Okay, people. It's time for a nice, fun, light-hearted discussion to blow off some steam.
WHAT FREAKS YOU OUT? What bodily fluid can't you STAND? What wound gives you the absolute WILLIES? It doesn't matter if you're an ADN, BSN, LPN, CNA, PQRST, ABCDEFG...every body gets the heebie jeebies over SOMETHING...even you stomach-of-steel ER nurses!
Mine is eyeball injuries/surgery...aaaaaaaaackkkkkkk!! Gross! Makes my skin absolutely CRAWL. Or when someone gets a little cut on their finger/toe/whatever and then squeezes it to make it bleed!! Bleah!! Then there's the ever-popular RESPIRATORY SECRETIONS. I can handle poop, pee, amniotic fluid, lanced boils, pus, whatever...but give me a nasty snot-filled trach, and I'm OUTTA THERE.
:imbar Yes nursejanedough, that's the one I have lived in fear of for the last 21 years-the glass eyeball! I know, I know, they are probably called "visual esthetic enhancement prosthetics" now but luckily the folks who have possessed them have all known how to care for them. Thank goodness for that! Having worked in LTC all this time NO bodily fluid totally grosses me out, though I must admit it takes more than a little chutzpa to be able to accessorize your scrubs in SO MANY COLORS AND TEXTURES:D
This is my first time to post on this BB, but just have to respond. Definately agree with the mucous/resp. secretions any way, shape or form! Chicken feathers remind me of the little old demented lady I admitted with scabies, head lice, cat feces in her pockets and God knows what under her fingernails. I felt "crawly" for days.
I have a really freaky story for you all.....and it's true--honest to
G_d!!!!!
I was at work the other day when one of the docs came up to a group of us and asked if we wanted to see something really wild. He pulled up rotten.com on the web and showed us the "Potatoes and Jelly" photos of some guy who came into an ER with a jelly jar and potatoes inserted into his rectum. There was another group of pics titled "No One Had Seen Him For a Week", so we looked. As I was looking at the pictures, the scene looked VERY familiar.....
A few years ago, I was moving into an apartment that was being updated. I stopped there on the Sunday before I moved in to check on the progress of the work being done, and noticed a foul smell in the hallway. Didn't think too much about it until I went back the following Wednesday to put a label on my mailbox and noted that the smell was pretty rank in the hallway. I looked around for pet droppings, but couldn't find anything, so I left. On Friday (moving day), I was coming home from work when my daughter called my cellphone saying that there was a woman running around in the hallway screaming. I told her to keep the door locked and to call 911, at which time she said that the police were already there. I told her I'd be home in less than 10 minutes and hightailed it to the new apartment. When I arrived, there were police cars there and an ambulance was pulling out. I opened the door to the hallway and almost fell over-the smell was SO bad. It seems that the man across the hallway from me had been dead for at least a week, in 80-90 degree heat. As I walked into my apartment I caught a glimpse of the gory scene. Needless to say, when we looked at the pictures on the rotten.com website, I was astounded.....same guy......same bed and mattress......My coworkers couldn't believe it either
I can handle the stench of most everything. I guess what really freaks me out is...foreign objects. We had to do lady partsl checks every night on a female patient on my LTC psych unit. And everynight, without fail, we would pull one thing or another from her lady parts. She used it as a suitcase. Reader's Digest, slipper, toothpaste tube, metal shoehorn, anything she could find and would want to keep. One night after removing three pairs of her room-mate's undies from her lady parts, I asked her why in the world she put them in there. She replied, "Well, my Mama always said to carry some clean underwear with me. You never know when you might need them."
I am an ER nurse and the thing I hate most is the crunchy bone sound when the doc is attempting to reduce a fracture!! Like nails on a chalk board to me, complete with goose bumps.
OMG, what absolutely horrible stories! I love being a nurse!
