Gross Me Out ? Contest | Nurses Week

[Joe V]

Month-Long Nurses Week Celebration Starts Today! Nurses Week Contest #6

You ever had those moments that you just want to barf? Of course you have! In this glorious Nurses Week contest, I want you to make us do just that. ? Is that too disgusting? 'Cmon. This will be fun. Share your 'Oh gross' moment and you can win a $100 Amazon Gift Card courtesy of allnurses Ebooks! 

More Nurses Week Contests

Contest Rules

You can submit any story but only those that follow the below rules will be considered for the $100 Amazon Gift Card.

1. Open to registered allnurses.com members only. (Free and quick to Register)
2. Each story will be reviewed for originality.
3. You must share your stories below.
4. You can submit more than one story.
5. One winner will be announced.

This contest is sponsored by allnurses Ebooks.

Quality Nursing Ebooks. Anytime. Anywhere. Our ebooks are created by nurses, educators, students, and healthcare professionals. We have one goal - To help you succeed in your nursing career.

[Davey Do]

On 4/14/2021 at 5:54 PM, Davey Do said:

Another geriatric psych patient, who was very entertaining, peed in a cup, drank it, said "Aaaaah!" and gave me an okay sign.

I located the cartoon that I drew after this situation:

[Davey Do]

On 4/30/2021 at 1:50 PM, Daisy4RN said:

 she would get her own poop from either her diaper or rectum with her hands and smear it all over herself, the bed, the over bed table, the bed rails, the call bell (you get the picture). It was totally disgusting, even got under her fingernails, it was so gross!

I once read areporst where an ERP used the acronym FUF.

Feces Under Fingernails.

[TriciaJ, RN]

23 hours ago, SansNom said:

Our ER had an "extra plus sized" patient come in for some reason that is beside the point of the story, but the patient had a particularly bad odor. Needless to say, the ER did not get around to cleaning up the patient and sent them on to the ICU, where the nurse got her posse rounded up to go bathe them. Long story short, in the process of cleaning up underneath their panniculus they found a dead and decomposing kitten, who presumably had suffered a fatal cuddle session with the patient.

Another one of my favorite stories most people find rather gross is the one and only time I ever saw a surgeon order leach therapy for a patient with a poorly healing rectal skin graft after an extensive surgery for rectal cancer. We had orders to go in every 2 hours and dispose of the old leaches, then fish a few new leaches out of a jar in a mini fridge that we left in the room, and then try to get them to reattach to the skin graft. The process sounds simple enough, but leaches are not very cooperative colleagues, and it was often a very time consuming task to 1) fish them out of the jar, then 2) get them to latch onto the graft. To top it off, if you did not get back in the room in a timely manner, they would fill up with blood then drop off the patient into the bed, and occasionally they would manage to escape the bed and you would have to follow the trail of blood and slime around the room to track them down.

Fortunately, the patient had experience fishing with leaches and was quite a good sport about it.

Take the plunger out of a 5 ml syringe and load the leech in butt- first.  Then put the open end of the syringe to the wound and the leech will have to latch on where you put him.

[SmilingBluEyes]

I have had a few patients on leech therapy now. it does not even gross me out any more.

[SmilingBluEyes]

On 5/7/2021 at 7:16 PM, Patricia Lozano said:

One of my former nurse coworkers was a veteran nurse and hardcore nail-biter. It was gross.

One night she got an admit and we were getting the guy situated and doing a skin assessment. She pulls off his socks and he has vesicles all over his feet and ankles. She starts touching his feet with her bare hands. When we got him out of his jeans we saw that he had them all up his legs and some on his body. We told her she probably shouldn't touch him with her bare hands and he needs to put him in contact isolation precautions. We told the hospitalist about the vesicles. He goes in with iso gear. Not only does she not don iso gear, she starts touching his feet again without gloves even after we were discussing it was possibly scabies. The hospitals comes out and says "yup, I think that's scabies." Not 15 minutes later is this nurse nervously going in and biting her nails viciously. Mind you, I think she'd only used hand sanitizer during this time!

She was also known for pooping pt's body acne.

OH YUCK. this takes the cake. Staff can be gross too.

