Things that gross you out....., my "problem"

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hi everyone. i've posted on here a few times before. i think i'm addicted to this web site. :stone before i begin, good luck to everyone here and i'll be glad to see how people are doing as they progress down this long hard road such is nursing school. if anyone is in the ky area, let me know. :)

i have worked as a nurse assitant before and have worked in several medical settings so i know pretty much what to expect but there is one problem. i'm afraid of vomit. oh the horror. :imbar i want to be a nurse so badly, there isn't any other options for me as far as a career, by choice. i was even a candy striper as a youngin', ha ha. :chuckle i love the career as a whole but i am puke-a-phobe! :imbar i guess it's because it just seems so unatural to me, something coming out of where things go in. i can handle doodie, pee, phlem, snot, you name it but when i think someone is going to get sick i want to run and hide. i hope no one thinks i'm crazy. i think i am every now and then. :rotfl: it doesn't make me want to puke and it really doesn't make me gag, it's just some weird childhood fear or something. i harldy every get sick, maybe a total of 10 times in my whole life. i have 4 kids (all boys) and when they get sick it grosses me out still! i can handle it if i have to but i am really scared someone is going to throw up on me. i know this sounds really petty and if someone is sick and they can't help it i hate it that i feel this way. i hate it that i want to stand 100 feet away from there with my ears covered. is there something wrong with me? will this make me a bad nurse and will i ever overcome this??? ahhhhhhh! :sniff: i know this is something i will have to deal with and yes it will happen and that's ok with mebecause i really have sympathy for people who feel bad,i really, truly do, but like i said it's just some odd fear i have. does anyone else have these anxieties? i've gotten much more use to it lately actually, because there was a bad flu going around and you know everyone in my house got it, 'cept me of course because i follow them around the house with lysol all day and i have a little ocd with hand washing. heh. :uhoh3: sorry this is so long, just wanted to know, what are you guys's fears, anxieties, hang ups about things, if there are any???????????

thanks a lot for listening to me ramble,

christy

I spent a year working as a CNA during nursing school, and I saw more disgusting things than I could ever have imagined. I don't know how I got through some shifts, to tell you the truth. The nurses (and I'm referring to 90% of the nurses in this one particular hospital, not ALL nurses) would never help the CNAs with this kind of "dirty work" so I usually was left to clean the whole thing up myself. Once I couldn't take it and put a mask on before entering a room to clean this one patient who had been vomiting and having diarrhea - and was left in it by the previous CNA! The nurse manager came after me and chastized me about how unprofessional I was being, and how I was disprespecting the patient by wearing a mask. I told her that I felt the nruses and previous shift CNAs were being unprofessional because they knowingly "dumped" this patient on me with absolutely NO help. I said it was going to take me an hour to clean him and his room up, so unless she could find someone to help me, that I was going to wear that mask because it was the only way I was going to get the job done! I knew they wouldn't fire me because they desperately needed me, and she just walked off in a huff. Never had trouble with her again, and when I left to get another job a year later, she actually begged me to stay. :uhoh3:

My solution was to go to the NICU, which was what I wanted to do in the first place. It's so much easier to handle baby puke, poop, mucous, and infectious wounds. It's on a much smaller scale and you can clean anything up yourself in less than 5 minutes.

p.s what is life like in the NICU? Are you pretty busy all the ime or is it slower that most other areas? Just curious :) I'd like to work somewhere rather busy, but I want to work with the babies as well.

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Once I couldn't take it and put a mask on before entering a room to clean this one patient who had been vomiting and having diarrhea - and was left in it by the previous CNA! The nurse manager came after me and chastized me about how unprofessional I was being, and how I was disprespecting the patient by wearing a mask. QUOTE]

Why would the patient care that your wearing a mask? The patient probably wanted one too. The patient knows it's gross, and I'm sure appreciated you cleaning him up. Boy I'm in trouble it wearing a mask is look down on.

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Specializes in Urgent Care.

It's not so much the gross stuff, but when someone is writhing in pain, that makes me queasy. I guess I'm a bit too empathetic. Hearing them moaning and crying is what gets to me. Also, the smell of a GI bleed, ewww LOL

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Specializes in Pediatrics.

