What Is Your Most Gross, Yucky, Disgusting Nursing Horror Story?

[yazisizit]

I was working a night shift on a tele floor as a new Nurse.

We had this one poor old lady who was confused and was restrained as usual for her safety. She was our designated resident nightmare geri from hell, so she was placed near the Nurse's station.

So we are chilling out at the Nurse's station, chatting and trying to get through another night...

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see our lady in question standing in the dimly lit doorway of her room!

I instantly leap out and run to her. As I approach her, she appears to be falling towards me, so I meet her in a bear hug...my arms around her waste, and her arms around my shoulders.

As I catch the lady, I notice a very strong smell of feces, and I feel something warm on my hands, arms and shoulders...

My fellow heroes come in behind me, and as the lights are turned on, my worst fears are instantly realized.

Yes, I caught the poor old lady with a good old bear hung football catch, but I was also covered in the lady's feces.

As I look at her, she has feces smeared all over her arms and hands... (and even her face!)

And of course, now so did I!

[xviii-xxv]

a loogie flying acroos the room just an inch away ur face... disgusting

[Jessiedog, RN]

a loogie flying acroos the room just an inch away ur face... disgusting

This one reminds me of so many times I have ducked and dodged various wet substances that come flying towards me from my patients. Some of the best ones are:

1. I now KNOW that when you suction a new tracheostomy, you do it from the side, even if your vision of the stoma is not as clear. When you get close up, squinting as you insert that Y-Suction catheter, you have much less reaction time to dodge that ''green projectile'' which the cough reflex launches!
   
2. Helping a person with two broken arms to blow their nose is not as problem-free as it sounds! I got the gloves, got a HUGE bunch of tissues, and stood well to the side. (The above experience had taught me not to stand straight-on.) Pt takes a big breath in, and blows HARD into the tissues. He does very well, except one string of snot richochets off the tissue and strikes me fair on my glasses!! :barf02:My self-command was admirable - apart from a flinch and a verbal exclamation of Ahhh!, I managed not to embarrass my patient. I was VERY thankful for the glasses, which recieved a thorough scrubbing. If we'd still had autoclaves on the ward, I would have considered that too!

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

This one reminds me of so many times I have ducked and dodged various wet substances that come flying towards me from my patients. Some of the best ones are:

1. I now KNOW that when you suction a new tracheostomy, you do it from the side, even if your vision of the stoma is not as clear. When you get close up, squinting as you insert that Y-Suction catheter, you have much less reaction time to dodge that ''green projectile'' which the cough reflex launches!
   
2. Helping a person with two broken arms to blow their nose is not as problem-free as it sounds! I got the gloves, got a HUGE bunch of tissues, and stood well to the side. (The above experience had taught me not to stand straight-on.) Pt takes a big breath in, and blows HARD into the tissues. He does very well, except one string of snot richochets off the tissue and strikes me fair on my glasses!! :barf02:My self-command was admirable - apart from a flinch and a verbal exclamation of Ahhh!, I managed not to embarrass my patient. I was VERY thankful for the glasses, which recieved a thorough scrubbing. If we'd still had autoclaves on the ward, I would have considered that too!

:hehe::hehe::clphnds:

[RedWeasel, RN]

i had a dr pick up a pts hand and try to get her to pick dried blood out of her own nose---he also asked her if she could powder her own gtube site (?) she had many fxs and was in dire pain-and they have more ed than us? ugh

[xviii-xxv]

yeah miss jessiedog...that was a pt c tracheostomy... and boy i was lucky to dodge that loogie...:dncg:good thing the bed on front of his is vacant *phew*

[Jessiedog, RN]

yeah miss jessiedog...that was a pt c tracheostomy... and boy i was lucky to dodge that loogie...:dncg:good thing the bed on front of his is vacant *phew*

In the ward I worked in, we always nursed the recent tracheostomies in a single room for that reason. It was still nasty scrubbing all those ''crusties'' off the wall in front of the bed, tho.

