What Gets to You??

annabanana5876, BSN, RN · Jan 10, 2006

The sound of someone puking makes me gag, but luckily I have never puked along with anyone. But the one thing that will make me gag faster than anything else is the patient with the nose bleed that keeps "snorting" the blood back into his pharynx and then spitting it out. I saw a patient spit out a blood clot the size of a large walnut one time and had to leave the room for fear of puking on him...........:smackingf

MMARN, BSN, RN · Jan 10, 2006

I have to remember the Vicks trick. Sounds like it is THE thing to do when you start out in NS.

lpnstudentin2010, LPN · Jan 10, 2006

not a nurse yet but i cannt stand poop or vomit (as another poster put it i am a sympathetic puker)

lortarn · Jan 11, 2006

This was a big problem for a while where I worked. Once I was in triage with a baby diff breathing, and the registration person brought another child back by the triage (small head lac) and was waving her hands outside my door and I had to come out and tell them to go back to the waiting room. Reg was lucky not to be the next pt after that stunt. Another time was telling me that there was a pt with a really bad thigh lac that needed to be brought back right away of course couldn't answer any questions about severity since, "that not Job" So since I couldn't see pants on brought pt to triage found out it was a 3 day old punture wound and was just here for a Td update. Every lac was an emergency, then she compained to medical director that I yelled at her. Finally she left for a job in the billing office never so glad to someone go!

erjulie · Jan 11, 2006

Super dry skin that flakes off (mostly on elderly patients). When the bed linens are adjusted, the bits of dry skin flutter around in the air. Ick! One time I was helping someone reposition a patient in bed. My only request was that the person not fling the covers (b/c of my intense phobia of that flaky skin). Well, when I was kneeling down emptying the foley bag, this person took the covers and gave them a good shake. Gross. I kept thinking skin got in my mouth. My favorite :uhoh21: is when I'm assessing someone and take their socks off and there goes tons of dry skin. I always feel like its all over me, and in my mouth!

This reminds me of an article that I read last year about a Nurse assistant in a nursing home in Texas. He was arrested for using drugs....he was taking the fentanyl patches:barf02: off of the old folks and cooking them in water, then injecting the water....all I could think about was that flaky flaky skin and those horrid skin things on the oldsters floating around in the fentanyl broth....eeewwww, you'd really have to be a junkie to do that!

lortarn · Jan 11, 2006

Reply abput office people who tell you how to do your job.

This was a big problem for a while where I worked. Once I was in triage with a baby diff breathing, and the registration person brought another child back by the triage (small head lac) and was waving her hands outside my door and I had to come out and tell them to go back to the waiting room. Reg was lucky not to be the next pt after that stunt. Another time was telling me that there was a pt with a really bad thigh lac that needed to be brought back right away of course couldn't answer any questions about severity since, "that not my Job" So since I couldn't see pants on brought pt to triage found out it was a 3 day old punture wound and was just here for a Td update. Every lac was an emergency, then she compained to medical director that I yelled at her. Finally she left for a job in the billing office never so glad to someone go!

jennyga · Jan 11, 2006

Hi, I am new here!!! What I want to know is what gets to you? I think we all have something that just really makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you have to take care of it.
I can't stand FINGER INJURIES!!!!!!!!! It just makes me cringe to see them.
I would rather take care of an amputated limb than a mangled finger.

Welcome! I am new too! Simular to you, I cant stand Cleaning finger nails! I can handle blood and stinkies:p , but not dirt under nails! Ask me why? I dont know!

mshooha · Jan 11, 2006

This reminds me of an article that I read last year about a Nurse assistant in a nursing home in Texas. He was arrested for using drugs....he was taking the fentanyl patches:barf02: off of the old folks and cooking them in water, then injecting the water....all I could think about was that flaky flaky skin and those horrid skin things on the oldsters floating around in the fentanyl broth....eeewwww, you'd really have to be a junkie to do that!

Oh EEEWWW!!! I about lost it over that one!!

Possum · Feb 23, 2006

Maggots in wounds, and faeces from your knee's to your neck really gets to me!! And all the other nurses take a run from it, and leave u there to do it all by your self!

while you have a pt vomiting up Charcol!!

weesyanne · Feb 23, 2006

I think sputum is the grossest thing that I see routinely. Now for something I don't see every day, how about roaches crawling all over a patient when they are first admitted? They brought their little friends to the hospital! :barf02:

cancalbloop · Feb 24, 2006

I can handle poop, vomit, sputum, blood alright but when it comes to changing a colostomy bag, look out because that's when I'll want to puke.

Where is some Vick's when I need it!? :-)

jonear2, RN · Feb 24, 2006

ok, 2 things get to me... c-diff poop and assisting with a bone marrow biopsy. the c-diff reeks worse than anything, almost a sour/sweet sticky smell. and the sight of grinding into someone's bone..uuuugggghhhhh.