IJustWant2pass

Yah, I tried the whole breathing through my mouth thing but that made things just as bad as I kept thinking how I was breathing microscopic bits of the stuff! But I like the vicks idea...

To anyone nurse who can sympathize, Along with a million other issues since the beginning of my first semester in clinicals, I've been experiencing one particular problem that I can't seem to overcome. One of the things we are expected to accomplish each week in the nursing home (where I am having my first clinical experience), is to give our assigned patient a complete bedbath. This doesn't really bother me. Seeing older people naked? No big deal. Talking to them? I love it. But when it comes to cleaning up the mess they've made overnight (particularly the feces), i start gagging every time and am unable to contain myself. I catch a wiff or even see a bit of the stuff in their Depends and I get all flustered and my eyes start watering. I always end up asking my partner to wipe their behinds while I just hold them steady on their side. I have yet to go through with it. Its terrible and I realized just how serious this was when about 3 weeks ago my patient at the time had a particularly bad BM. It was everywhere and the smell! It stunk up the entire wing. Well, I caught one wiff of it and as hard as I tried I soon found myself in the patient's sink barfing my brains out. Fortunately, I don't think the patient realized it because she has a bad case of dementia, she's nearly blind and deaf and her orientation to everything around her is well....not so good. But my partner was there of course and after she got over the fact that I had puked in the sink, she laughed about it for weeks and told nearly everyone in my clinical! She didn't tell my professor (THANK GOODNESS), but it was enough to leave me feeling pretty inadequate. To my credit, I've never seen or cleaned anyone else's "stuff" but my own. I've never even changed a baby. So I'm just not used to it at all. In any case...I'd prefer it if I didn't barf again. So is there ANYONE out there who has had similar issues and has found a way (preferably a quick one) to end this horrible problem. Desperately seeking an answer, Ashley