What Freaks You Out?

Kayzee · Jul 13, 2002

We had a lady with LE OA. well when the day nurse went to change her dressing the wound was full of magots. I used to hate doing that treatment because you had to check carefully to make sure they weren't back!

stevierae · Jul 13, 2002

The smell of death is the only thing that freaks me out. It happens so soon after a death, too. I could never be a homicide cop. I have dealt with gas gangrene and plaster casts that were filled with thousands of maggots that turned a tiny skin abrasion into putrifying rotten meat--still not as bad as the immediate smell of death, or the color changes a dead body rapidly undergoes, or---probably worst of all--the eerie feeling that there is a ghost or spirit in the room.

One question--what is c-diff?

Gator,SN · Jul 13, 2002

I worked in sterile processing for 5 years and any time we had a bowel obstruction, that would make me quesy. We hand washed each and every instrument with very hot water....about the time that I was rinsing the yankauer suction, a nice steamy blast of stench would come up into my nose.....EEEW! Also, snot and slime covered tonsilectomy instruments......My all time favorite was chunks of bone left in the pan after a hip replacement. Anyone ever seen acetabular reamers?? Sort of like large hand held cheese graters for bone!

Now that I am working as a CNA on a Med/Surg floor, I have to say that Respiratory secretions of ANY kind are gross, but for me it is the SOUND of all that nastiness being suctioned!!! I also hate it when I disconnect the NG tube and the pump tries in vain to capture that last little bit stuck in the tube!!!!! Slurp, slurp!!!!! EEW!

I still have no stomach for the smell of a new colostomy. It is so strong and it lingers for hours!

Gator,SN · Jul 13, 2002

I know that there are many things in this field that can gross you out, and my hat is off to the Respiratory Therapists and the job that they do. I think that I will appreciate the lab technicians a bit more after reading these posts because as disgusting as it is sometimes to collect all those specimens, imagine having to deal with them after the lid has been on for a while.....YUCK!!!!

misti_z · Jul 13, 2002

We had a poor little man one night. I wasn't his nurse, so I don't know the whole story, but he had CA and had to have his right eye enucleated and also most of his left forehead removed--he is several years post op. Anyway he had a skin graft over his right eye socket over his nose and across his left forehead. I went in there in the middle of the night to stop a beeping IMED, I about $hit in my pants. I had no clue about how his face looked :eek: Well needless to say that freaked me out, I thought I would have nightmares. He was/is a pleasant man--he coded a few nights later...he was still on a vent last I heard. Bless his heart.

sunnygirl272 · Jul 13, 2002

Originally posted by stevierae
One question--what is c-diff?

clostridium difficile .... in overgrowth causes pseudomembranous enterocolitis....usually triggered by recent antibiotic usage.... the diarrhea has a particular look and smell that is hard to describe...but once ya know it, ya don't forget...

leslie_23 · Jul 14, 2002

Hi,

I am Leslie. I am a brand new nursing student -- my classes start on August 26th. I am very excited.

I have a gross story to add...

I worked as a technician for an eye surgeon. One day, he was doing an evisceration (removal of eyeball -- everything). I was still too new to scrub in for that particular procedure, but I was allowed to observe. This particular patient was not under general anesthesia, but was instead given some medication to help him to relax while the surgical site was totally numbed and of course draped. Anyway, I watched as the doctor removed the eyeball and the contents of the "socket". The entire OR was very quiet -- no one was talking when suddenly the patient, who was totally covered in a drape said, "Hey, Doc -- have you started cutting yet?" The doctor replied, "Yes, I'm just finishing-up." We all just looked at each other, and I nearly gagged because this guy was talking and I was looking at his former eyeball...it was a very surreal moment.

Also, at this same job working as a technician, I was responsible for doing basic eye exams. I called a large, female patient into the examination room, and as soon as she came through the waiting room door, I smelled the unmistakable smell of "female odor". I was trying to say, "Mrs. So and So, how are you today?" But, I couldn't. I began dry-heaving and wretching as I was trying to get the words out! I was so embarrassed! We could not even close the exam room door because the smell was so pungent. After the woman left, I had to scrub down and disinfect the entire examination room, and there was STILL a horrible, gagging, pungent, penetrating, so-bad-you-could-almost-taste-it ODOR. I can truly say that I have never in my life smelled anything that awful.

