Okay, nursing veterans...help out this newbie nursing student. I've talked with a number of nurses and NPs and, in the course of conversation, an alarming number of them have told me I will encounter more poo in my clinicals and first year of nursing than I ever imagined was biologically possible. Are they right? I fear they are.
Go ahead, warn me. Terrify me. Tell the stories you definitely can't tell at dinner parties. Make sure I know exactly what I'm dealing with. Any and all stories of grossness are welcome--if I'm gonna do this, I really, REALLY need to know.
C. diff, dead bowel, colostomy (pick your type!), S.B.O. (small bowel obstruction) all have their 'special fragrances'. Leaving a room sweaty because you've spent the last hour trying to remove poo from places it shouldn't be both with and without hair is one heck of a workout especially on a 300-lb or more patient. My gag moment had nothing to do with the odor, I've figured out how to deal with that............it was appearance! I was in the ER and went to empty the bedside commode. I had asked the patient not to drop the toilet paper in the bucket since i needed a sample for O&P. What I saw in the bottom was a single, semi-solid, shiny plop of poo. It looked chocolate pudding and the fact that I was using a spoon to put it in the containers wasn't helping my visual! Did I gag? YES Do I still eat chocolate pudding? MOST DEFINITELY!!! LOL
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
Patient who was constipated was given Go-Lytely. Turned out to be an obstructed bowel so patient spent 2 days continuously leaking around the obstruction. Patient wasn't very good about keeping clean so the stuff ended up everywhere... EVERY. WHERE.
They finally disimpacted the patient in the OR.
When I was in nursing school, we had a patient with a bowel impaction, and she was so advanced with it she went into kidney failure and died while being dialyzed. Sad.
The worst poo I have ever seen or smelled is dead bowel poo. A few times, I've had patients whose dead bowel poo was so serious that the poo came out the wrong end. That's right, it is possible to vomit poo. Containing it with an NG tube to suction is then necessary, but this does little to diminish its horror. Needless to say, when you see this happen, be sure to have a body bag handy.
Um, did you say "body bag" or "barf bag"? Because I will need the latter if I have occasion to see someone vomit poo. Just sayin'.
300 lb lady with a GI bleed who couldn't get up to go to the bathroom, I had to get her on and off the bedpan all night. GI bleed poo smell...yep, can still smell it if I try. She was so embarrassed and her family didn't want to leave the room so I could help her on and off and clean her up. That was just rude!
During clinicals, we had a 350+ lb lady come in to the ER, unable to speak coherently or walk on her own and had 104 degree temp, she had a BM sometime at home. Family had talked to her on the telephone about 12 hours before and she was just fine. Anyways, the poo was stuck and dry and we had 2 nurses plus 2 students cleaning her up. The room smelled horrible, even after shipping the pt to a larger facility. I thought it may have been my imagination because we sprayed every cleaning solution we could find, but that night, about 8 hours later we had a CP come in, and he kinda sheepishly asked, "Would that medicine you gave me make me stink? Because my wife says I farted, but I didn't." It still reeked the next morning.
Also, when I was pregnant, I think the Dr.s had a special on GI bleeds getting go-lightly. I was sure with this pregnancy I would start to see a lot again, but luckily, we don't have any yet. Thank goodness, cuz I am sicker this go around with out dealing with GI bleeds!
Specializes in orthopedics, trauma/ acute surgical.
I had to see it to believe it and yes it is true, you can vomit feces. I had a patient who told me "now I truly know what it to have shi@# breath". Hope to God I never have a bowel obstruction and I never have the feeling of an NG tube going down my throat. I just had a psych pt in 4 point hard restraints who had threatened to kill herself by pulling her femoral Cordis. I had to assist her with a bedpan and I swear she lost a few pounds after her BM; needless to say there were feces all over the bed including her Cordis (which thankfully I had just reinforced with a couple of tegaderms). She kept on smiling the whole time I spent cleaning her, trying my best not to vomit.
Okay, nursing veterans...help out this newbie nursing student. I've talked with a number of nurses and NPs and, in the course of conversation, an alarming number of them have told me I will encounter more poo in my clinicals and first year of nursing than I ever imagined was biologically possible. Are they right? I fear they are...
Your fears will soon become reality, my friend.
My entire family is in some type of healthcare position with about 7 nurses and "gross" stuff is pretty much all we talk about so I've never been even a little grossed out by poop. This makes it impossible to gross out your family members over dinner though
Anyway, I'm a new grad (been in clinical 4 years, and worked 3 summers as an aide) and I've been up to my knees in someone else's poop too many times to count. I can now sniff out GI bleed, obstruction, c. diff, etc pts when they come into the unit. I've experienced poop of smells, shapes, and colors (neon, anyone?) and coming out of places that it definitely shouldn't be.
I've seen people vomit poo too, it's not as bad as you'd expect and just remember that it's not nearly as bad for you as it is for the pt!
Cow patty poo is the hardest to clean out of a commode bucket. Palliative poop is easily identified and is best described as "sludge." Necrotic bowel poop is pretty gnarly. Scooping poopy blood clots into a specimen cup with a popsicle stick is a blast Pasty poop gets stuck in places that you didn't know people had (this is especially fun to clean off of elderly/obese people).
When the 2 Girls 1 Cup thing was new, and my non-nurse friend introduced me to it (I was so thankful ) she was gagging while I was going "that's it?"
We had a similar situation in our ICU but the patient was extremely obese. One of the tele nurses was the wife of a vet. She brought us several pairs of the full arm length gloves the vets use for exams & inseminations on cows & horses. Was a BIG help
you will see alot of poo. i feel that sometimes students get the "crappy" jobs... pun intended . makes ya feel for the CNA's. but i saw it as a learning experience and something you and your fellow students get to look back and chuckle at
I haven't experienced but I have heard of some bad soap sud enema stories where the nurse gets a return shower of poo. I often think of this when giving an enema and try to position myself so I won't be sprayed.
Pasty poop gets stuck in places that you didn't know people had (this is especially fun to clean off of elderly/obese people).
) she was gagging while I was going "that's it?" 
. makes ya feel for the CNA's. but i saw it as a learning experience and something you and your fellow students get to look back and chuckle at
Chewie_123
108 Posts
Take a look at this video:
And accept it will be part of your life for as long as you are a nurse.