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!)
When u have a procedure of catheterization and your colleague missd the proper kinking of tube so that the urine may not get out Bcoz the
The urobag is not yet attach then a flush of urine scattered in the area until it splashed into his mouth yacks ...thats the work of an absentminded nurse
I once had a renal patient, 30 something who's peripheral vascular system was non existent. Pt was full code, fingers, toes, other needed parts were necrotic. We would round on him only to find certain appendages detached laying in the bed.
I heard that someone with their BSN was cleaning poop. EWWWWWWWWWWWW
No shame in a little (hopefully!) poop shoveling -- or as I'd rather think of it --compassionate patient care.
I have a MSN and have never felt poop cleaning up" is beneath me, whether it's as a nurse, mom of several cats and two dogs who produce elephant-sized poop, diaper changer of visiting small dignitaries, whatever...
I can think of several things that could be grosser. Now back to our regularly scheduled program.
I had a patient who had a very active GI bleed and was using the bedside commode because he was so weak. Even though he had toilet paper he must have used some wipes that shouldn't be flushed but there was so much blood I didn't know. When I dumped the commode contents into the toilet and flushed the toilet overflowed and flooded the whole bathroom with blood and toilet water
I eve shoveled poop when I lived on a farm. It's excellent fertilizer.
Frannie, you sound just like my dad! After I had worked my way through having mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, etc. as pets, he said from time to time that working with their poop would have a huge advantage over processing elephant dung into exotic fertilizer, because all you'd need for tools would be a couple of pairs of tweezers!
This reminds me of a question someone asked Mrs. Truman.
Q. "Bess! Can't you get him to at least call it fertilizer?"
A. " Are you kidding?! It's taken me more than thirty years to get him to call it manure!"
My horror story? Working12 hours at night, rarely a lunch break, not many nurses around, no aide, and unable to return narcs in the 60 min time frame. Yes they were returned/wasted, but not within the hour.....year later the board is knocking on my door? Seriously? Hospital never tested me (would have been negative) sister company I worked for afterwards tested as part of hiring process (negative)....now my license is in question. You are GUILTY until proven innocent. And to prove your innocence you are to pay for a three year program that doesn't even allow beer? Wow. Something's wrong. The End
) poop shoveling -- or as I'd rather think of it --compassionate patient care.
FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I
3,619 Posts
A nurse is a nurse no matter what rank