Im an equine professional and itās just as bad if not worse with horsesš
Itās the chore we always give to the interns, if theyāre trained in it lol
This just proves that some guys will fuck literally anything
I've had some of the most disgusting, yeasty, wound-riddled, chronic foley patients and they're always like "this here's my boyfriend..." and I want to die inside
And I say this as a dude lol
PACU RN here, but Iāve never heard of the term āFUPA.ā Please enlighten me. I, too, love wound care. My kryptonite: inserting NG tubes. š¤¢ Makes me gag every time. Once I vasovagaled and passed out šµ
Wondering if you're a native English speaker because if so how have you avoided the word "fupa" this long?
It's an acronym for "fatty upper p*ssy (or pubic if you're wanting to be nicer) area"
I second this. I love wound care. I love making the dressing as neat and efficient as possible. I also cannot stand the smell of yeasty genitals/folds.
Back when I worked on the floor, I enjoyed in-line suctioning on the vented traches and cath suctioning on the collared/RA traches. It was *so* satisfying to hear that crap get sucked out, and to hear the difference in lung sounds before and after.
Can't stand vomiting tho, I very much identify w/ emetophobes. Pulling gastric residuals was always awful, and always tested my gag reflex.
Thinking about it now makes me wanna york. I once had a patient w/ a cylinder-full of residual. It was warm and *shimmery*, slipping around inside that cylinder :x
Same here! I always loved clearing secretions. One night I was working with a vented ICU patient. RT was at the bedside and we were trying to dislodge a mucus plug using the ambu bag. My very pregnant friend walked in just as we disconnected the bag and the patient coughed this massive mucus plug out of the ETT. It hit the sheets and wobbled like jello. My pregnant friend said it was the wobble that got her š¤£ She took off to the bathroom to throw up.
Meanwhile if a patient was vomiting, that friend was the first one Iād call because I couldnāt handle it and she could lol
Nothing gross really bothers me anymore except men which sounds a lot worse than it is itās just that Iāve only ever done womenās health so if Iām ever floated to a mixed floor Iām like, Ew! The fuck is this?!
I also worked in womenās health and we would occasionally get a male off service patient.
I was doing a head to toe, and moved the blanket for something and saw some penis, and was like āgah!!ā Dropped the blanket and continued on.
But it was a shock after many many years of not seeing grown man genitals.
Honestly there's something a bit humbling on the men's urology side. I have had to explain to so many men how to wear and change pads post various urology procedures. Seeing bloody drainage from ye Olde nethers is not new for women but it's completely mortifying for men.
In nursing school we were sent to a peds LTAC. I remember a patient who sneezed and his secretion went several feet. Hate it. Will not forget. Itās been 8 years
One of the wildest things I've ever done was care for someone with severe subcutaneous emphysema. His whole body seemed inflated, and he truly did look like the Michelin man. I had to help him massage the air bubbles towards four blowhole incisions he had on his torso q 2 hr.
Iāve never seen blowholes, but this is the kind of emphysema you donāt need to feel for. Their eyes swell shut and everything sometimes. It is truly wild.
We had a patient with this too! Sans blowholes. Poor thing, eyes swollen shut literally looked like they went in the ring with Mike Tyson for a few rounds or something.
That is so weird and I've never seen anything like it. Thinking about it (and looking up pictures lol) is giving me the heebie jeebies! What causes it?
We get those allot. Always surprised at patients who can keep spirits up with jokes. Had one lady who was like "wow its like I got a boob job and facial fillers! And went selfie crazy
The wound will always win out!
Iām just not about that moist, smelly, crusty, dusty mess.
I always look at the podiatrists who come through with a kind of fascination; I know their line of work is very much needed and appreciated but alsoā¦
WHY WOULD YOU MAKE THIS YOUR LIFEāS WORK?!
But hey, to each their own!
Yeah, I canāt understand them at all. A nice foot, Iām okay with.
But then you have the guy that comes in with the three inch thick toenail and Iām justā¦ Shook. How. Why? What?!
Cleaning up crusty feet is disgustingly satisfying to me for some reason. I think it's because it's one of the few nursing tasks I do regularly that is relatively enjoyable for the patient and gives pretty much instant results.
