"How did that get there?"

Nurses General Nursing

Published

What's the worst thing you've found in your scrub top/bottom pockets upon arriving home.

Meds? Syringes? Alcohol Pads? Medipore Tape? Insulin Vial?

Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

I never bring anything home unintentionally- the benefits of wearing hospital provided scrubs. However, my locker routinely gets an assortment of extra suture, extra blades, extra bovie tips, etc. that I clear out periodically. Every OR nurse knows that when you have to run to the supply room for something, you never grab just one. I just forget to use it to restock the room. On the other hand, I have left things (like my debit card) in the pockets of my scrubs and sent them down to laundry. The first replacement (probably because I had the card in hand, just couldn't use it as it had partially melted) was free; the second two were not. I now make sure to pack my lunch every day so that I don't put my debit card in my pocket.

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Specializes in ER, Med-surg.

An extension phone. And not even *my* phone, but the charge phone, which had been handed to me to take a call while the charge was busy in a chaotic moment shortly before shift change. Realized when it started ringing halfway home...

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Specializes in ER, Med-surg.

I intentionally bring home flip caps from med vials. I like those things - it's kind of like playing with Monopoly money or something. I don't even know how many I have but it's a ton. One of these days I'm going to do something artsy with them.

One of my coworkers years ago was doing a large art project with flip-caps, and then shortly after that one of the hospital auxiliary groups started making those flower badge reels as a fundraiser, so I was consciously saving them for the better part of a year. I still have to remind myself to throw them away now, even though I have no earthly reason to keep them.

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LOL...maybe I should clarify. The toenail clipping ended up in my pocket by accident. Those darn things fly everywhere sometimes!

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Specializes in Med-Surge, Tele, PCU, CVICU, NSICU.

The hospital phone. Half a norco I forgot to waste.

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Specializes in Registered Nurse.

Probably clean, non-donned gloves or most anything I grab too many or much of...thinking I'll momentarily stuff them in a pocket then they come home with me. Yuck.

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Specializes in Registered Nurse.
LOL...maybe I should clarify. The toenail clipping ended up in my pocket by accident. Those darn things fly everywhere sometimes!

They sure do! I hate that....ack!!

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I didn't actually find these items when I got home but when I was in the ER across the street from where I worked at an ALF. Long story.

It was a crazy night at the facility as usual and I was stuck working late again because they were once again understaffed. I agreed to pass the meds for the med tech and let her help work the floor since one of the other caregivers was only supposed to work for half a shift and go home.

I was scheduled to fly to NY in the AM to visit family (this is where I got the flu that I talked about in a post in different thread) and my husband decided to get the baby's car seat out of his van while I was at work instead of waiting for me to come home and help (it was a tight fit and there is a cage in the back compartment that the seat had to be threaded through in order to install properly). Well, since my scrubs are super big on me and I cannot feel my cellphone vibrating when I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off, I had missed the dozen or so frantic calls and text messages saying that he had accidentally pulled the cage out of the roof of the van and it crashed on his skull, leaving him gushing blood with our three year old in his care. Of course I'm finally calling him back right after he refused to go to the ER with the medics who wrapped his head but told him he needed staples to stop the bleeding.

So I'm imagining my husband with a head wound at night while our daughter goes to sleep in her bed....no, this isn't good. So I hand the med tech back her keys telling her that I had to go and get my husband to the ER with his open head wound and asked the girl that was supposed to leave in 10 minutes if she could work a full shift. Great, nursing hours are technically over at 7pm and it's after 8, gotta go, I'll be back later to finish my paperwork (ER was across the street from where I worked). So, after picking up my mother to stay with my toddler at my home and bringing my bleeding husband into the ER, I hear a radio go off, "Did (my name here) leave the phone with you?" "No, I thought you had it" "...she said she was coming back after the getting her husband to the ER to finish paperwork. Hopefully she'll bring it with her"...it was then that I realized I had the walkie and phone in my pocket, and the distance on those things were a heck of a lot better than I thought...there was an officer on one of the computers and the desk told him, "I think your radio's going off". I said, "Nope, that's me. I work across the street but had to take a break to drop this one off in the ER to staple his head since he refused the ambulance at home."

I got him checked in, and before I could even sit down at my desk to fill out the days incident reports (for the ALF). The main line is ringing and it's my boss, "(My name here), you're back, did you bring the phone with you"...."Um, yes. I had to take my husband to the ER. The parking lot in my condo looks like a crime scene where his van is parked".....stupid phones (and walkies).

As I got in my car at midnight to go back to the ER and wait with him he knocks on the passenger window as I'm getting ready to pull out of a dark parking lot and scared the crap out of me. A man, in the dark, with a bloody head and cling wrap. At that time of night I wasn't expecting him to cross the street and come meet me, especially without calling first.

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I thought this was going to be a thread about the interesting things we've found in and on patients. Mine was going to be when I went to go see a very thin hospice patient at his home and rolled him to check his skin and found a roast beef sandwich under his bum that looked like it had been there at least overnight... As far as I remember he wasn't even eating solids, so where it came from we'll never know.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.
I thought this was going to be a thread about the interesting things we've found in and on patients. Mine was going to be when I went to go see a very thin hospice patient at his home and rolled him to check his skin and found a roast beef sandwich under his bum that looked like it had been there at least overnight... As far as I remember he wasn't even eating solids, so where it came from we'll never know.

There's an older, no longer active thread for that. Enjoy!

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Specializes in Hospice.

A dulcolax suppository and surgi lube

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Specializes in Neuro ICU and Med Surg.

Alcohol wipes, fentanyl (only one time took it to work an wasted it), and tape. Now I empty my pockets in the office before I go home.

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