Have you ever puked/fainted/etc at work?

Nurses General Nursing

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I love hearing gross stories like this. I had a patient with an ileus. When I went in the room the patient vomited and filled a few of those large basins with fecal smelling, brown liquid vomit. As they were hurling, I was dry heaving. Thankfully I had an order for an NG tube and that took care of that.

Specializes in Gerontology.

Not quite, but almost.

Cleaning up a pt with very bad diarrhea that was very very stinky! I was gagging and had to turn away a couple of times but got through it, although my partner was nice enough to do most of the cleaning while I just held the pt in position and tried to deep

breathe.

I also have a very shallow gag reflex so anything with mouths really set me off. I had a pt with a really disgusting mouth. I had been

working on cleaning it all day, spraying in moisture spray, etc. Ok when I did it. Went in with a colleague to turn him, and she did the mouth care and was able to pry off a huge chunk of dried gunk from the top of his mouth. I had to turn my back I was gagging so much. But again, deep breaths and I made it through

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I was a student and was assigned a patient who had lower Gl tract bleeding. He alternately had massive blowout obnoxious smelling diarrhea or equally putrid vomit. That wasn't what what did me in though.Just as I was carrying the soiled sheets out, the patient's aunt arrived. She was wearing Toujour Moi, a very heavy cloying perfume women a generation above my mom's used to wear a lot.I survived the GI debacle without a problem, but hurled into those grossand disgusting sheets when I got a whiff of that obnoxious perfume.So much for professionalism!
Wow....I hope I never meet that scent!!!
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Vomited due to pregnancy and hyperemesis. Fainted, almost in nursing school. I was on my OB rotation and did fine watching c-sections, but when the epidural for the vag delivery was being administered I almost went down. I was behind the pt watching the CRNA and he numbed with the local, then inserted the larger needle and catheter. He turned around to get something off the tray and left the catheter dangling out of pt's back. That sight was just too much and I started feeling woozy. I squatted down against the wall and my preceptor made me go sit in the locker room until my color returned. I was so embarrassed. I felt somewhat better when my hubby did the same thing during my epidural!

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Specializes in ortho, hospice volunteer, psych,.
Wow....I hope I never meet that scent!!!

You probably already have smelled it somewhere like church or a mall. I can't

improve on my husband's description of it. He says it smells just like

____'s Funeral Home right before a funeral.

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I did almost pass out once, but it wasn't related to patient care.

I was 32 weeks pregnant and as I was getting report one night, I started seeing stars and then everything started to black out.

I was immediately taken L&D triage where my blood pressure was found to be sky high. I spent the next 6 weeks in the hospital on bed rest.

I worked with a nurse who had severe hyperemesis during pregnancy. She vomited several times a shift into the nearest receptacle throughout the whole pregnancy. I think we all cried not long after when she got pregnant again and knew we were in for another 9+ months of it (I'm sure she cried too...she had a tubal ligation after the second one!)

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Specializes in ED, ICU, Education.

I was in my final year of nursing school, working in palliative/oncology. I had helped a patient to the bathroom (IV pole and everything) when the tunnel vision began. I managed to squat to the floor to avoid falling as the patient called for help. My mentor picked me up and put me in a chair and wheeled me to the break room to lie down. How embarrassing! My patient later stated that she had never seen someone turn so pale. Apparently I was over-doing it with 3 jobs, full time nursing school, and commuting over 2 hours a day.

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Specializes in ER / Critical Care.

Haven't landed a job yet... BUT I almost fainted- had to sit down ASAP in the OR a couple times (one was a knee arthroplasty and the other 2 were C-Sections) I've felt mighty queasy observing an epidural insertion and a central line insertion.... And have thrown up in a patients trash can while changing a rectal abscess dressing and emptying it's JP drain. These lovely experiences occurred while I was a student nurse :).... Oh and vomited when the patient with the lady parts/rectum fistula had a profuse GI bleed... Constant oozing

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
I did almost pass out once, but it wasn't related to patient care.

I was 32 weeks pregnant and as I was getting report one night, I started seeing stars and then everything started to black out.

I was immediately taken L&D triage where my blood pressure was found to be sky high. I spent the next 6 weeks in the hospital on bed rest.

Way to get out of work, Elle23!

DOUBLETAKE!

Red1984---might we be twins separated at birth?????:wideyed:

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Specializes in Emergency.

Fully puked? No. Thrown up in my mouth? Oh yeah.

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Specializes in OB.

Never actually puked or fainted, but I came close as a student nurse extern on a medicine floor. The patient had terminal Parkinson's and I was watching the surgeon irrigate his stage IV sacral pressure ulcer. The wound was about 5 cm across the surface, but tunneled inside to about 2-3x that diameter. The noise of the bulb syringe bubbling the saline in and out of this massive wound made me almost lose it. I've seen worse wounds since then, but for some reason the tunneling nature of this ulcer combined with the gurgling noise of the bulb syringe was what got to me.

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.
Fully puked? No. Thrown up in my mouth? Oh yeah.

That's got to be almost worse! What'd you do with it after it came up? Please don't say you swallowed! That makes me gag right here and now!:eek:

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Once I cared for a patient with a compaction. I could not find room to get enema tubing in so I had to dig. I started having dry heaves. The man's wife said to her husband " you are making this nurse sick. I f you don't get up and get on the pot I will give you an enema you will never forget."

Another time @ lady had a nose full of dried boogers. My instructor told me to wet a q tip and dig them out. I started digging and began having dry heaves in the trash can. Now I hate the phrase "Can you dig it?"

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