[Diahni]

In the ward I worked in, we always nursed the recent tracheostomies in a single room for that reason. It was still nasty scrubbing all those ''crusties'' off the wall in front of the bed, tho.

Gross!

[midazoalm1953]

This happened just last week. We had a very confused pt in ICU, who had transfer orders, but no beds available. She really did not require much care. She often called out or yelled at times. Mostly we just looked in as she was just lonely. When she was calling out for HELP for the 10th time I went in to see what she wanted....well on her pt table were several brown stacks...she asks me if I'd like a brownie....of course those little brown stacks were poop! I couldn't stop laughing the rest of the shift...you had to see it!

[RanieRN, MSN, RN]

Until this week, I thought the grossest patient we have is the gentleman who was found eating his foot skin (his nurse initially thought it was a duoderm given the thickness). Then I was assigned to a 90 year old, mean tempered woman who decorated the wall next to her bed with a lovely pattern of green phlegm.:barf01:Housekeeping had to scrub so hard in places that paint came off. And when I had her the next day, the patient had started to fill in the areas where the paint had come off!

[Mrs.A]

Gross, yucky , nursing story. Ok, one evening I had to cover a locked behavior unit. There was a geri pt. with dementia, hx. of violent episodes. He had done some serious damage so I kind of kept track of where and what he was was doing. I see him standing just outside the door of the recreation room. I walked over to see what he was doing and he flashed me a big smile. He had been eating his feces and his teeth were absolutely covered. I could feel my stomach turn as I tried to direct him to his room calmly. Then he reached out his hand towards someone in the rec room. I looked he had been passing his feces out to other patients and about 4 or 5 of them were having dessert with him. All that kept going through my head was "OMG, they are passing it around like a box of Russell Stovers" . It really did look like they were offering each other fine chocolate.Revolted, nauseated I don't think there is a word to describe what I felt. I called for an aide and it was the one time I pulled rank. I said they need to be cleaned , and left on my hour lunch. I felt awful not helping but, there was no way I could do it. For a whole week, I'd get that "like a box of chocolate" thought in my mind and there went eating for the day. Even now , my husband was watching me on computer and said what are you writing, your face is all screwed up. LOL after all these years retelling the story makes me cringe.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

Gross, yucky , nursing story. Ok, one evening I had to cover a locked behavior unit. There was a geri pt. with dementia, hx. of violent episodes. He had done some serious damage so I kind of kept track of where and what he was was doing. I see him standing just outside the door of the recreation room. I walked over to see what he was doing and he flashed me a big smile. He had been eating his feces and his teeth were absolutely covered. I could feel my stomach turn as I tried to direct him to his room calmly. Then he reached out his hand towards someone in the rec room. I looked he had been passing his feces out to other patients and about 4 or 5 of them were having dessert with him. All that kept going through my head was "OMG, they are passing it around like a box of Russell Stovers" . It really did look like they were offering each other fine chocolate.Revolted, nauseated I don't think there is a word to describe what I felt. I called for an aide and it was the one time I pulled rank. I said they need to be cleaned , and left on my hour lunch. I felt awful not helping but, there was no way I could do it. For a whole week, I'd get that "like a box of chocolate" thought in my mind and there went eating for the day. Even now , my husband was watching me on computer and said what are you writing, your face is all screwed up. LOL after all these years retelling the story makes me cringe.

Good thing I don't like brown chocolate anymore. However, there's no telling what I might do if I didn't have my mind anymore. Oh God forbid!!!!

[maestrotee]

Last year in my clinicals (brand new nurse here) I followed around the wound care team at a local hospital and spent a good deal of time in a sweet paraplegic gentleman's room dressing and treating his stage 4 decub that was a crater going from lower third of his back to the top of his legs and deep enough to hide a small child! It didn't even look like there was much flesh holding his trunk to his legs. The top of his femur was just kinda sticking out of his legs. Thank God he had no feeling! The smell in the whole room of rotting flesh was overwhelming. I hear that just a few weeks after we left he was transferred to be closer to his family and was referred to hospice. I still think about him quite a bit.