Things that make you go "EEEWWW"

[VivaLasViejas]

Stevielynn's thread about the nursing home with the signs on the food carts brings up (oops, no pun intended:D ) something that happened at work yesterday that turned even MY cast-iron stomach. I was the PRN helping with admits, and as I was charting vitals on one new pt., this lady came running up to me holding a patient gown literally dripping with fresh emesis and hollering that her mother was throwing up, and would I come quickly?

I followed her to the patient's room (even after she refused to give me the gown so I could deposit it in the linen barrel and NOT have a trail of slightly used vegetable soup running down the hall) and found a very confused elderly woman sitting up in bed, naked, with vomit EVERYWHERE--all over the bed, on the floor, even in her hair. Worse yet, she was just about to start eating again, apparently having already forgotten being sick, and seemingly unaware of the fact that she'd baptized the tray along with everything else!!

Well, it was all I could do to hang onto my own supper, and I had no choice but to deal with it alone because even the aides were too busy with vitals on the fresh post-ops we'd just gotten. Half an hour later I emerged from the room, smelling ghastly and feeling somewhat under the weather, but by gosh that little lady was nice and clean and her daughter pleased as punch with the service. At least I got a thank-you out of it.....but I hope I don't have to deal with anything like that again any time soon.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Sheesh, I wonder how long that nurse has worked in LTC?? Anyone who's spent anytime at all in a nursing home has seen LOTS of that sort of thing going on.........I remember these two gentlemen who shared a room in the first NH I worked in, they were two of the facility's "troublemakers" who were often sexually inappropriate. One night I went in to give them their midnight meds, and there they were---one in a recliner, and the other in bed, each fellow happily "spanking the monkey" so to speak, and both of them with ear-to-ear grins on their faces!

Well, I backed on out of there and just let 'em have their fun....what are you gonna do?......but the aides sure weren't happy about the clean-up chores.....

[Liddle Noodnik]

Originally posted by Audreyfay

BWWAAAA HAAAA HAAAA! What a bunch of great stories, as I'm sitting here eating my dinner by the computer!

I used to work on a unit where digits were reattached. We used leech therapy, using gloves and forceps.

I have read this WHOLE thread (it was buried til today). Thought I was doing fine til someone else mentioned leeches. A few minutes later I reached for my soda can and -- wondered just what MIGHT have crawled in there!

Grossest thing? I took my ex hub to the dentist a few years ago and sat there during the examination. This man (shudder) his hygiene (shudder) those teeth (bwoot bwoot) -- ROTTEN in there! And here I had enthusiastically kissed him for 10 years!

GAG! Oh NOW I'm upset!

[Liddle Noodnik]

Originally posted by crazedredhead

c-diff. c-diff run. run, diff, run.

Now THAT -- :)

Clever red.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

zoboboey......your post almost made me retch! I just LOOOOVE mouth & teeth stuff......grosses me out like absolutely nothing else on the planet. Yeeeecccchhh!

[Liddle Noodnik]

Originally posted by mjlrn97

zoboboey......your post almost made me retch!

You think YOU almost retched! LOL!

here I was trying to be this loving, supportive wife, and I wanted a divorce right that minute!

ARGGGGGHHHHHH!

[medicrnohio, RN]

Well I'm not a nurse yet but I've worked in EMS for sometime and I have some stories to share.

When I first started working in EMS I was transporting a patient from a hospital to a rehab facility. All of the sudden she looked at me funny and puked all over me. Needless to say I have learned to move away from patients with that look. Then we got a parking ticket at the rehab facility while dropping her off. Not too gross now that I think about it but I couldn't believe the parking ticket.

Another funny one was when I was working at a nursing home as a CNA. The respiratory tech was in the room cleaning one patients trach. Well I was getting ready to empty other patients colostomy bag. I thought nothing of it and took of the colostomy bag. Aparently the RT couldn't handle it because she disappeared in a flash and wouldn't come back into the room for almost an hour.

And the absolutely most disgusting thing I have ever dealt with is...we literally had to peel a woman off of her bad at home. She had been laying in her bed, in her bodily excretions, for at least 2 months. The women had a stage 4 pressure ulcer the size of her back. She had bugs in her hair. It was awful, I made sure adult protective services was called for that one.

