What Freaks You Out?

Darlene K. · Jul 5, 2004

I was looking after a teenager with severe learning difficulties, he had a nappy on and filled it with green diarrhoea. He then put her fingers in it and started eating it! My stomach churned, his mum and sister were laughing at him but I nearly puked! It was a good follow on to the bogies he had been picking out of his nose and munching on all day.........

:eek: I can handle it when an small child does those disgusting things, but when a bigger child or and adult does it, I'd puke.

pokey sn · Jul 5, 2004

When I was doing clinicals in an ICU, a pt had crepitus all along his arms and chest as well as his face. His eyes were so swollen from all the air rising he looked like a little frog man. What gave me the willies was when he, in order to relieve the swelling in his eyelids, he took an iced washcloth and pressed it into his eyelids. The eyelids immediately went down but within like five seconds they would swell up again. AWWWW that was so GROSS!!I can take anything but that just triggered my OCD. I was so freaked I told him to just keep the cloth on his eyes (so I wouldn't have to see them). I know that this is strange but I sincerely hope that I NEVER encounter this again. It puts me in wierdsville. :uhoh3:

obliviousRN · Jul 5, 2004

colostomies after they've eaten chili

Can't eat chili for months after that

MrsCannibal · Jul 5, 2004

I am laughing so hard my side hurts, and also trying REALLY hard NOT to form any mental pictures of some of the stuff I'm reading so that I won't gag! I'm still a student, and have no idea how bad it can be...kinda starting to get a little scared by all these stories!:) I have always had a really sick sense of humor and an iron stomach, but that story about the dog slurping the can of lung drippin's just about killed me!

dragonfly954 · Jul 5, 2004

finding an eyeball that had rolled away under a cell door.this is what happens when prisoners push eachother off of the second tier onto the cold hard cement below....face first.that was a little disturbing

pgnurse · Jul 5, 2004

fresh food vomit freaks me out! i'm erpping right along with them! n :imbar

:chuckle

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!

nursenatalie, ADN, RN · Jul 6, 2004

Ok I have mentioned this before, but this situation is the grossest thing I have come across. Had a pt hooked to NG suction, she had unhooked herself for whatever reason and I assisted her back to her bed and told her not to do this herself, apparantly she had been unhooked for 15-20 minutes. Well she had been there for a while and she knew how to hook it back up herself, she took the plug from the tubing and a long bile green string of mucus trailed so she just put the open end of the NG in her mouth and SUCKED!!! watching in awe as the green tube went clear again I thought I would lose it. I couldnt help myself I yelled at her and told her that was nasty, dont ever do that again. This is of course the same pt who was so foggy on dilaudid that she kept putting her bloody menstrual pad on her abdominal incision (dont know if she thought it was an ABD or what? To no surprise she got a serious wound infection and had to be opened back up. Did I mention I was pregnant in the few months time we had this patient. The plastic surgeon grabbed me one day to assist in her room so I went in and he debrided her wound at the bedside, I held the biohazard bag as he put the nastiest smelling peice of black/green flesh in, the weight of the hunk of meat alone got to me not to mention the smell. He left, I tied the bag in a knot at the top not knowing what in the hell to do with it and mistakenly felt the warmth through the bag and my gloves...I almost lost it. I ran to the soiled utility room threw it in the biohazard bag and told the doc if he needed it for patho or otherwise he would have to fetch it himself! Just think all this was only one pt on our surgical floor, and I thought surgical floor would be a "clean" place to work :confused:

ERHack · Jul 6, 2004

Obvious deformity. Nuff said.

LatinaRN · Feb 5, 2005

Live creeping, crawling maggots in a wound...gets me every time!

trustinhartRN · Feb 5, 2005

all of your comments are great, but have you not ever received a patient with maggots in a wound...ugh...not intentional maggots, either, but those little critters that fly's lay in dirty wounds. We have had several patients who come in to our ED who haven't seen soap and water in ages, have diabetes and terrible lower extremity wounds in many different stages, and when you take the dressing off, these little critters fall all over your shoes, into your pockets...it's just awful. Then the smell that goes along with it,,hooooweeee...I guess the mucous is the next thing that I just can't deal with. I always give the patiend a brown paper towel to wrap the loogie container in, so I don't have to see it. Be sure to label it first, so you have no reason to unwrap it.

vablueyes...

Yep on the maggots, and since I was the new kid on the block in 1980, I got picked to take care of them. I was given a can of ether (!!!!!) and I had to go "anesthetize" the little buggers and pick them off with pickups. I survived that, but my least attractive moment is when someone is vomiting. I can't even help my own kids..I have to hold the bucket for them and turn my head. My cat threw up once on my bedspread, I couldn't stand to clean it up, I threw it away!!!. Thanks for the laughs everyone. TrustinhartRN

Jo Dirt · Feb 5, 2005

Anything to do with eyes freaks me out.

Marie_LPN, RN, LPN, RN · Feb 5, 2005

J tubes that have leaked into surrounding tissues.