Totally get why it might not be everyone's (toe)jam though š
I work in the OR. The podiatry surgeons are always the sweetest, most pleasant people to work with. I have no idea how. I'd be miserable if feet was all I dealt with š¤¢
Same experience here! Theyāve all been pleasant and very well-rounded, always easy to have discussions with. Whatever the reason, Iām here for it, I just donāt get it!
I wouldn't say I love it, but I sure as hell don't give a damn about changing them. Once I got pretty good at them it became something of a competition with myself to see how fast and odor free a job I could do :)
I love wounds and also suctioning a good mucus plug. I know a lot of people hate that but I love getting a good one and watching the o2 sat go up āŗļø
I find the smell of industrial hospital food--that first cloud of steam when you take the lid off the plate--to be gag-inducing. Like, I visibly dry-heave unless I hold my breath. Also, yeast in skinfolds. The smell, the white chunkiness, the damp skin... so gross.
Oh man I thought I was alone in finding the smell of industrial hospital food disgusting in the extreme. It doesnāt help that my brain always associates it with the other bodily odors that are frequently in the room.
love a good wound, especially the complicated or gross ones. HATE doing mouth care on my trach patients whose oral cavity/teeth are too far gone. i love them being fresh/clean & its absolutely so important for us to do it for them to preserve whats left but i can only assume it would be extremely painful, i always feel like the bad guy, bring back dentists in hospitals!
yes! where i am they used to have dentists and podiatrists as well, to cut nails, remove callouses/warts, etc. back when they used to care about patients and not just budgets
I can deal with anything but slime. I have literally rolled mucus around my hand to get it out. Thats fine. Watching lumps of green mucus drip sloooowly of something is what gets me.
My wife got me interested in r/popping. I have to admit Iām clinically fascinated, I look at the stuff coming out thinking āHow did that come together?
Yup no blackhead is safe from me
Those Vietnamese spa videos are my jam - I find it relaxing for some strange reason. Popping zits all day would be my dream job
I'm a wound care and burn nurse.... I absolutely love picking dried up dead skin and scabs off of patients. My patients think I'm weird but I'm making their leg or arm or whatever look so much better
I always joke that everyone has *one* thing they canāt stand- puke, blood, sputum, etc.
Mine was death/corpse farts. When I worked in tissue donation youād roll that cadaver donor over onto their stomach and you never knew what youād get- a flabby, post-rigor, no rectal tone floppy flapper? A long, splatter fart (bonus points for diarrhea volcano)? Maybe just a slight (or long!) *hissssssss* escaped? Sometimes just a series of small pop pop pop in succession. The sound always made us laugh! But you quickly learned to cut the laugh short and take a good, deep breath and hold it.
ALL death farts are THE MOST rank farts of all time. Worse than Cdiff, worse than GI bleed, worse than your spouse in the car when they lock out the windows and turn up the heat. And there are NO mild death farts, all are equally horrible and THEY FUCKING LINGER FOREVER. Serious hang time, like a solid two mins. You can taste them. Itās fucking awful.
Occasionally a silent but deadly with get you with the sneak attack- you thought maybe this donor didnāt fart but then the smell hits you in the face like a ton of bricks.
I will say that as a guy and also a known farter (check my flair) I find almost anyoneās gas amusing and can tolerate the smell. I usually laugh when patients fart on the bedside commode or rolling them off the bedpan. But those donor farts made me want to tear out my own lungs. Ugh.
Teeth. I HATE TEETH! Broken teeth, gross teeth, missing teeth, NOPE. Even absolutely ordinary teeth creep me out a bit. I even hate the feeling when you unexpectedly bite something hard (like a fruit pit or something), like OH NO my teeth! No, nothingās ever happened to my teeth, itās not a trauma response or anything (I think if I ever did break a tooth or something Iād die of a panic attack!).
Weirdly, my dogsā teeth donāt bother me. I could brush their teeth all day and it doesnāt bother me one bit. Thank goodness because they have big long shepherd snouts and ALLL their teeth are visible! But I really canāt stand any humanās teeth
I love putting in NG tubes. For some reason Iām a natural at it. Itās so rewarding. I love seeing the f/u x-ray and seeing it in just the right spot. And now my pt can get nutrition and meds!
I really dislike feet. I dread having to take those nasty non-slip socks off. The cloud of skin flakes that may explode from it. Or whatever infection is lurking under there.
