Please be careful where you put your tylenol!

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Specializes in SRNA.

This is going to sound gross, and it was, but we got a good laugh out of it...

I was taking care of your typical ICU patient the other night. Tylenol was ordered around the clock to control a fever. On dayshift, the patient was not tolerating her tubefeeds and had high residuals, so tubefeeds were being held until the patient's bowels started moving. Therefore, the tylenol was given PR.

Anyhow - 11pm, tylenol was due, so I grabbed another nurse to help and I held the patient on her side while my coworker inserted the tylenol suppository. She also placed a rectal temperature probe so we could monitor the patient's temperature constantly. The temperature went down, but it wasn't a dramatic decrease...

So 5am rolls around and it's time for another dose. This time, it's another nurse that I grab to help me and this time she holds the patient on her side and the first thing I notice is this white lady partsl discharge and the second thing I notice is her rectal temperature probe wasn't where it was supposed to be.... My coworker started laughing after I let out a gay gasp and said "Even *I* know that's not where you put suppositories...tylenol is leaking out of her!" We proceeded to clean up the tylenol and put things where they needed to go.

I'm hesitant to tell the nurse who put the suppository and rectal probe up the wrong spot what she did because she's rather sensitive when receiving criticism.

The patient had a better response to the second dose, by the way!

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Specializes in Hospice & Palliative Care, Oncology, M/S.

That is so funny!!! I'm sure the poor woman felt so much better when things were inserted into the correct cavity.

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Well, at least she put it in one of the patient's body cavities and didn't just sign off on the MAR that she gave the med when she didn't, like some of the nurses I have known. Maybe we can give her a grade of 50% for trying.

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Oh my! :lol2: Good thing that patient didn't need a foley!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, LTAC, Critical Care.

That about reminds me of the time one of our techs had to do enemas on an obese lady... all of a sudden I heard...."Ooo ooo, wrong hole, wrong hole"

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hahaha got a kick out of it :) thanks! :yeah:

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would this be considered a med error? ya know right route? thats pretty funny, but ya know what I mean?

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