What Is Your Most Gross, Yucky, Disgusting Nursing Horror Story?

[yazisizit]

I was working a night shift on a tele floor as a new Nurse.

We had this one poor old lady who was confused and was restrained as usual for her safety. She was our designated resident nightmare geri from hell, so she was placed near the Nurse's station.

So we are chilling out at the Nurse's station, chatting and trying to get through another night...

Suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I see our lady in question standing in the dimly lit doorway of her room!

I instantly leap out and run to her. As I approach her, she appears to be falling towards me, so I meet her in a bear hug...my arms around her waste, and her arms around my shoulders.

As I catch the lady, I notice a very strong smell of feces, and I feel something warm on my hands, arms and shoulders...

My fellow heroes come in behind me, and as the lights are turned on, my worst fears are instantly realized.

Yes, I caught the poor old lady with a good old bear hung football catch, but I was also covered in the lady's feces.

As I look at her, she has feces smeared all over her arms and hands... (and even her face!)

And of course, now so did I!

[wishiwereanurse, BSN, RN]

I agree that untreated breast cancer is a horrific site to see and even very bad to smell. It smells just like rotting or decomposing flesh. I too have seen it. But I have never ever seen or heard of head lice balling up in a lump inside the scalp. That's a very new one on me. Yuck.

yep, this happened in a third world country where I was schooled though... had seen lots of people with lots of lice... sometimes I even borrow the kids playing at the street and offer to brush their hair with those fine-toothed combs, a sheet of copy paper can be filled up in less than ten strokes...its gross! The people couldnt afford Nix so I guess they just try to live with the lice.

Oh there was also this one time, when I had rotation in an ER, they brought in a woman with ascaris worms coming out of her nose and throat, she died after a few days...uuuggghhh!!! That one gave me nightmares!

[Diahni]

Good one Viva! Did you ever take a career aptitude test? They never seem to test for one's ability to deal with this kind of thing. But when you start nursing school, boy, it becomes very apparent very quickly.

Diahni

[Diahni]

yep, this happened in a third world country where I was schooled though... had seen lots of people with lots of lice... sometimes I even borrow the kids playing at the street and offer to brush their hair with those fine-toothed combs, a sheet of copy paper can be filled up in less than ten strokes...its gross! The people couldnt afford Nix so I guess they just try to live with the lice.

Oh there was also this one time, when I had rotation in an ER, they brought in a woman with ascaris worms coming out of her nose and throat, she died after a few days...uuuggghhh!!! That one gave me nightmares!

Somewhat off topic, but important: Do you need Nix or other pesticides to control lice? Obviously these products aren't available in some countries. I have heard of dangerous stuff to use, like kerosene, but aren't there less toxic things to use? Poverty often includes a lack of access to info. Anybody know?

Diahni

[mgalloLPN]

caught a ninety yo in bed with the van driver once. They weren't losing any time either. She had a smile on her face, but he got fired.

EWE!

:hhmth:

[Diahni]

EWE!

:hhmth:

Maybe they should have given him a different job?

[BigPapa60]

Two unforgettable requests. Let me set this scene correctly. I'm a 290 pound big burly guy with some redneck personality features, but I'm not a bit homophobic, I think. I had a large male quadraplegic patient one evening that was delightful, articulate, and very knowledgeable of his condition and care requirements. He also had the ususal bowel obsession that occurs when you have nothing else to worry about. He was anxiously concerned about getting his Ducolax suppository to initiate his "bowel cleansing", and I should have been also. I rolled him on his side, inserted the suppository and told him I would check back later. He instructed me that later I would need to "dig" (pronounced d-i-j) him to complete the cleansing. I just smiled and said "no problem, I'll take care of things". As promised I returned for the clean-up to find he had given birth to a noxious five pound German chocolate cake batter, (you know...sticky, nutty, pasty). After many successful and strenuous efforts to make sure all the creases and folds were clean, he put the icing on the cake. "OK, I'M READY FOR YOU TO 'DIG' ME NOW". I was perplexed. How could there be more? So I regloved, applied the K-Y to my finger only to hear two phrases I never want to hear a man say to me again...ever. "NOW JUST STICK IT IN AS FAR AS YOU CAN... THEN WIGGLE IT AROUND AND MAKE BIG CIRCLES." I nearly lost it. As I scraped the rectal vault for the third time the patient calmly asked "DID YOU GET OUT ALL THE MUCOUS?" (You know, the cake icing stuff) To which I politely replied "You're clean as a whistle, inside and out, see ya."

[And to think, I chose this profession.]

[ssouthernyankee]

Somewhat off topic, but important: Do you need Nix or other pesticides to control lice? Obviously these products aren't available in some countries. I have heard of dangerous stuff to use, like kerosene, but aren't there less toxic things to use? Poverty often includes a lack of access to info. Anybody know?

Diahni

Diahni, I use to work @ a school that a very high % of students were poverty stricken we use to send home bottles of shampoo with green tree tea oil mixed in. It worked well at preventing reinfestation, most kids we treated at school when lice was discovered and we used a little stronger mixture of the tea oil/ shampoo and it too worked well.

[Diahni]

Diahni, I use to work @ a school that a very high % of students were poverty stricken we use to send home bottles of shampoo with green tree tea oil mixed in. It worked well at preventing reinfestation, most kids we treated at school when lice was discovered and we used a little stronger mixture of the tea oil/ shampoo and it too worked well.

wow - that's good to know! tea oil! The pesticide shampoo give me the creeps!

thanks,

Diahni

[Xxentrick]

Wish I could have seen the maggots dancing....

thanks for sharing this one :)

[Diahni]

Wish I could have seen the maggots dancing....

thanks for sharing this one :)

It's been said before but EEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWW......

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

Oh there was also this one time, when I had rotation in an ER, they brought in a woman with ascaris worms coming out of her nose and throat, she died after a few days...uuuggghhh!!! That one gave me nightmares!

I saw this one. :eek:They get in the lungs first and breed there.Now aren't you glad you mentioned it? NOT I know, because I couldn't get my mind off of it for a long time either.

[missnurse1]

Ok so this one is kinda different and kinda sad too but here goes... First I must explain that as well as being an RN I also serve on the local First Responder unit as an EMT. One night at about 2 in the AM we got a call to respond to a residence just outside of town. The wife had called 911 requesting an ambulance for her husband that had not been feeling well for a few days. She said he had not eaten in a while and just wasn't acting like himself. May I also add that she said he had chills and she just couldn't get him warm enough. You may know where Im going with this... When we arrived on the scene we found the man laying on the floor with a schrine of food dishes (full) sitting around him. He truly had not eaten for a while. As you have probably guessed, he was deceased. To make matters worse, his wife, bless her heart, tried to warm him up by keeping the temperature in the house a balmy 90 degrees. Because of the heat and the time that had passed, well...he was very decomposed, was completely soiled with urine and feces and had begun leaking fluid from all over! The smell alone was enough to send several responders outside to "collect themselves." When we had to turn him to get him on the gurney, it was very apparent that he had probably been laying there for several, several days if not longer... Had to take the area rug he was laying on outside as it was completely covered in body fluids. In a wierd sort of way it was sweet though, she loved him literally until the end.