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..
As students, my friend and I always had to do the really gross things. Low man on the totem pole, I guess. Anyways, one day on a med surg floor, my friend comes to me, asking for help with a really obese patient. She was going to do the the humane thing and bathe this lady, because she smelled- BAD. This poor lady was so obese, my friend needed me to "lift the fat" so she could clean her up. (we're talking in excess of 500 pounds here) So, I happily agree to help. D'OH! About two minutres into it, my friend suddenly gasps! and runs out of the room, waving at me to follow. She looked so stupefied. She tells me, "you gotta go back in there and look at this, 'cause I don't know what to think!" :uhoh21: Oh Great... Back in this lady's room, my friend pulls back this large "flap", and there is a 3 to 4 inch thick layer of nasty, cheesey looking yeast growing on this woman's body!!! It was in every crack and crevice, and the smell was beyond putrid. I stepped back, agast, and proceeded to grab about 60 wascloths from the supply room. We literally wiped this stuff up and threw them away, there was no way we were going to rinse them out. We were both gagging, and trying really hard to not show it. I'm sure this poor lady was horrified herself, but GEEZ! For the next year in nursing school, every time this friend asked for help, I would say "It's not gonna make me vomit- is it?" or, "you already owe me your first-born..." I think though, that was a baptism by fire, because now,nothing grosses me out anymore.
Dang it all, and I was expecting to see you tell it was a dead cat or a dead rat there. I'm disappointed. I've had a few of them pigpens myself, and when I was in nursing school, I referred to him as such. He was a middle aged bachelor with diabetes, and was my surgical follow through for the day. It leterally took two surgical scrub brushes and two people to clean him. Then after he was shaved and smelling oh so much better, (because IMHO human cruddy crust is worse than the smell of a dead animal) he said, "I miss my brothers." (They smelled just like he did prior to being scrubbed)
I would say "It's not gonna make me vomit- is it?" or, "you already owe me your first-born..." I think though, that was a baptism by fire, because now,nothing grosses me out anymore.
Hello T I see that you finally saw what the heck I was talking about. I think you thought that I was asking you for your nasty stories when indeed I was trying to get you to read these.
I like that story and yes alot of obese patients tend to have crusty cheddar funk in their rolls. Always nice to look at after having oatmeal for breakfast, the smell just isnt the same though. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Before I became an LPN, I was a CNA. I was in a resident's room with an LPN who was performing trach care on the resident. She was an older nurse with many years under her belt (one of the best). She was leaning over the patient with her mouth open and the resident coughed forcefully out his trach and the slime went directly in her mouth. I thought I was going to loose it. She went running out of the room. She told me later "When you become a nurse..don't do trach care with your mouth open."
Specializes in LTC, assisted living, med-surg, psych.
I would say "It's not gonna make me vomit- is it?" or, "you already owe me your first-born..." I think though, that was a baptism by fire, because now,nothing grosses me out anymore.
Hello T I see that you finally saw what the heck I was talking about. I think you thought that I was asking you for your nasty stories when indeed I was trying to get you to read these.
I like that story and yes alot of obese patients tend to have crusty cheddar funk in their rolls. Always nice to look at after having oatmeal for breakfast, the smell just isnt the same though. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Reminds me of the poor woman I admitted this evening just before shift change. She's 27 and is MR/DD, and she's a cat's hair shy of 400#. She was admitted for cellulitis of her left leg......a leg that looked as if she has elephantiasis, along with this unspeakable brownish, odoriferous cottage-cheesy stuff in the folds of both the leg and under her belly. Even the doctor was revolted. I had three first-year nursing students with me, and their eyes were huge---quite a sight to see (and a smell to smell :uhoh21: ) when you're a newbie, but to their credit they all stayed and even did part of her assessment. Gutsy kids.......I think if I'd seen something like that in my first semester, I might not be where I am now!
Hello T I see that you finally saw what the heck I was talking about. I think you thought that I was asking you for your nasty stories when indeed I was trying to get you to read these.
I like that story and yes alot of obese patients tend to have crusty cheddar funk in their rolls. Always nice to look at after having oatmeal for breakfast, the smell just isnt the same though. :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
Reminds me of the poor woman I admitted this evening just before shift change. She's 27 and is MR/DD, and she's a cat's hair shy of 400#. She was admitted for cellulitis of her left leg......a leg that looked as if she has elephantiasis, along with this unspeakable brownish, odoriferous cottage-cheesy stuff in the folds of both the leg and under her belly. Even the doctor was revolted. I had three first-year nursing students with me, and their eyes were huge---quite a sight to see (and a smell to smell :uhoh21: ) when you're a newbie, but to their credit they all stayed and even did part of her assessment. Gutsy kids.......I think if I'd seen something like that in my first semester, I might not be where I am now!
]Cant believe I have been sitting here reading this ENTIRE thread for the past 2 hours! I kept thinking "one more page and I will go to bed"... dang it ... the one more page soon became the LAST page!
]Cant believe I have been sitting here reading this ENTIRE thread for the past 2 hours! I kept thinking "one more page and I will go to bed"... dang it ... the one more page soon became the LAST page!
Two particular stories come to mind. I used to work in a rural hospital. Years ago in OB when we still did enema's. I gave this woman her enema and hundreds of worms were swimming in the bed pan. The specimens were sent to the lab and she had like 6 different kinds of worms. Her baby was in isolation the whole time she was in. It was a vag delivery and back then they stayed for 3 days. Those 3 days seemed so much longer. Poor child, she must be 20 years old or so by now. I hope it she doing better than her mother was at that age. Second, just last week we had a morbidly obese woman on med/surg who stunk and we decided to bath her pronto. As we undressed her she had cockroaches in her clothes. When lifting up her belly flap to clean, yup, out ran another of those little suckers. Can you imagine having cockroaches crawling in your clothes and on your body? oohhhhh makes me shiver just thinking about it again. I have also seen some pretty nasty gangrene cases. People from the hills that never took care of their diabetes, or probably didn't even know they were diabetic. The rural hospital could be very interesting !!! Yuck !!!
Two particular stories come to mind. I used to work in a rural hospital. Years ago in OB when we still did enema's. I gave this woman her enema and hundreds of worms were swimming in the bed pan. The specimens were sent to the lab and she had like 6 different kinds of worms. Her baby was in isolation the whole time she was in. It was a vag delivery and back then they stayed for 3 days. Those 3 days seemed so much longer. Poor child, she must be 20 years old or so by now. I hope it she doing better than her mother was at that age. Second, just last week we had a morbidly obese woman on med/surg who stunk and we decided to bath her pronto. As we undressed her she had cockroaches in her clothes. When lifting up her belly flap to clean, yup, out ran another of those little suckers. Can you imagine having cockroaches crawling in your clothes and on your body? oohhhhh makes me shiver just thinking about it again. I have also seen some pretty nasty gangrene cases. People from the hills that never took care of their diabetes, or probably didn't even know they were diabetic. The rural hospital could be very interesting !!! Yuck !!!
Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
This is the very reason we are nurses. We are a unique bunch in that we become fixated on, talk about, and laugh at all the sick, yucky stuff, and we have such a sick sense of humor. I just looooove it. Gotta love a nurse. Lots of people would gag, pass out, or be revolted at the stuff we deal with on a daily basis.:rotfl:
I just looooove it.
FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I
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