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!)
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
I was working in ER at the time an older gentleman came in by ambulance who had recently had abdominal surgery. He still had some staples in but apparently he had not been checking his incision and had not asked anyone else to either. (doubtful he went to his f/u appt. with the MD either) The incision was beginning to dehisce. A few of us nurses were hanging out at the nurses station when one of the nurses came running in and said she needed help. We all came running and apparently this patient had coughed and the few staples he did have popped off and his intestines were actually sitting on his lap. He was a fairly large man so he could not see past his belly and was asking, "why is everyone running around". I had asked him if he was having any pain and he had said no. I was very surprised and even the paramedics and EMT's were a little freaked by the episode. Me? I am a little on the sick side and thought it was kinda cool. Very textbook looking intestines.
I saw my mother's intestines laying out on her right thigh when I was a child. I was fascinated at the sight of them. She didn't say she was in any pain either. Back then the doctor came with the ambulance and took her to the hospital. She did get peritonitis with it which made her stay longer than usual. Her injury was a farming related injury. She slipped on a dew covered step on the hay mower as she was getting on it, and she landed on .the handle that operated the cutting knife
I am sorry you had to see that as a child on your own mother. i am sure that helped you make your decision to be a nurse.It is definately alot easier handling anything when you don't know the person. (Except for children. i can't do children)
Here's another gross story for my fellow nurses. I work on a Med/Surg unit right now. A few months ago i received a patient from the ER who had apparently during sexual intercourse received a light bulb up his butt. Now picture this it was not the metal part but the big glass part and it apparently fit! Upon trying to pull it out it broke but only on the side of it so when they took the CT scan it was actually glowing when you held it up to the lights. What on earth was he thinking? Or Apparently not thinking. He said "I know it was deviant behavior", Deviant behavior! i say it was down right STUPID! Thanks to the fabulous surgeon we have he managed to make a midline incision and removed the light bulb without perforating the bowel. This guy was so lucky he didn't have to have a colon resection with a colostomy for the rest of his life. the surgeon had asked him if he was drunk or high, the patient said no so we ran a UDS and sure enough he had amphetamines in his system. He drove the nurses crazy wanting pain medication and you all know some of these MD's don't want to give it up so these pt's torture us all night.
My Dad told me that once while he was working they had a male patient come in with a light bulb where the sun doesn't shine! Unfortunately for the man, though, the lightbulb broke before they could remove it and they lost him due to blood loss. Poor guy. What an awful way to go.
Rectal foreign bodies are all too common - and the bane of most endoscopy personnel. We joke that you can't call yourself a GI nurse or tech till you've come in for at least 1 rectal foreign body. I've never had to retrieve a light bulb, though, and I only know of 1 of the docs I work with who's had that experience. People put crazy things up there. I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms, but for God's sake, I wish they'd use something that's *intended* to go there.
I am with you. God only intended things to come out of there not go in. We, as nurses are the unfortunate ones to have to experience the effects of people doing these crazy things. I have heard of beer bottles and even once a can of campbell's soup. ( not sure how that happened, maybe they accidently sat on it lol)
I was working in the ER (ER people have great stories) and this young girl maybe early 20's had come in because she said her head was itching terrible. The Dr. had gone in to see her and upon assessing her head he noticed she had staples in her head. Several weeks before she had gotten into a fight and someone had hit her in her head which she had come to the ER to have repaired. She was suppose to have come back about 10-14 days later but neglected to. When the Dr. went to remove the staples he noticed something moving. It happened to maggots. The girl had braids done and didn't want to mess them up so she decided not to wash her hair. So gross!
Another gentleman had come in by ambulance and no sooner did they bring him in did the whole hallway start to smell like rotten flesh. I asked the Paramedic what the smell was and he told me it was the pt's foot. This man had his great toe amputated about 3 weeks before. He was homeless and had been living on the streets. He decided to call an ambulance when he noticed the flies circling his foot. He had not changed his socks in God only knows how long probrably b/c he didn'y have any (poor thing). When we took his shoe and sock off the smell was unbelievable (like road kill on a hot summer day) and there were maggotts all over it. It took all I had not to throw up on him. Needless to say I left the ER a few months later. I had enough of the maggotts! lol:eek:
ok, I think you just trumped every gross story I've ever heard or witnessed. You get 5 gold stars just for keeping the contents of your stomach down those days. lol
Here's another gross story for my fellow nurses. I work on a Med/Surg unit right now. A few months ago i received a patient from the ER who had apparently during sexual intercourse received a light bulb up his butt. Now picture this it was not the metal part but the big glass part and it apparently fit! Upon trying to pull it out it broke but only on the side of it so when they took the CT scan it was actually glowing when you held it up to the lights. What on earth was he thinking? Or Apparently not thinking. He said "I know it was deviant behavior", Deviant behavior! i say it was down right STUPID! Thanks to the fabulous surgeon we have he managed to make a midline incision and removed the light bulb without perforating the bowel. This guy was so lucky he didn't have to have a colon resection with a colostomy for the rest of his life. the surgeon had asked him if he was drunk or high, the patient said no so we ran a UDS and sure enough he had amphetamines in his system. He drove the nurses crazy wanting pain medication and you all know some of these MD's don't want to give it up so these pt's torture us all night.
My mom was an LVN student in the '70s, and she's seen this same scenario, too. Except in her case, the bulb shattered and he had to have the pieces surgically removed.
Being a wound specialist at my hospital, I do see lots of interresting things. Had a lady come in with untreated breast cancer, for a number of years. Her aunt and mother both had breast ca that was treated, and they did not have a good time of it. The wound exteded from her left shoulder, down to her waist (the breast was gone) around her side and up her back almost to her shoulder. I was told to meet the MD at 9 AM to see her. Let me tell you, I must have picked out at least 100 maggots from her. There was loose tissue where they had burrowed under and that made the loose tissue ripple. I did what I needed, and was fine. All was well untill I realized that I was having chicken and rice for dinner that night. Need I say more.
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
I am sorry you had to see that as a child on your own mother. i am sure that helped you make your decision to be a nurse.It is definately alot easier handling anything when you don't know the person. (Except for children. i can't do children)
It did help. It helped toughen me up, and make me curious to see more, to help others feel well, and to help aleve their suffering.
Poor guy. What an awful way to go.
FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I
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