New LPN Student.. can't stomach vomit..need advice/tips to help overcome this.

[KennaF]

Hey yall!! My name is Kenna, I am a married mother of three and have just recently been accepted into the LPN program. I have always wanted to go into the healthcare profession but I put my education plans on hold 10 years ago to be a teenage wife and mother. As you can imagine being a mother makes you a privvy to more than your fair share of nasty bodily fluids, blood etc. I can handle feces, urine, phlegm (sp?), blood, but I can not seem to shake my aversion to vomit. Just the sound of someone vomiting causes my gag reflexes to kick into overdrive , let alone if I actually see it or smell it. Do yall have any tips for overcoming this?? I know that I will be a great nurse, but for this one little "hang up". Does anyone else have this problem and how if so, how you deal with it?? I'm terrified that I would have to leave my pt to go throw up. But again, I only have this problem with vomit, i can handle everything else.

Thanks!!

K

[xoemmylouox, ASN, RN]

I have this very same problem. Luckily just about everyone has something they just can't tolerate. Some it is vomit, others bm, some snot. I usually trade with another nurse. They know that if I have to deal with it there will be twice the mess as I will vomit myself. Otherwise I wear a face mask and spray perfume or something into it so all I smell is the perfume..

[sissiesmama, ASN, RN]

Hey K!! Man, I figured I was the only one who let emesis get to them. I've a nurse since 1991, and was never bothered by anything else other than that. I mean, NOTHING could get to me like that.

I do ok as long as it's just liquid in appearance, but (excuse the phrase here!) if it's chunky, - where you can see food in it, that type of thing, I am in trouble. I have to make myself find a point on the wall or something if the patient is still actively puking. I can stand there and comfort them, give them a cold wet cloth, make sure their HOB is up to prevent aspiration, ect.

Only once in my years as a nurse did it get to me to the point where I got sick too. I was SO embarrassed - I had gone to work feeling queasy, and apparently should have stayed home. My patient was so nauseated, just miserabe, puking over and over. I stayed with the patient and used the call bell to get them to call the MD to get an order for prn med for n/v. The patient was feeling a little better when the nurse called into the room on the speaker and wanted me to describe the appearance of it. I knew I was in trouble then, and looked down to try to describe it, and I guess the smell of it plus having to look at it again took its toll on my already sick stomach. The next thing the nurse on the intercom and my poor pt heard was ..."Blllleeccchhhh...!" I puked while standing halfway between the bedside and the bathroom. At least it landed in the emesis basin.

Took a long while to live that down. Talk about embarrassing!

Anne, RNC