OK, things that smell are usually what get me... no one vomits alone in my presence. The sound, the smell, the sight....EEEWWWW. And I cannot stand poop, in any form, diseased or not. Things that just look nasty but don't stink are usually OK with me. I don't particularly enjoy sputum, and it's an effort to keep a straight face w/o sympathy heaves during collection, but it's not that bad. Amniotic fluid, endometrium, fibroids, prolapsed anything (though the dangling cervix gave me a jolt!), vag d/c, foreign objects, C-sections, episiotomies, old tampons, blood, pus, lacerations, severed things, you name it, I'm OK. But when I was still at the OB office we had a lady come in for just an annual, and when we walked in the room to find her gowned and barefoot, the stench of her feet was just nauseating. Worse, there were green and white flaky layers of (?) hanging off and swaying gently in the breeze. Everything else was clean enough but that smell was just awful.
The one sight that will always get me is anything involving bugs. Spiders are a big thing for me, so of course when I had a man come into Urgent Care with a c/o of "something in my ear" I got him. His first problem was about 50 years of accumulated wax that was just nasty and in every state you can imagine. Weepy, sticky, black, fuzzy, you name it. The worst thing was when I was looking for the "something moving" in his ear, I found not only a LIVE spider roaming around, but the shells of its recent dinner choices as well, all living cozily in thick, multi-colored wax. I dropped the otoscope and told him, "Well, I think I found it, but I need to have the Dr look at it before I start lavaging" and split so I could dry heave out of his range of hearing. I STILL have nightmares about live spiders crawling around in my ears.
>>OMG, what absolutely horrible stories! I love being a nurse!
OK, things that smell are usually what get me... no one vomits alone in my presence. The sound, the smell, the sight....EEEWWWW. And I cannot stand poop, in any form, diseased or not. Things that just look nasty but don't stink are usually OK with me. I don't particularly enjoy sputum, and it's an effort to keep a straight face w/o sympathy heaves during collection, but it's not that bad. Amniotic fluid, endometrium, fibroids, prolapsed anything (though the dangling cervix gave me a jolt!), vag d/c, foreign objects, C-sections, episiotomies, old tampons, blood, pus, lacerations, severed things, you name it, I'm OK. But when I was still at the OB office we had a lady come in for just an annual, and when we walked in the room to find her gowned and barefoot, the stench of her feet was just nauseating. Worse, there were green and white flaky layers of (?) hanging off and swaying gently in the breeze. Everything else was clean enough but that smell was just awful
i second everything you said!!! ANYTHING that smells gets me..i've tried everything..vick's under the nose, double masks, so much air freshener that people complained..i still get nauseated! just let me look at poop or vomit.....and i get ill at that as well..
the ONLY thing that does not bother me is blood......i can handle that.....
Well I thought I had an iron stomach until I took car of a pt with gangree. I will never forget that smell! But that wasn't the worst of it. I was placing 2x2's in between his rotiing toes, when one of them fell off in my hand!!! I was so grossed out I couldnt even finish the dressing change. yuck!!!
I can handle the stench of most everything. I guess what really freaks me out is...foreign objects. We had to do lady partsl checks every night on a female patient on my LTC psych unit. And everynight, without fail, we would pull one thing or another from her lady parts. She used it as a suitcase. Reader's Digest, slipper, toothpaste tube, metal shoehorn, anything she could find and would want to keep. One night after removing three pairs of her room-mate's undies from her lady parts, I asked her why in the world she put them in there. She replied, "Well, my Mama always said to carry some clean underwear with me. You never know when you might need them."
This is one of the most bizarre posts I have
ever read. How twisted. Please keep us up to date with what you find next!
Well I thought I had an iron stomach until I took car of a pt with gangree. I will never forget that smell! But that wasn't the worst of it. I was placing 2x2's in between his rotiing toes, when one of them fell off in my hand!!! I was so grossed out I couldnt even finish the dressing change. yuck!!!
Chris81
44 Posts
:imbar Yes nursejanedough, that's the one I have lived in fear of for the last 21 years-the glass eyeball! I know, I know, they are probably called "visual esthetic enhancement prosthetics" now but luckily the folks who have possessed them have all known how to care for them. Thank goodness for that! Having worked in LTC all this time NO bodily fluid totally grosses me out, though I must admit it takes more than a little chutzpa to be able to accessorize your scrubs in SO MANY COLORS AND TEXTURES:D