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!

[jnrsmommy]

I recently admitted a 500lb patient who had been sent to the ER from her home by her family members for the nebulous excuse of...altered mental status (at my facility this is code for get SNF placement for patient). The patient arrived without the benefit of report, so I did not know the size of the lady, and she was squeezed into a regular bed without the transporters removing the six draw sheets from underneath her which contained all of her incontinence for the past 12 hours she had sat in the ER! At this point the patient, who claims to be "independent" at home as recently as that morning, suddenly announces she cannot move any longer, even to turn and use a bedpan. She then demands a foley catheter, as "they do this every time I come in." My only option is to place her in a lift attached to the ceiling and lift her up to the point that I, with the help of six staff members and a penlight, finally locate the urethra. The patient had such "independent" hygiene that she was covered in excrement and a raging fungal infection-and after some very vigorous pericare-I had to actually crouch underneath her to angle the catheter in the correct direction. While this is ongoing, the patient starts to dribble urine directly on me in front of most of the staff of the unit! I am happy to say that the catheter was successfully placed on the first try-and the patient miraculously did not contract a UTI!

My husband is next to me saying ewwwwww, and I'm sitting here shuddering w/ revulsion and partly relief that it was not me. Oh, how I feel for you on that one!!

[hollybear1414]

word to the wise- dont ever read this thread whilst drinking a bottle of beer, eating clam chowder and chocolate pudding for dessert.

:uhoh21:

[fuzzywuzzy, CNA]

Not mine but a good one: My friend Sue was working as a traveler for a small ER somewhere in Arizona. One day, they had an older woman come in complaining of green leaves growing out of her lady parts. So, naturally, they work her up as a psych consult. But after talking to the woman for a while, everyone decided that she seemed pretty lucid. Somebody goes, "Did we ever stop to look?" So they set her up for a pelvic examine, and lo, there are indeed green leaves growing between her legs! Apparently, the woman had a history of lady partsl prolapse and at some point, someone told her that she could remedy this by inserting a potato. It worked, but she forgot to take it out, leaving it to take root and grow. The roots were so tightly wound into the tissue of her uterus that she was forced to undergo an emergency hysterectomy.

The potato actually grew and thrived in the very place "where the sun don't shine?"

[2shihtzus]

Do not turn a patient without checking to make sure his rectal tube is taped securely to his buttcheek. If it isnt securely taped to his buttcheek, it will fly out of his orifice at the speed of light and spray you with liquid poo.

Do not run to the bathroom, strip your poo-scrubs off and stand in the shower and ring the call bell. It will take at least 10 minutes for someone to answer your call, and another 20 for them to bring you some OR scrubs.

[KinshuKiba]

fuzzywuzzy: That's what Sue said. Mind you, I wasn't there, but I don't think Sue was the kind of person to lie...

[sharpeimom]

do not turn a patient without checking to make sure his rectal tube is taped securely to his buttcheek. if it isnt securely taped to his buttcheek, it will fly out of his orifice at the speed of light and spray you with liquid poo.

do not run to the bathroom, strip your poo-scrubs off and stand in the shower and ring the call bell. it will take at least 10 minutes for someone to answer your call, and another 20 for them to bring you some or scrubs.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk! :eek:

:no: :smackingf

kathy

shar pei mom:paw::paw: :candycane:

[dannyc12]

I was still a new CNA and I had just finished changing the briefs of an incontinent resident. After I pulled the trash bag out of the small bin to throw it out, I pulled one of the empty bags from the bottom of a trash bin.

I "snapped" the plastic bag once to spread it out. Had I known there was 1/8" of urine lining the trashcan I just pulled the empty bag out of, I would not have done that. I splashed urine on myself from head to toe - hair, face, glasses, up my nose, in my mouth...ugh. Never did that again.

Another fun one. I was emptying a foley bag and as went to detach the metal clip on the end of the tube, it slipped right off the end and the tube bent down and snapped back up. Yep, sprayed urine droplets right into my face. The resident had run into something with his wheelchair and damaged the clip, causing it to slip off when I tried to disengage it.

[mmtk]

While working in a longterm care facility I had a colostomy bag of a known GI bleeder explode on me (of course it was full)

so while some have baptism by fire I had baptism by .........