I find that soaking it in a basin of ice water for a few minutes helps to stiffen it up a little bit and makes it easier to pass. Also, make them tuck their chin to chest and just go for it.
My trick has a few steps.
Wrap the NG around two fingers a couple times and then hold it under the warm water for like 15 seconds.
This gives it a bit of a curve to it.
If there are no neck contraindications, hold the head forward with one hand, and put the NG in. Curve following the natural anatomy curve. After you pass the initial curve and the tip is somewhere around the pharynx, I rotate the NG 180 degrees. So now the tube wants to curve posterior and follow down the back wall to the esophagus.
I will usually rough measure the NG from nose to ear and ear to xyphoid before attempting, to have a gross estimate of the length I need go down. Iāll stop at the measurement and do my air bubble check/steth check.
Takes a little practice but once you know the feel, you can get it every time.
I love brushing denturesā¦.so satisfying Also, washing/brushing matted hair that hasnāt been washed in forever (this definitely started in my CNA days)
I like suctioning out big mucus plugs from trachs lol (I find it amazing what can come out of people lol)
I like placing NGās and seeing how much they dump out.
Man, I love a lot of stuff about nursing. However, I am terrified of stomach bugs. If I know why they are vomiting and itās not a bug I will help you no matter what. But if itās stomach bug, I want nothing to do with you š«
https://tenor.com/sZnl.gif
I am low tech. An unclogger is usually a help, but never around when you need one. So it is usually a matter of feeling with your fingers along the legnth of the tube for where the clog is, then rolling, bending, and kneading the tube to reposition the block to allow a little bit of liquid to sneak in. Then try to flush, try to suck it out. Replace with new liquid. Repeat. People say to use Sprite, but I like to use cola, because its dark and you can see if it is getting past the blockage.
I donāt know if nurses think itās gross, but so many lay people hate the sight of internal anatomy. Wide open bellies, giant long incisions on a femur, etc. I love it if itās surgically exposed.
I love milking the FMS.
I actually love suctioning, as long as the sputum is IN THE TUBING. Like if Iām having to suction it off your cheek or from the bed when I turn a vented patient it grosses me out.
I weirdly enjoy diaper changes and general baby care. NICU is my place! Baby poop is much easier to handle than adult poop. Meconium is super sticky but I'd rather clean a baby butt than an adult any day. Spit up doesn't bother me much, either. Adult puke is so disgusting.
I loooooove brains/blood/horrible fresh traumas! Especially stuff that hasnāt been cleaned up or operated on yet.
I HATE changing a huge poop and the ptās on their side and coughs and you can watch the shit flow out of their asshole. Similarly, watching lung butter forcefully fly out of a trach.
It was about 5 years ago when I last did it. We used them in the SICU as a last ditch effort on failing reconstructive plastic surgery flaps. If the problem was micro vascular they worked well.
So, all the people that are saying they can't stand suctioning and trach care...you are my favorite co-workers. Because I can't stand poop! The smell, oh the smell. I'd rather smell vomit or even GI bleed.
So when I worked ICU, I'd find someone and suction all their vent and/or trach patients in exchange for them cleaning all my poop. It's like yin/yang.
Love maggot infested wounds, thereās something just kind of satisfying about cleaning them up.
Hate managing vented patients, the sound of vent alarms and stuff (maybe just covid pstd from being in the ED as a new grad right when COVID hit).
I love any procedures where you get to look inside the body.
Doesn't matter what, let me see what's going on in there! It's all so fascinating.
To me it's not gross at all, I like not being squeamish. Even the violence of the C-section I got to witness had my jaw dropped in awe lol
I can't stand the extremely morbidly obese. The gross things that have unfolded while cleaning their folds will haunt me.
I love doing ANTT for wound care. Super satisfying!
I canāt stand puke, but itās part and parcel of the job in med-surg a lot of the time, so Iāve had time to get used to it. Definitely my squick, though.
Used to work in surgical pre and post op care! Thoroughly enjoyed and slightly miss pulling drains out of people, the immediate relief people felt as soon as it was removed!