I absolutely hate vomit, especially alcohol vomit. Most disgusting was the day we went on a run to find a man laying on the floor completely drunk. Well my partner was standing by his head and next thing you know he rolls over and starts vomiting for about 15 minutes. I had to leave the house on that one.

[LeesieBug]

Cats throwing up really gets to me, mainly because they go through these incredible contortions and make these horrid retching noises while they're preparing to do it. It's all very dramatic, and then they produce.......spit. And on the occasions when they do actually vomit, it's either a glut of slightly used cat food, or worse, a sausage-shaped thing that (ULP!) another cat will come along and consume. The first time I saw that happen I had to literally run to the nearest bathroom so MY outraged supper could take a bow. Nothing I've ever dealt with in patient care OR motherhood has gotten to me quite like that.

:rotfl: :roll This is THE most HILARIOUS description of cat puking! I am laughing so hard I am crying.....mostly because it is so true! We have a bulemic cat who likes to gorge and purge.....Thanks for the laugh!

[vitalnursemom]

Wow! Take me back to nursing school why don't you! When I graduated I passed around a journal and asked everyone to document their most memorable nursing school moment. Twenty out of fourty-three new nurses shared their perspective of the following story.

Weighing a whopping 90 lbs. I always swore that my instructors chose my patients by asking for the largest comatose patient on the unit. In my first month of clinicals I was assigned a man suffering from diabetic coma. I walked into the room to find my patient was 300+ lbs. of dead weight. As a diligent nursing student I quickly perused his many lines and tubes to familiarize myself with his treatments. I noted an IV of NS and a nasogastric feeding tube infusing a blue tube feeding. I began to bathe the gentleman being careful to keep him covered as we had been shown in class. A staff RN came into the room and I inquired as to why his tube feeding was blue. As she injected a syringe of medication into his IV she explained, it was policy to put blue food coloring into feeding by NG tube to help distinguish Phlegm from aspirated tube feeding. I then asked what medication she had put into his IV. She said very matter of factly, "His potassium is high the med will help lower it." With that statement she was gone. I was halfway through the patient's bath when the distinct (no pun intended) aroma of BM began floating up from the bed. I looked at my very large patient and sighed heavily. I called to my friend who happened to be bathing my patient's roomate on the other side of the curtain. "Malcolm, can you help me? I think he's had a BM." The aroma was becoming more and more pungent as time elapsed. My friend stepped around the curtain donning fresh gloves and as he did his eyeballs bulged out. He motioned for me to hold on a second, stuck his head around the corner filled his lungs with fresh air and proceeded to hold his breath. He rolled the patient over so I could clean him up and we were met with the curious site of baby blue diarrhea! I began cleaning but the smell became overwhelming so I stepped to the door for some fresh air. When I did another student was walking by, so I recruited her. We could hardly believe our eyes. We would no sooner get him clean and another episode of BM would occur. Fourty-five minutes and six nursing students later we were gaining on it! When all was said and done we had learned so much!

1. Never let a nurse with more experience leave a room until you've asked "exactly how does that Med, treatement, etc. work?

2. Kayexcelate works quickly and with great power!

3. All liquid diet = all liquid waste

3a. Blue food = Blue Poop

4. It will not kill someone to wait until they are done defacating to be cleaned up. It may however, nearly kill you to try and clean them up before they get done.

5. You will create bonds with your fellow nursing students that no lay person will ever understand. There is no reunion of our class that doesn't bear mention of Kayexcelate Man!

Nearly ten years later it still feels like it happened yesterday:)

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Back to the subject of cat puke for a minute: We used to have a bulimic cat too, whom we nicknamed "Ms. Scarf-n-Barf". One of her favorite places in the house was the top of our La-Z-Boy recliner, from which heights she was prone to favor the occupant with a cascade of kitty kibble........usually without warning. Then she'd look down at the vomitee with an expression that said "So what did you expect?", jump down, and saunter off as if nothing had happened!

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

Nothing like cat-yack splash-down. EYEEEEEEEEEEEW lol

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Originally posted by LPN2Be2004

Nothing like cat-yack splash-down. EYEEEEEEEEEEEW lol

That's the best description of it that I've ever heard!! LOL!!:roll

[Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN]

I grew up keeping paper plates in every room. Reason: the quickest thing you could slide under the cat's head before the puke hit the carpet, after the "warning meows" started.

Let's not forget the "morning hairball" that you managed to squish between your toes first thing in the morning...