy Queen soft-serve. Definitely not wanting to start the cleaning process over, I quickly shoved my cupped (gloved) hands beneath his orifice and caught the extruding mass. I promise you, there was practically a curlicue on top! I then heaved it in the trash can while trying not to gag.

I never thought I could be a nurse because I always had a weak stomach and thought I was too sensitive-- (a wuss, really)-- for all the harsh realities of the profession. I would ask seasoned nurses while I was in nursing school to describe the worst thing they'd ever experienced and I can still remember my horror upon learning about disimpactions. Of course, my first job out of school was in a long term care facility and I became a fairly talented disimpacter, if I do say so myself! (At that same facility, I placed a bedpan full of diarrhea on the floor by a resident's bed only to step right in the middle of it in my haste and distraction-- GACK!)

Instead of getting sick when dealing with various body fluids and functions, I've been surprised to discover my compassion generally kicking in and helping me to deal with most situations, for which I am thankful. However, there are still times when I can't believe what I have to do and witness and smell as a nurse...

Goofball · Jan 14, 2002

Hey, I'm trying that soft-serve idea sometime! Might beat changing the sheets again.

OK, now I'm not obsessed with scrotums or anything, but I have yet another story about them.

I was helping about 6 other people turn a 540-pound sedated/ventilated septic pt. over, so that a urologist could look at the guys scrotum, do a rectal, check his prostate, etc. Well, this poor pt. was so fluid-overloaded, his scrotum was big as a basketball, and balls ready to burst - and they did!!! The skin split open.

There was suddenly a spurting stream of blood and pus squirting right onto the doctors shirt! We put the guy down so dr. could put a gown and mask on, turned him again, and it was even worse. Like a

firehose. They took him to surgery, fileted his balls with several linear slits, and put in 5 penrose drains. Nasty stuff. Also had huge decubs

on his butt and coccyx; then on top of all that he started stooling bigtime!

thisnurse · Jan 14, 2002

my instructor hated me. the feeling was more than mutual. i always got the worst of the worst.

pt had back surgery, trach, and a bunch of other stuff i cant even remember.

he was mean and nasty. he was filthy and gross.

there were 25 9am meds (i counted them) given via all routes but ng and sublingual.

i was responsible for his trach care. i never did a trach before but i knew that was no excuse. i HAD to know what i was doing. she gave me this patient so i WOULD make a mistake and she could write me up and send me to remediation.

this jerk had tons of congestion which he would hack up into a wash basin. the basin was over half full of his disgusting secretions. his assigned nurse told me i had to wash it out. i looked at her and threw it in the garbage.

how i didnt gag i will never know.

when it was time to clean his trach he wanted to do it himself. he pulled out the cuff, got a kleenex, spit in it and wiped it out.

i had to turn my head.

and now i am actively gagging

Carer · Jan 14, 2002

I work as a Care Assistant CNA as we a known in America. The only things that freak me out are Needles and Blood. I could never give a injection. Also I know this maybe off the subject. But Tim GNP has mentioned it. Woman having Babies makes my skin crawl. I have never seen a woman giving birth in a hospital but just watching it on TV. It makes me go weak. I turn the channel over.

This lady is staying baby free.:)

**canoehead, BSN, RN** · Jan 14, 2002

When I quit nursing and go interview for a job at Dairy Queen I will proudly tell them that I am a nurse and have lots of previous experience.

Yuck.

How many pediatric nurses have caught an infant's puke in their BARE HAND to keep it from hitting the clean floor, or sheet, or the lap of your uniform. We oughta get a medal for that.

Nursing students have no idea what they are getting into.

jadeheart · Jan 14, 2002

This is a great topic!!! Goofball you are just too funny. This is my first reply to a topic, but just couldn't resist any longer!! Not too much in my career has brought me to gagging/vomiting point. Try to prevent that at all costs. I can usually handle just about anything. I've never encountered maggots in a wound and frankly don't want to....lol. I think one of the worst things I have seen though was a guy we had in our post bypass recovery unit. VERY large man.....went home after his bypass and literally just sat in his Laz-y-Boy!! Anyway, he came back in to us a few days later with a horrible sternal infection. They had to open him up and keep the wound open, which required packing 3 times a day, so there was no getting away from doing the dressing change. Poor guy hurt like hell!! You could see all the way to his sternum, which looked like a bike chain. But that wasn't the worst thing.....what really got me was that you could see his heart beating through the flap they had done and the SOUND that thing made......squish squish.....still hear that sound sometimes in my sleep!!! YUK!! LOL Thanks for the great laugh everyone. Glad to know that we are all human even though we think and generally are SUPER NURSES!!

Chuckie · Jan 14, 2002

Putting a condom catheter on a shriveled up old man.