OOPS, WHOOPS, & POOPS | Share Your OOPS Moments of the Week

[allnurses]

Everything was going so well on this shift...  Then all of a sudden... Did someone say the Q word??? ... Oh no... You know what that means...  WATCH OUT!!  

We all have OOPS, WHOOPS, & POOPS moments.  We try to keep those moments private, but sometimes it's good to share, especially with other nurses who can definitely relate. 

Share your OOPS here so we can all have a laugh.  (Laughing is therapeutic...)

[Rose_Queen, BSN, MSN, RN]

When I was first orienting to urology surgery, particularly the cystoscopy room…

Involves three liter bags of fluid, and it was a longer, more involved case that required multiple bags. We had a dual Y system set up, so we had 4 bags up at a time. As long as you clamped the line for the bag you were changing out, you were able to change the bags without the fluid having to be stopped. 

Guess what I forgot to do? I spent the afternoon apologizing to my preceptor for the sticky glycine shower I gave her. Luckily she had spare underthings in her locker…

[kbrn2002, ADN, RN]

Here's one for  the "poop"  category in the award goes to...We had an elderly confused gentleman, not unusual in the LTC setting at all. He was somewhat continent of bowel and unable to get out of bed by himself. What made him unusual was his habit of scooting his butt off the edge of the bed and pooping on the floor to avoid soiling himself instead of ringing the call light. 

One of the many floor cleanups we saw something pink buried under a huge cow pile of unformed stool. Closer inspection during the cleanup revealed his top dentures were buried under that pile of poo.  We cleaned the living daylights out of those teeth and soaked them overnight in hydrogen peroxide. They were rinsed out the next morning and popped in his mouth like nothing had ever happened. 

[JBMmom, MSN, NP]

This was back in the height of the COVID days and we were supplied hospital scrubs for our shift. I had a relatively stressful night and we thought we were going to lose one of my patients emergently. About 10 hours into the shift I went into the bathroom. I pulled down my pants and didn't realize that the tag on the green scrubs was brown. For just a few seconds I thought that I had pooped in my own pants. All I could think was "I know I was concerned for a minute, but I didn't realize I was THAT scared! I hope no one else noticed!" But then I realized it was the just the tag and I was still completely continent of bowel. Phew. Not really an oops or a poops, but I hope you might get a chuckle, as I did- as did the coworkers I shared with. 

[Gooday]

A patient had just been pronounced dead and I was taking out all the tubes and the catheter.   I neglected to empty the urine bag prior to removing the catheter.   The CNA bumped the urine bag just as I was removing the catheter from the patient and urine squirted directly into my face.  I always empty that bag first now.   

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Here’s an “oops” story for you:

One morning I was giving a patient her bolus tube feeding and we got to talking. I don’t remember exactly what we discussed, but as I was removing the syringe I cracked a joke and she broke up, laughing so hard it created pressure in the tube and pumped  Jevity all over us both. It was in our hair, dripping down our faces, soaking into our clothes. By this time we were howling, and I’d forgotten to kink the tube and put the cap back on so the volcano kept erupting. What a mess that was! And I had to go around all day with wet hair and smelling like formula because this was LTC and there were no extra scrubs to change into. Oops!

[Davey Do]

Hello. My name is Davey Do and I'm a slob.

One night on the geriatric psych unit, I ate some chocolate yogurt while sitting in the nurses station. The nurse working the floor called to me for assistance from a room across the hallway, as she was providing hygienic measures for a patient incontinent of bowel.

We turned the patient on their side and I held the patient in that position as she cleaned them up. After the other nurse had washed the patient's bottom, she looked at me and saw a brown spot on the front of my scrubs, just below my chin.

"Ew! What's that?!" she asked, pointing.

I stuck my tongue out, licked the brown spot, and replied, "It's poop".

[Hannahbanana, BSN, MSN]

DaveyDo’s story reminded me of one told by one of the first folks in the ISS, the international space station.
Toileting in the absence of gravity was an engineering challenge. One day a wag emerged from the facilities saying his feces hadn’t been properly vacuumed up by the toilet, and released several pieces of smuggled-aboard Tootsie Rolls to float about the cabin. He proceeded to catch them and eat them. Various degrees of hilarity ensued.