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!)
Nurses ROCK when it comes to gross stories!!!! I have two short but gross ones..... Had a thirtysomething man in for wound care and IV abo therapy. He was about 6 and 1/2 feet tall, approw 350 lbs, and very rarely showered. He had scabbed and infected areas over his whole body. They never got any better and in desperation the M.D. ordered the wounds to be scrubbed with betadine 3x per day. The Doc knew something he forgot to tell the nurses, but we soon found out. The reason the wounds weren't healing is because the patient had a habit of CULTIVATING, HARVESTING, AND EATING HIS SCABS!!!!!He began refusing woundcare because the betadine changed the FLAVOR OF THE SCABS!!!! EWWWWW!!!! The second story is about an immobile patient who was unable to speak. She had chronic ear infections and one day began draining yellow pus from her ears. The CNA came and got me and we turned her on her side so I could look in her ears. Out tumbled tons of smelly maggots! When we turned her the other way, the same thing happened to the other ear. I flushed until clear, and you know what? She NEVER had another ear infection!
That is so nasty I almost threw up with the maggots and ear story
YUCK! The poor patient not being able to speak and having to suffer with that is so awful. Poor thing!
One of my worst times, just to think back-I also worked in Psych. We had a lady who used to "pee" in paper cups and save them on her dresser. Well, one day, we went onto her room to make sure they were disposed of and clean it up and (of course it was her monthly time) she was drinking from the paper cups!!!! I almost lost it right there. I couldn't hardly look at her for a long time without stopping myself from vomitting.
One of my best friends is named Jeff, and we work in the ED together, one day this man comes in to the ED and falls to his knee's and grabs his lower abdomen, and lower back. The guy is screaming, because of the pain. We both instantly think disecting AAA, and get him on a cart, and started getting IV"S in him, and assesing him. Suddenly he yells I'm going to puke. Jeff bends over to get an emesis basin from under the cart, and I reached for one by the sink. I saw the patient lean over the cart and start to heave in Jeff's direction. I honestly tried to push Jeff out of the way, but the patient puked right on Jeff's head, and down my arm. To this day I remember looking up and seeing Jeff standing there with kidney Beans running down his head. It turned out our AAA was actually a chili overdose. Being the GOOD friend, that I am I helped organize a Chili carry in for Jeff the following week.:chuckle :chuckle :chuckle
These stories are great. Nothing is more entertaining than a room full of nurses talking about their most disgusting moments. Here are a few of my own, hope you enjoy...
First one was told to me by a friend who is a resp. therapist ( I'm very glad I didn't experience this first hand) He was caring for a long term trach patient. This patient was non- compliant with trach care and had come in for a smelly fungal infection at the trach site. The therapist set out trach care supplies and started to review proper trach care when the patient told him that took to long instead she took the inner cannula out of her trach and sucked it clean!! Yes I said sucked it clean. The RT couldn't tell the story without gagging.
The next two stories aren't that disgusting but humorous. I once cared for a parapalegic patient who used a texas cath. Well, I guess he had trouble keeping the cath in place so he decided to duct tape the cath to his member. Needless to say he had one nasty tape burn. The next story was from my nursing school days. I had clinicals with a very hyper , Type A nursing student. She had bathed her 80yr old patient and when I went in to she if she needed any help I noticed that her patient had a prolapsed uterus and the student had washed and powdered the entire thing!
Hey guys! Thanks for all the wonderful stories! I know now for sure that I can handle being a nurse (I'm a student right now) because only the earwax story made me queasy. Thanks for the reassurance!
And YES he was oriented and supposedly intelligent....
I'd like to know what the heck happens to these poeple when they end up in an ICU bed????
I had a completely oriented firefighter (yeah, a firefighter!) once in our ICU, he too was spitting all over the place and blowing snot out of his nose, not into a tissue, it was more like cover one nare and blow and wherever it went is where it went. There was no reasoning with him until I said, and get this, I'm going to call the doctor to come and talk with you about this if you don't stop it. He stopped. Jerk.
We use leeches at our hospital. It's pretty nasty (pt is usually sedated) but very effective!!
We were in OR one day working on a patient, because our radiology table would not hold the patient, he was 5 5 and 550lbs. we got him over onto the table, and he looks me right in the eye, and tells me I have to lift his scrotum, because he can't. OK this is bad enough right, of course not. I lift the sheet, and there is this scrotum, that would make an elephants look small. It had to weight at least 40 lbs, and was cover with warts. They really don't pay us enough for this kind of work. :confused: :confused:
That is one BIG scrotum! Makes me wonder, if he lost weight, would he lose it in his scrotum? Hmmm, let's think about that for a minute.... on second thought, let's not go there!
after 10m years of ER nursing I can keep them coming. We had this one "lady" we all call the Voodoo Lady. She came in on Christmas Eve Covered in stool. Both her and her sister were wearing Santa costumes. No I am not making this up. The lady ended up being septic, When she was undressed she had rabbit fur glued all over her chest, and a real rabbits foot on her valuable list. The Infection Disease Specialist was called in, because they couldn't find the source of her infection. He did a pelvic, and found rice wrapped in tissues stuffed up her lady parts. to make a long story short. they lady coded twice, and finally ended up dying in a LTC facility. Of course she coded both times when I was working, and her "chest" was so large, that everytime I did chest compressions I got slapped by her. I know this sounds too hard to believe, but this is totally true.
:confused: 
;) 
ShelleyERgirl, LPN
436 Posts
That is so nasty I almost threw up with the maggots and ear story
YUCK! The poor patient not being able to speak and having to suffer with that is so awful. Poor thing!