What can you tolerate the least?

Nurses General Nursing

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I've heard that every nurse has their one thing that they don't like and grosses them out and they don't like dealing with. What is your one thing?

For me it would be vomit! I cannot stand vomit!

Smells. I can look at and clean up just about anything. But horrific smells are my kryptonite. Poo, wounds, nasty feet, unbathed homeless, people who need mouth care.....all must be swiftly and efficiently dealt with. My cure for my gagging is to get everything washed and dressed and tidy. Love a nice clean dressing, a nice clean bed, a freshly cleaned homeless man who looks both bewildered and relieved at the same time.

The only other thing that has really gotten me was when a patient had oodles of skin flaking off their feet. It was all over the bed like snowfall. I could not stifle the feeling that it was in the air and I was breathing in fungal foot particles.

I forgot about the foot flakes snowstorm!! I try to make slow movements (such as when removing their footies), hold my breath and get out of the room asap.

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Specializes in ICU.
I love ICU RN's stories--like when one guy caught the worms crawling out of an ET tube. I'm almost sorry I missed that. Fascinating.

We have a guy who's a regular who's on the vent at home because he's a quad... we found a cockroach crawling out of his home vent once. Just saying. I haven't seen one in his vent before, but there are always roaches in the room every time he comes in. Not his fault, but I hate having him as a patient!

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Specializes in Cardiac, ER, Pediatrics, Corrections.

Eye injuries I simply cannot do! I cringe. I watched a guy get his eyelid stitched (It had split open in a car wreck) and I about passed out! Hopefully, with time I can overcome this.

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I have a hard time dealing with uncontained vomit.

If it makes it into a basin, trash can, bucket, etc. I am ok, but there is just something about seeing it splattered all over the floor that gets to me.

There is a reason my family of 6 has 6 matching barf buckets. :yes:

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Specializes in Emergency and Critical Care.

I love this, boy does it bring back memories. Saw a few prolapsed everything's with scabs on them, peed and pooped on, the first one that got me as a new nurse was an elderly man vomiting these huge blood clots, he didn't have his teeth in and his mouth would distort every time he vomited, he would gag then I would gag, I stood on the other side of the curtain and held the pan in front of him, we kept telling each other I'm sorry after we gaged. Then when I was about 9 months pregnant I had to go into the ICU I worked in for a staff meeting, a call light went on and everyone was busy so I went in to answer it, the guys oxygen mask was filled solidly with thick mucus, I tried to clean it and started getting sick so I said to heck with this and threw it away and got him a new one, that was my worse. I told the nurse it was the last time I answered a light while I was off duty, it wasn't but man that was nasty. Maggots, and leaches are pretty funny. Lower GIB, you go home with them smell stuck to your nasal hairs, I swear you can't get rid of the smell. Nursing home urine kind of clings to you too. Most of the time I'm good with it, but some days some things just get to you. Unfortunately it never stopped me from eating when I had the chance. Wow I could go on forever I think.

Tampons that have been left in way toooo long, eeewww.

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I can handle wounds, vomit, secretions, feet, c. diff. pretty much anything but the sick, sweet fruity smell of lactulose poop in a patient with liver disease. The worst is when a patient has hepatic encephalopathy, and you know they haven't gone in a few days. Their ammonia levels are creeping up, patient is getting more confused, the docs keep feeding them lactulose and then (always on my shift) they explode with the most foul smelling stool everywhere in the bed. It's pretty much the only thing that still makes me gag. Also get really grossed out by corn in colostomies.

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Specializes in ICU.

Gosh, I am re-hating things all over again every time I come back to this thread!! Agreed with ammonia-tinged poop for sure!

I also had a patient last month with really bad pneumonia who was on the BiPAP and was too weak to move her arms. Every time I walked back into that room her mask was almost completely filled up with phlegm. I'd take it off and it would run all down her face and neck. Hey, at least she was coughing it up, right? But going into that room and seeing that mask full of green nastiness that I knew was just going to go everwhere the second I tried to clean it up... ugh.

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Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..

maggots moving, & boogers unless they are from a toddler who can't help it.. I can handle all the rest.

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Specializes in Med Surg, Perinatal, Endoscopy, IVF Lab.
We have a guy who's a regular who's on the vent at home because he's a quad... we found a cockroach crawling out of his home vent once. Just saying. I haven't seen one in his vent before, but there are always roaches in the room every time he comes in. Not his fault, but I hate having him as a patient!

:arghh: I couldn't take that!!!! Roaches creep me out!!!! I would rather see snakes then roaches.

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Specializes in ICU.

GI bleed stool with fresh blood. That combo is just an instant GAG! for me. :***::yuck:

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Retained tampons!!

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Specializes in Emergency and Critical Care.
Retained tampons!!

YUP that's one of them

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