[Nepenthe Sea]

How bad is this? This morning, I dreamed I was in clinicals. I had a young male patient that had a peg tube with a huge syringe attached to it. I don't remember the details, but I was supposed to be aspirating fluid from his stomach, I guess. I started to do that and somehow ended up getting spayed with liquid feces - in my face, in my mouth and nose, on my scrubs, everywhere. This happened a couple more times before the dream was over. It was nasty, and I never got a chance to change my scrubs! And my FIRST thought at being sprayed with liquid feces was "Now I have a story to share on that one thread on allnurses.com!!" (I haven't really seen anything gross in clinicals yet, no stories of my own yet.) I was excited that I got to add to this thread.

The other funny part was that Dr. (Carrie) Weaver from "ER" was my CI, and she kept having me run errands for her and get her and the patient food, which is why I never got to change clothes or clean up.

[deToxTech]

to the lady with the potato.

i... honestly was at a loss for words. I mean. I just spent three minutes cringing at my computer screen. Oh god. Just .... oh god :chair:

hm. most digusting thing i ever saw, besides the time I accidentally gave a guy a cup that he'd peed in without my knowledge, was this geri pt. First time working overnight on geri (i got floated to numberous units), didn't really know what to expect. The other tech had taken a break so i was picking up his 15 min checks. There was an elderly man at the end of the hall who was confused, but for the most part not troublesome. I made my final walk down the hall and caught a really odd odor. Made a very quick u-turn without even bothering to check (I was new-what do you want?) and told the tech we might need to check out this last room.

The man had gotten up and peed. And pooped. But not the toilet. Oh no. And not in his bed. Oh no no, that'd be too cool. No, this man had taken time to pee and poop in his bedside cabinet. And, whether it was for symmetry or just plain confusion, i'll never know, he peed and pooped in the other cabinet (two bed room-he was the only occupant) And it was like .... he peed in the upright cabinet/closets because they looked like urinals and then took his time to defecate in each drawer of the cabinet underneath. like stagnant pools of swamp-diarhea.... mixed with urine.

And all the other tech could say while we and one of the med nurses mopped, was "who sh!t$ in the cabinets? Honestly? Who DOES that? Who in their right mind has enough wherewithal to $h!t in the cabinets? Not just one, but both! And he knew which ones to pee in and which ones to crap in-WHO DOES THAT?"

I was laughing and gagging at the same time. trial by excrement.

[Adele_Michal7, ASN, RN]

This pales in comparison to many of the stories in this forum, but it shocked me, and several seasoned nurses (20+ years experience!) and aides.

I was working at my first job in an LTC and had just ended my orientation (6 weeks, excellent for a new grad.) I was working with another nurse on a floor that had 60 patients. 3-11 shift. Lots of treatments. At one point, I saw that the other nurse had a tin of BagBalm on her med cart.

"For your hands?" I asked her.

"No. For *******, " she said, naming a patient on her side.

"We apply it to her butt. You have to see her butt... It's unreal, unlike anything you've ever seen before."

"Well, what's the issue?" I said impatiently.

"You'll see. Mere words can't describe," she said, looking green around the gills.

Weeks passed and the lore of this patient continued to grow. CNA's would come up to me and ask me if I had seen this woman's butt yet.

Finally, one night I was working that wing and curiosity got the best of me- I followed in the two CNA's assigned to her care as they got her ready for her shower.

Oh.My.God.

They turned her to the side, and exposed her backside. The aide on the opposite side of her strained, lifted and pulled to pull her buttcheeks taut (she probably weighed upwards of 200 lbs.)

Shooting from her orifice, were fingerlike projections, that waved and undulated. They extended in length to mid-thigh, and were about as thick as half a banana in some places.

I was told later that my face turned pale, and I dropped my clipboard. The smell, obviously, was horrendous and undoubtedly made worse by the fact that no air or circulation could get back there....

I slowly backed out of the room, went into the bathroom, and composed myself.

Apparently it's a special strain of HPV... anyhow, I haven't seen anything like it since.

[ktwlpn, LPN]

"Shooting from her orifice, were fingerlike projections, that waved and undulated. They extended in length to mid-thigh, and were about as thick as half a banana in some places. "

I can just imagine how it must feel to apply the bag balm. You would FEEL those waving and undulating protuberances through the gloves....EEEEWWWW!!