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've been a CNA for about 3 years now. I've spent most of that 3 years on my nursing home's "behavior unit". Basically we have all the patients with dementia, schizophrenia, and most other mental illnesses. Another CNA and I were doing my rounds when we went into one room to check on a pt. We found that she had a BM since the last time we changed her. It was balled up in her hands. So we put gloves on and tried to take it away from her. She started to freak out and exclamed. "YOU CAN'T HAVE MY CHEESEBURGER!!!". And took a BIG bite out of her BM. We spent the next half hour washing her up and cleaning BM out of her teeth!
So in my first year of nursing school I was watching my instructor suction a man with a tracheostomy. We were all highly entertained watching her, all in gowns and she has protective eyewear on because she said 'you never know'. She was suctioning and felt she had done a satisfactory job and she went to put the suction down when he started to gurgle again. She went to put it back to suction and all of a sudden he coughed and he sprayed all over her, in her hair, on her scrubs...everywhere. It was pretty gross!
:eek: I was working as cna in nursing home and in school for lpn anyway pt was in geriactric chair and was puting her to bed pick her up plop something fell on my shoe mind you there white so i kinda kicked it off come to find out it was prolapsed uterus ewewewe!!!!!!!!!!!
When I was a 2nd year student, I went into a little old lady's house (on a community placement) to do a dressing on her head. I pulled about a meter of packed gauze out of a hole in her head, and had to clean bright green pus off raw skull and what was almost definately meninges.
Specializes in Med Surge, Tele, Oncology, Wound Care.
I had a patient who had a huge abdominal wound and schizophrenia. He had this deep abdominal wound debrided and a wound-vac placed.
He would scream from his room "help me I am bleeding," a lot. Each time I would go in and find him in bed laughing. This happened six times! Not to mention several times the day before as per the PM shift.
He then started screaming again and I was in another room doing a dressing change. I didnt think much of it because he gave me six false alarms.
Finally 10 min later I go in his room to find blood everywhere!!! He was in bed saying "look what happens when I cough." He then started coughing and each time his intestines would ooze from his abdomen. Then out of the corner of my eye I see the wound vac and the sponge on the floor. He then started pulling his "worms," aka intestines out and finding so much enjoyment from it. I realized he has pulled the wound-vac off and must have ripped his wound open.
I had never seen so much blood, it was trailed all over the room.
He went to emergency surgery and the entire time he was screaming from the stretcher "I told you I was bleeding!" "I told you I was bleeding!" as he was pointing at me. It was so scary! I learned my lesson.
I once went to help a lady who was calling out. Well, I leaned in to her to ask her what the matter was, and she PUKED on me! I tried to hold it together... I really did.
this man came into the ER because he had fallen and hurt his shoulder. well that ended up being the least of his worries. this man hadn't had a bath in about say....5 years? whats worse is that his socks were embedded into his skin and had to be cut off!! the skin underneath was so necrotic and his toenails were so long that they curled underneath his toes. it was awful.
I had a friend that had received a homeless pt as an admit from the ER. I offered assistance bathing the pt as he was exceedingly odiferous; and, from experience, I knew moral support was required for this particular bath. So, as we are cleansing his genitalia, we noticed his 'shorties' moving; upon further investigation, suddenly his bush erupted and THOUSANDS (well, probably less that that- but it SEEMED like thousands) of spiders evacuated and ran for dear life!!! I was so grossed out. They WERE spiders, by the way- but he did have scabies and other fun little roomies on his person in addition. Oh my word! What fun we nurses have! Keep the secret, because if the world knew how glamorous our jobs were, they would all want in on the action- and, of course, the massive paychecks. hehehe
Omg, I hate to admit it, but I probably would have lost all professionalism and completely freaked out! I am PETRIFIED of spiders! Ew ew ew my skin is crawling... You're a braver person than I am!
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
:eek: I was working as cna in nursing home and in school for lpn anyway pt was in geriactric chair and was puting her to bed pick her up plop something fell on my shoe mind you there white so i kinda kicked it off come to find out it was prolapsed uterus ewewewe!!!!!!!!!!!
:lol2::lol2:I know, it's my sick sense of humor, but I can't help it. I was conditioned to this stuff when I was a child. I saw my mother's intestines laying out on her leg. She was a large woman. It was early one summer morning, the dew was still covering everything, and as she was climbing onto the seat of the hay mower, her foot slipped on the wet step and as she fell, the lever that controlled the mower blade jammed into her intestinal area. My brother was only 12 at the time, and he lifted her off and laid her in front of a stack of hay.
Had a pt lose their dentures. Come to find out they were mixed into the poop in his diaper. He spotted them and popped them back in his mouth before I could clean them.
Specializes in Cardiology, Oncology, Hospice,IV Therapy.
I'm a home Hospice and Palliative care nurse and several weeks ago I went to see a new hospice pt and he was in a hospital bed in a very tiny livingroom. After assessing him the only place for me to sit was on the couch so I sat down and opened up my laptop. Several minutes later my pants felt very wet and realized that the couch was soaked with urine. When I was leaving I grabbed one of his blue pads and placed it on my car seat and drove up to Kmart and bought another pair of pants and then went into the bathroom to clean up and change into dry pants. Needless to say I never sit when I'm there!
Oh God, I thank You for not having to go tru d worst like all of those nurses here!!
my grossest - was doing home care a few years back. Patient refused BKA. I haf to do dressing. pt said put on a pail to 'collect' the pus that will be oozing out. i opened up the gross bandage, and big fat maggots started to jumped out and made some good 'plopping' sound into the pail! plop plop plop dey went....
my next grossest - a bgit pt decided to get really sick during night shift when there's only two nurses. he vomited pure blood AND passed out malena stools and fresh blood via anal as well!!. the whole room was full of blood and smelled of malena. poor patient though..it must have been horrible!
:lol2::lol2:I know, it's my sick sense of humor, but I can't help it. I was conditioned to this stuff when I was a child. I saw my mother's intestines laying out on her leg. She was a large woman. It was early one summer morning, the dew was still covering everything, and as she was climbing onto the seat of the hay mower, her foot slipped on the wet step and as she fell, the lever that controlled the mower blade jammed into her intestinal area. My brother was only 12 at the time, and he lifted her off and laid her in front of a stack of hay.
FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I
3,619 Posts