What Freaks You Out?

Nurses General Nursing

Published

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.

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Specializes in CNA2: Acute Care, Orthopedics.

I hate peeling or loose, or flaky skin.....EWWWW. There was a pt I took care of that had a drug rxn that made the Epidermis fall off...just peeling away like a sun burn, & he was confused so he would take the skin and just set it on his bed side table...and guess who would have to come pick it up and discard it?...This girl! eeeewwww

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The sound of someone's head cracking the floor or other hard surface.

Hideous.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

I saw a seasoned nurse nearly faint when the hip is disjointed b4 a hip replacement - she grabbed my hand (I was a 3rd yr student RN then) & said she always hated that bit, that ccrrr-grr-aaACK! sound.

Had to clean a MASSIVE spinal/hip wound as the patient was having a very large flap re-sited from his body to cover the wound, so it had to be VERY clean for the surgeons. Had half my arm in there, he had developed more massive infection overnight the other nurse said, and the dressings removed were green, slimy and absolutely foul-smelling. I could feel the slime thru my gloves and remember wondering what it would feel like with naked hands. Even the seasoned nurse next to me kept saying: just breathe thru ur mouth, keep breathing thru ur mouth. Got thru that one, only felt a bit of nausea, but that was waaaay bad.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

I also remember taking off this old guy's socks in some medical ward somewhere, and I SWEAR TO GOD half his skin came off with it. I don't think his socks had been changed since forever. His nails were all fungated and obviously infected, hadn't been cut in ages and the smell was something out of this world.

I thankfully was not on the next shift and didn't have to clean them - yucky, yucky!!!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.

Oh one more I just got reminded of:

Went to go to the loo in a large, teaching hospital, was rushing...and ended up slipping all over the floor. I looked down, thinking kids have been shooting water all over the floor from the tap - and was standing in a pool of very bright, red, obviously new, very clotted blood. My first thought was: where is the person that this blood came from?? I then thought someone might have had a miscarriage, got confused and was wandering round the hospital. I ran back to my office, called security and they searched the ENTIRE hospital (no mean feat I can tell you). They searched all the toilets/change rooms, male & female, and didn't find anyone. I wondered if it was a woman who had had a really heavy period, but as one other poster said, it was like a murder scene from a Stephen King novel. I could almost visualise the words REDRUM written on the mirror! I wonder if it was a post surgical patient who'd got up and wandered off the ward too, but no-one was reported missing, as far as I know.

I apologised profusely to the poor cleaning service when I rang for them to come close & fumigate the toilet. They were wearing space suits after they saw what they had to deal with - poor things!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, DSU, Ortho, Onc, Psych.
i'm allergic to so many meds that when i'm hospitalized, i ask what each one is. if it upsets or slows the nurse down, tough. i don't mean side effects when i say allergies either. the meds cause great big giant-sized hives, rashes, and sometimes, anaphylactic reactions. you'd better believe i ask.

kathy i always tell my patients their meds b4 i give them, and encourage them to question what they're being given. it's good that you do this.

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I knew a nurse that couldn't handle dentures! She told me it was worse in the old days before gloves and people would just pop 'em out and hand them to ya!

My very first day of clinicals in LPN school . . .there I was all crisp and pressed in the long term care facility, believing I was going to be the best nurse ever. Get the picture? This little old lady, about 4'10, sweet as could be -- comes up to me and taps me on the arm. When I turned around, she spit her dentures FULL OF OATMEAL into my hand. Oh, I had to struggle that day! It was like, "Down stomach, easy boy, down now." Since then, any time I get into anything that tests my mettle, I remember those cruddy dentures. If I didn't fizzle out that day, anything else pales in comparison. Suction gunk, though, isn't a favorite of mine, either.:barf02:

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Oh my, nursejanedough, popping out the glass eyeball- now that is sick!

Back at the LTC again, we also had a lady with a glass eye. As she got more debilitated, she didn't want to wear the eye anymore. We kept the eye in a lidded specimen cup in the med room. All of us nurses SWORE that that eye followed us everywhere we went in the med room. The eye finally went into the locked cabinet. It still was ICKY to open the cabinet and have that d*** eye staring back! (This could have made a good Hitchcock movie -- The Eye Saw All):lol2:

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Well, I guess the most abhorent thing I have found is fresh colostomys....makes me gag and just want to run....and I mean run...the smell permeates everthing...can't wait to get home and take a bath ....and use lots of soap!

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Texan Frog

How about ileostomies??:eek:

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Specializes in Cardiac, PCU, Surg/Onc, LTC, Peds.
How about ileostomies??:eek:

At least they don't smell like colostomies :)

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Working as a medical assistant at an abortion clinic: products of conception

The smell of blood and flesh was just too fresh. Everyone else swore they could not smell it. I was dry heaving all day at work.

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In terms of operating rooms to be in, EENT and OMF---count me out. Neuro, I'm okay with, oddly enough, but anything having to do with the face gives me the willies. Give me ex fixes, open long bones fxs, cranis, GI bleeds, hearts (I *love* hearts) , traches ... but eyes, ears, nose, and mouth will always freak me out. Nasal packing, epistaxis, facial fx, corneal stuff, even cataracts---I just can't stand it! :uhoh3:

In my nursing school clinicals, one happy "surgical experience" was in ENT surgery. The patient was a fellow who'd been in one or more bar fights and had an obvious deviation of his nose. I thought this would be a delicate procedure --WRONG! The surgeon took a chisel and mallet and WHACK! rebroke the guy's nose. He must have heard my audible gasp, and turned to me and said," That wasn't what you expected, was it?" As soon as the doc rebroke this guy's nose, 2 obvious black eyes appeared. EEK!:eek:

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