What Is Your Most Gross, Yucky, Disgusting Nursing Horror Story?

[yazisizit]

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!)

And of course, now so did I!

[babynurselsa, RN]

I can take nearly anything. What nearly undoes me though is to walk into the pelvic room in the ER and the pt will be lying on a stretcher. Her friend will be lyying on the pelvic bed and have a bag of chips sitting on the pelvic tray where we lay the speculums and swabs etc.

I know that these folks just aren't processing what they are doing but it is just a huge heebie for me.

[squeakykitty]

So when, on late night TV, do we see the ad:

"Do you have a fat unsightly scrotum"

"Do nurses have trouble lifting it out of the way"

And then, the advertisement for scrotum shrinker.

"Next, on the Jerry Springer show, Men with large scrotums and prostitutes that love them"

:roll :chuckle

[lberghood]

This is a great topic, we can share these without upsetting family members at the dinner tableLOL

I have a few

As a student i walked into a sweet little old lady's room to collect her breakfast tray and found her disimpacting herself... WITH A METAL FORK!!!!

I worked in a spinal cord injury unit for adolescents and saw horrendous pressure ulcers and we also had spina bifida kids before latex allergies were well known. These patients had a tendency to also be allergic to the metal hardware used in spinal fusions. we had a couple of patients who rejected the hardware so badly that it literally ate up their tissue and we would have to do sterile dressing changes in the OR and you could literally see their spines.

In home health care, i had a patient that was trach vent dependent and would be hospitalized for respiratory distress only to stabilize immediately in the hospital. As soon as she would come home and be connected to her ventilator, she would almost immediately go into respiratory distress. It was a mystery. I was doing a program for Health Partners on asthma and learned that the cockroach mite was the leading cause of asthma in inner city children. Well, we put 2 and 2 together, opened up her ventilator and you guessed it,... it was full of cockroaches. Home care itself has a tons of material for this topic.

This has been fun, thanks

[G'smommy]

I got one!! An NPO elderly lady in the ICU would just not give up on having some water to drink. So we walk by her room and see her chugging her JP drain full of blood! She drank a whole JP drain full and had a little blood mustache.

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

I got one!! An NPO elderly lady in the ICU would just not give up on having some water to drink. So we walk by her room and see her chugging her JP drain full of blood! She drank a whole JP drain full and had a little blood mustache.

Things that make you go:

[PeachPie]

I once worked with an absolutely annoying and hypocritical CNA who claimed that God sent her to do this work, and was a religious zealot to the point that she tried to convert a Jewish staff member under the logic that she'd go to hell if she didn't accept Jesus. Some geriatric residents have a habit of gripping onto anything, which can be quite dangerous when lifting. Most people gently break the grip, but she'd claim that we were hurting them, and she would kiss their hands to encourage them to let go. This in itself is pretty dirty, but one day she was assigned to a man who is a chronic diaper-digger (his family refuses restraints of any kind). I had cleaned up his poopy Jackson-Pollack room painting up earlier (we've all grown accustomed to this), but since he had a cast, all I could do was give him a bed bath, which only visibly cleaned up the brown. He also has a habit of gripping onto anything. I tried to explain to her that the hand she was kissing had been covered in feces and had been down his diaper several times since I last cleaned him, but she get very defensive and started calling me bossy, know-it-all, rude, etc. I kept trying to tell her, but she got angry and I left rather than confront her pot-calling-the-kettle-black screaming rant. Yes, she used the hand-kissing technique on him. I tried to tell her a few more times, but she accused any advice from anyone, even the nurses, as insults to her intelligence. I guess that ignorance is bliss.

[nursejohio, ASN, RN]

He also has a habit of gripping onto anything. I tried to explain to her that the hand she was kissing had been covered in feces and had been down his diaper several times since I last cleaned him

That's the reason I get antsy anytime I have a patient touch ungloved skin. Even the ones who have always seemed A&O have surprised with something distinctly chocolate looking under the nails :barf01:

[PeachPie]

I used to work with a CNA who would never wear gloves, even if the resident had herpes or if she was doing pericare. She had long, nasty nails and large ornate rings too. I'd offer her gloves, but she'd refuse. I later found out that the only time that she'd wear gloves was if she was taking care of a black person. I didn't see her wash her hands either. I don't know how she got a CNA license, as she hardly spoke English and could never comprehend the risks stemming from utter lack of hygiene.

[APP]

Screw nursing... I'm going to make my fortune making and selling full body-condoms for nurses!

[elizabells, BSN, RN]

This one falls under both gross and stupid - in the NICU I'm precepting in, we measure ostomy output by attaching an 8Fr feeding tube to a syringe and aspirating from the bag, because it's hard to position the babies right to just drain it out. So the other day, I'm feeling stupid, my eyes are a little fuzzy, and there's all this dang air in the syringe and I can't really do the math to subtract the air from the total volume to get the amount of stool. So what do I, genius that I am, do? Thaaaat's right, I hold the syringe upright and hit the plunger to get the air out. And the stool went a-flyin.

Marla, I luurrrrrrve your sig quote.

[MMARN, BSN, RN]

This one falls under both gross and stupid - in the NICU I'm precepting in, we measure ostomy output by attaching an 8Fr feeding tube to a syringe and aspirating from the bag, because it's hard to position the babies right to just drain it out. So the other day, I'm feeling stupid, my eyes are a little fuzzy, and there's all this dang air in the syringe and I can't really do the math to subtract the air from the total volume to get the amount of stool. So what do I, genius that I am, do? Thaaaat's right, I hold the syringe upright and hit the plunger to get the air out. And the stool went a-flyin.

Marla, I luurrrrrrve your sig quote.

I'm sorry, but that is fuuuunnyyyy!!

[PeachPie]

Screw nursing... I'm going to make my fortune making and selling full body-condoms for nurses!

With air-tight face masks and windshield wipers on the goggles?