I've said it once, I've said it twice. Phlegm is the single most disgusting thing in the world to me. I don't care for vomit much either, but I can deal with that better then loogies 10_1_119.gif. Anyhow, I don't have any advice for you, since I too am looking for ways to fight the "gross outs". Just know that you are not alone when it comes to having aversions to things you will encounter as a nurse. My total hatred of phlegm will not keep me out of the nursing profession, so don't let your aversion to vomit keep you away! Good luck this year!

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I have a problem with everything right now...which leads me to another question: How long did it take you to get over everything gross when you started nursing school?:uhoh21: Oh, and there's something I've always wondered about. Last semester, our pharm prof was talking about how bad melena smells and how it stinks up the ENTIRE floor. Has anyone ever dealt with this?

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My sister works as a surg tech in L&D and she says the worst smell is buring flesh when they cut someone open. She said it's worse than anything you've ever smelled. I can imagine it's really bad the way she went on about it but she says she's so use to it now she doesn't even notice. I guess there's hope for us all. Hopefully. :uhoh21:

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...The nurse manager came after me and chastized me about how unprofessional I was being, and how I was disprespecting the patient by wearing a mask.

That is something I have never fully understood. The patients KNOW it doesn't smell good -- they KNOW it is gross. If I were the patient, having someone come in to clean wearing a mask would not bother me at all. What is the deal with that whole concept?? If someone can tell me the point of this rule, I'd appreciate it. It is right up there with "nurses should always wear white dresses..." as far as I'm concerned.

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Specializes in NICU.
That is something I have never fully understood. The patients KNOW it doesn't smell good -- they KNOW it is gross. If I were the patient, having someone come in to clean wearing a mask would not bother me at all. What is the deal with that whole concept?? If someone can tell me the point of this rule, I'd appreciate it. It is right up there with "nurses should always wear white dresses..." as far as I'm concerned.

Well, the NM said that it was degrading to the patient and that we are supposed to be "above" that. Like we're basically supposed to act like their poop doesn't stink, to put it mildly. Well, I'm no angel of mercy, and my nose works just fine!

It wouldn't have been so bad had I been given some assistance. I was just so PO'ed because I came on shift at 3pm and the day shift CNAs told me that my new patient in room so-and-so needed cleaning up. I walk in there and it's a little old man, full on case of dementia, in hard restraints. He had somehow managed to remove his Depends, gown, AND all the sheets off the bed and was thrashing about in his own mess. It's pretty hard to clean up a patient in restraints by yourself when he AND the mattress are coated in feces and vomit! But I did it, and he looked pretty comfortable afterwards - went right to sleep actually - but his nurse didn't seem to care how bad he had gotten. I was new, so I don't know what his actual illness was or what meds he was on. I just know that they knowingly dumped this disgusting job on me and refused to help. This is why I had no qualms about telling my NM that I was going to keep wearing that mask whether she liked it or not.

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I have been a nurse for 27 years and the only thing that grosses me out still to this day is vomit. I can do suctioning, snot bedsores up to the elbow, anything. But let me hear one person gag and I am right there with them, needing to share the commode or basin. I will clean a patient with BM on them anyday to someone with vomit on them. I will trade with other nurses who dislike suctioning and I will do their suctioning if they will do my patients with vomit, even if my patients do not vomit, just in case they do. I do not mind suctioning. Vomit has just been a hangup of mine. :stone

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I can't stand to hear the sound of someone vomiting. It makes my skin crawl. Its like having someone drag their nails down a chalk board :eek: I don't really don't care for feet either but the sound thing is the top of the list. But I imagine I will get over it.

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Specializes in orthopaedics, perioperative.
I have been a nurse for 27 years and the only thing that grosses me out still to this day is vomit. I can do suctioning, snot bedsores up to the elbow, anything. But let me hear one person gag and I am right there with them, needing to share the commode or basin. I will clean a patient with BM on them anyday to someone with vomit on them. I will trade with other nurses who dislike suctioning and I will do their suctioning if they will do my patients with vomit, even if my patients do not vomit, just in case they do. I do not mind suctioning. Vomit has just been a hangup of mine. :stone

I'll trade ya c-diff poop for puking any day! :o I'll even hold the k-basin with one hand and keep the client's hair out of their face with the other hand!

:uhoh21:

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Vomit is my biggest fear. I have not had much expereince so far, but I asked my clinical instructors how they dealt with it. They said that they breathe deeply while the person is puking, and breathe through their mouths while trying to clean it up as quickly as possible. I hope that works! :uhoh21:

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