[SmilingBluEyes]

On 5/7/2021 at 4:54 PM, Betsylyn said:

I’m a NICU nurse??, I was emptying a baby’s ostomy bag (which smelled like a barnyard) with a syringe to get accurate I&O’s. I was pushing the syringe up to indicate how many mL’s were emptied and pushed a little too hard. Liquid poop went flying! It rained down all over the room, the floor, and myself. This is the one time I can say thank goodness for masks! I normally can deal with a lot... but this was horrifying and then there was the fear that poop was in my hair, down my shirt, and other places ? I couldn’t find any other evidence of the liquid elsewhere.... let’s just say I’m glad babies are cute and we wear masks! ???

If the brief/diaper is larger than my hand, I don't want to change it. An OLD NICU nurse friend of mine used to say that. I have to say working in L/D I said the same thing.

[SmilingBluEyes]

On 5/7/2021 at 5:45 PM, Lacling1 said:

I was working in home care when all this happened, now mind you this is one house, one visit. I was asked to go to the back door, I really didn’t think anything of it. So I knocked on the door and a family member answered the door. First I was taken aback by the odor…manure? It can’t be, oh but yes! There was poo on the wall, in the kitchen, with 2 horses tied up to hooks hanging from the wall! They were smaller horses so, I guess? Then I was taken to the living room. The floor was covered with wall to wall astroturf!! And I could now see why I was directed to the back door, there were boxes of stuff against the front door and all along the walls. The question & answer part of our visit went okay, until it was time for a urine sample. I handed the patient a urine cup explained what I needed her to do in the cup and told her she could leave it in the bathroom. I explained that I would do what I needed to do in the bathroom so that she didn’t have to walk around with urine sloshing in her cup. I was just doing a dipstick, nothing exciting. The patient said “sure, but I only have one bathroom and there are chickens in there.” Huh? Chickens? I thought, it can’t be that bad, maybe an area with baby chicks and a heating lamp? NO!! There were 8 large chicken in the bathroom!! Not a big bathroom! Just large enough for a toilet, tub and sink! I am deathly afraid of those pecking beasts because I was chased as a child! Oh my goodness, they were loose! I hurried up out of the bathroom with pee cup in hand and did the urine dip at the kitchen sink. Picture me tripping as I shut the bathroom door, I didn’t spill though! The rest of the visit IN the house was unremarkable, I mean what else could happen? Oh I’m glad you are wondering… the patient asked if I wanted to see the rest of her animals. Being the young, new nurse that I was, I said sure. She took me to the side of the house where there were goats. Awe so cute! Until the only male in the group jumped up on me, put his legs/hooves on my shoulders and proceeded to HUMP ME! Then he wet the front of my scrubs! I’m going with urine, it’s the only way I can deal with this scenario! I was mortified! The patient thought it was funny! Really I just laughed because if I didn’t I really was going to cry. So with that behind me and the patient apologizing, she walked me to my car where there was a dead, decapitated snake next to the drivers side door! The patient proceeds to inform me that her cat must like me! I thought, ‘I don’t need this kind of like in my life, really!’ You can’t make this stuff up! 

You are summing up pretty well why Home Health is not for me.

[DesiDani]

18 hours ago, Davey Do said:

A nurse sent a secret text about an order to collect any bed bugs from pt. The ticked off text emphasized her job description as a RN "I'm not a f'kin bug catcher?!"

Too funny.

[tnbutterfly - Mary, BSN]

How Gross Can We Get???

Thanks to all who participated in the Gross Me Out Contest. This contest just goes to show how many gross situations nurses have to handle.  While we try to remain professional at all times, some of these stories made me gag and made me remember some of my own gross stories.  As a student and new grad nurse (back in the day), I had a very sensitive gag reflex.  I never quite "lost it" in front of the patients, but at times had to make a quick exit to the nearest bathroom. Anyway...

AND THE WINNER IS...

angeloublue22, BSN, RN   who submitted this gross moment in the life of a nurse.  YUCK!!  Thanks for the memories... 

Congratulations angeloublue22!  Watch for a Private Message with instructions on how to retrieve your prize.  Enjoy your prize!

While this contest has come to an end, you can still participate in the final contest that will remain open until June 4.  The allnurses Nurses Month Article Contest - What Would Florence Nightingale Say if She Could See Us Now?  has the largest prizes of all.  5 winners will each receive a $200 Amazon Gift Card.  

Get your article(s) submitted now. The sooner you submit your article, the sooner others will be reading and being inspired by your article, and the more views and likes you will receive. Who knows...You could be one of the 5 lucky prize winners.