What can you just NOT take?

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Specializes in ER, NICU.

Am gonna lay it out here...all the way:uhoh21:

What can ya'll just NOT handle when it comes to patient events/care? I don't know about ya'll but I just can't take HARDCORE PHLEGM - you know the COPDr who is doing these major hocks and then just comes up with this huge wad of green/yellow phlegm. :barf02: It make my skin CRAWL! The first time I realized this bothered me was in nursing school and some poor man was laying there doing his "thing" trying to get all this crap up and I just had to let go of his emesis basin and run for the bathroom! :crying2: I then proceeded to throw up! :imbar

I can take smells - I can fix that with a mask and some perfume or Vicks..but the auditory embellishments in respiratory patients in nursing just make me so sick. I just avoid them, and have told supervisors not to assign them to me.

Anyone else had this problem?

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Specializes in Critical Care, Pediatrics, Geriatrics.
Am gonna lay it out here...all the way:uhoh21:

What can ya'll just NOT handle when it comes to patient events/care? I don't know about ya'll but I just can't take HARDCORE PHLEGM - you know the COPDr who is doing these major hocks and then just comes up with this huge wad of green/yellow phlegm. :barf02: It make my skin CRAWL! The first time I realized this bothered me was in nursing school and some poor man was laying there doing his "thing" trying to get all this crap up and I just had to let go of his emesis basin and run for the bathroom! :crying2: I then proceeded to throw up! :imbar

I can take smells - I can fix that with a mask and some perfume or Vicks..but the auditory embellishments in respiratory patients in nursing just make me so sick. I just avoid them, and have told supervisors not to assign them to me.

Anyone else had this problem?

there was a good thread about this about a month ago, but I don't remember the title.

for me its vomit. I am a sympathetic vomitter....just thinking about it will make me gag and if I see it or smell it...might as well bring me an emesis basin too!:rotfl:

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Specializes in Psych.

Oh Yeah, that "hawking-up" stuff really gets to me too, and I am also a "sympathetic vomiter". Just excuse yourself as needs must, and try to get a co-worker to take over for you. (As if they aren't bothered by it, too). One tip I have found helpful is to "breathe through your mouth", somehow, this helps to circumvent that vomiting reflex. I think it is b/c it dulls your sense of smell. Do your best and keep in mind the pt is much more miserable than you are.

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Anything I can smell makes me puke. I can puke with the best of them. Smells do it for me. I can look at absolutely anything and it doesn't phase me in the least. I can touch anything, the green stuff that comes out of certain cysts is COOL! Chunky and all! Let me smell it and I am gagging and running for a bathroom.

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I have never gotten sick at work thru all the infected bed sores,trachs and vomting blood,but the one thing that still gets to me after a dozen yrs is colostomies.you can vomit on my shoe and i;ll just as soon take my dinner break.but the poor guy with c-diff and a colosomy to boot just makes me lose my appetite.there is no way i;d want to be a roommate to someone who can "hold" 6hrs worth of gas in a bag and just unleash it in burst of glory to cringe my nose hairs!:eek:

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there is no way i;d want to be a roommate to someone who can "hold" 6hrs worth of gas in a bag and just unleash it in burst of glory to cringe my nose hairs!:eek:

Dude... you should'a been a poet!!!!!!!! :smokin:

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we were talking about this at work a few days ago. top of the list was gas gangrene. other honourable mentions included hot colostomy gas, infected wee, anything produced by diseased lungs, the smell of melena and overflow poo, and hot sick.

mmm.. pass the bucket, there i go!

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we were talking about this at work a few days ago. top of the list was gas gangrene. other honourable mentions included hot colostomy gas, infected wee, anything produced by diseased lungs, the smell of melena and overflow poo, and hot sick.

mmm.. pass the bucket, there i go!

While in college I was an EMT. I do believe the top of the proverbial list is grandma that died three weeks ago in the midwest summer. Gahhhh

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Specializes in Med onc, med, surg, now in ICU!.
I have never gotten sick at work thru all the infected bed sores,trachs and vomting blood,but the one thing that still gets to me after a dozen yrs is colostomies.you can vomit on my shoe and i;ll just as soon take my dinner break.but the poor guy with c-diff and a colosomy to boot just makes me lose my appetite.there is no way i;d want to be a roommate to someone who can "hold" 6hrs worth of gas in a bag and just unleash it in burst of glory to cringe my nose hairs!:eek:

I hate colostomies too, but for me, it's not the smell of them, it's the look. I HATE them. They totally gross me out, and that skin paste stuff looks so much like skin, and when you peel it off - blerk. I could never clean someone's colostomy. Thank God we have stoma nurses here so I can get them to do it if I have to. Shudder.

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Specializes in CCU/CVU/ICU.

Thank god for CNA's/Techs/fellows/INterns/Externs/Students, etc! (apologies for my occaisional abuse)

All body fluids, vapors, humors, excretions, and secretions gross me out from time-to-time. I cant say i like any of them less or more than the other...

What i personally 'cant' do has less to do with 'grossness' and more to do with patient-type. My hat goes off to the ER, PICU, and NICU nurses who care for kids that are trying to die. Probably has to do with my being a dad.

If i did that stuff on a regular basis i'd surely be a drunk.

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Specializes in 5 yrs OR, ASU Pre-Op 2 yr. ER.

Perirectal abcesses.

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Rotting flesh does it for me...

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