Anyway, that's my gross-out story, and it still doesn't compare to some of yours!

By the way....I've been sitting here for oh, say, more than an hour reading all of these disgusting posts! LOL! What does that say about me?? LOL!!

Leslie :)

adrienurse, LPN · Jul 14, 2002

Warning: Do not read this if you have a weak stomach!!!

Back when I was a teenager and still living at home with my parents, I had a cat that used to hunt a lot. He used to get worms pretty bad and we treated it every few months with a pill. Anyway (I'm gagging just thinking about this) he threw up on the floor once when I was the only one home and it was this massive pile of tape worms. They were huge. I'll never forget having to clean them up. I have never seen anything so discusting since, even as a nurse.

stevierae · Jul 14, 2002

Originally posted by JennieBSN
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...aaaaaaaaaackkkkkkk!! 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.

Share, share, share people!

stevierae · Jul 14, 2002

Oh, man--that dog licking up the sputum from the ol' spit can is really giving me the dry heaves. That takes the cake. Every time I visualize it, I start gagging.

OK, here's one I remember from the '80s. GYN doc told us this one. Woman comes in to GYN clinic, c/o foul-smelling lady partsl odor and greenish drainage "for several weeks." Woman gets up into stirrups and doc is almost knocked out by the smell. Doc inserts speculum and shines light up there--sees something dark, jammed up there, waaaay up there, way back against cervix. Starts pulling, and pulling, and pulling, and pulling-----out comes a pair of slimy, nasty, foul-smelling GREEN pantyhose!! Patient says, "Oh, I was WONDERING where those went!!!" Doctor throws pantyhose in garbage, then goes out to get a breath and to ask someone for a can of air freshener. Comes back--patient is gone. Doctor tells nurses about incident. They don't believe her. Doctor says, "Fine, just go check the garbage, you'll see." They do--pantyhose are gone--apparently retrieved by patient and taken home, presumably for future wear, uh, use?

I know those ones about foreign objects being found in abdominal skin folds of obese patients are true. One time, 500+ lb. gentleman came to OR for scheduled bariatric surgery. After pt. intubated, circulator goes to prep--lifts up one of his many skin folds--entire box of Kleenex found there. That post about the cash money hidden in between rolls of fat wins the prize, though.

Oh, here's one more true story: surgeon is scrubbed in; I am circulating. He says, "Something is itching my ear; it is driving me crazy; can you come scratch it with a clamp or something, please?" I say sure, go on over, look at his ear--and on it is a FLEA. EEEUUghhhh.....

stevierae · Jul 14, 2002

Oh, I just thought of one more!! This also happened in the '80s, at the height of true "yuppiedom" when it seemed that greed and the quest for wealth were epidemic, especially among the doctors. All the surgeons we worked with drove expensive Mercedes sports cars with car phones (which were a HUGE status symbol in those days) and generally tried to outdo each other in expensive homes, clothes, and trophy wives. So, one day this wealthy general surgeon is doing a hemorrhoidectomy; as he thinks it is going to be a very short and simple procedure, (albeit one he will get to charge maximum OR time for) he has not changed his shoes or put shoe covers over them. However, as he inserts the anal speculum, PINWORMS come literally FALLING out of the patient's orifice!! The surgeon stands there, stunned, yelling, "MY Guccis!! My Guccis!! SOMEBODY put some shoe covers on me!!" We were all like dying laughing, and NO WAY was anybody going to get on the floor and put shoe covers on him, esp. with pinworms cascading out...eeeuuuuuwww...

misti_z · Jul 14, 2002

Originally posted by adrienurse
Anyway (I'm gagging just thinking about this) he threw up on the floor once when I was the only one home and it was this massive pile of tape worms. They were huge.

Oh I wish we had a pucking smiley!!