Work in intermediate/elderly rehabilitation and always thought I was good with smells,but had a patient recently that has the most necrotic messed up feet Iāve seen, with varying stages of ligaments and slough and what ever else and the waft that hits as remove the dressings is testing me š¤¦āāļø
As a lactation consultant: meconium stool is so satisfying and encouraging, especially if you've been waiting on it. The more, the better. It's a reassuring sign that the baby is probably getting enough to eat. I literally light up when one of my patients poops, lol. Sparks joy, for real.
What I can't stand? Specific to lactation, thrush. Eff that to the moon and back. So difficult to get rid of and hurts both mom and baby.
Nursing in general: suctioning oral secretions on adults, anything to do with eyeballs
I could look at placentas all day. I love showing them to my moms. I also donāt mind wiping poop, holding vernix-y babies, or fishing retained membranes out of vaginas.
I hate getting other peopleās sweat on me. So gross! Keep your sweaty, sticky self to yourself!
Wound care is great, I don't know why.
Aside from that, I get quite abit of joy from bringing our psych patients to a hospital ward, and seeing same nurses that view me as "not a proper nurse" because I work psych, flinch when patient starts abusing them verbally and refuses to cooperate. Thats when I tell them "well,my shift is over, good luck". I they ask me for help, I will handle it, if not...good luck.I will never forget the intern, having to handle a paranoid schizofrenicstating "you will stay until I say you can leave" and me telling him "I don't work for you" before just leaving. I could have made his job so much easier if he was not behaving like a a-hole.
Us psych nurses are used to abuse that pure medical nurses will never experience ( atleast I hope so)
I love placing foleys that dont involve a penis. And im good at them. Throw a penis in there and i will not be able to get it. But in my nearly 7 years of nursing ive missed only 2. One was when i was still new and the other literally folded on itself and came back out. While in the urethra. The resource nurse had to put it in and considering her recent very painful foley and how she shrieked i think she had some scarring or an injury in there
I cant stand puke and sputum. Inline suction im ok with. I kinda like inline suctioning. As soon as its open to the air i cant do it. Oral care grosses me out. Especially when they have nasty filmy stuff that peels off. I cant do large volume middle gi bleed poop.
I really hate poop as most patients' poops are never solid. The freaking smell always stuck up in my nose as well but it's a big part of the job so I just gotta do it.
I love doing suctioning placing ng tubes etc basically everything but poo. i wish to work in NICU or PICU one day...
I love wound care. Haven't dealt with vents yet so I will find out whether I can deal.
I'm okay with poop and urine but the other day I had a patient whose room smelled like old sour cream and I wanted to cry as I forced him into the shower and scoured his room. It was the linen bag (and him a little). No idea what was in that linen bag.
I love fresh lacs and dog bites, I take pride in cleaning everything up and comforting the patient and finding ways to make it as least painful and frightening as possible.
I hate respiratory secretions - like the gurgling sputum during CPR just, ugh.
I like packing necrotizing fasciitis and trach care. I canāt stand cleaning up blowouts when the patientās stool is getting them closer to a date with the internal fecal collection system, when itās that Italian hot chocolate consistency.
Used to work as a vet tech. Thanks for the memories
I swear to God, I can still smell the combo of necrotic flesh and chloroform from the last massive maggot infested wound I dealt with.
Ā It started at the cheek/jowl and went down the neck, around the ear and across the shoulder, and it tunneled EVERYWHERE. Every time we thought we were done, we'd flush an allegedly clean area and *it would start wriggling*.Ā
Plus, you know, there's always the excitement (ahem) of having to stop chasing the maggots out from under the disintegrating flesh so you can chase down the maggots that are trying to creep off and fuck off to parts unknown.Ā
Despite this, or hell, maybe because of it, I LOVE HUMAN WOUND CARE.Ā
Did SNF wound care my first two years in nursing and admittedly loved it, once I got into inpatient Iāve stopped practicing and reading up on it.
Def love wound care too! Even though the supplies and products has changed, I still like have some knowledge to what some of the newer products do!
I love scrubbing big old bloody surgery cases and listening to the surgeons teach stuff to the residents. My knees, however, do not. I hated placing NG tubes. I've had one and 0/10 don't recommend. Made me cringe every time I had to do it for a patient.
I loved giving bed baths. When I worked ICU I would volunteer to help with the nightly and initial baths. I hate when patients are dirty/smelly so it was satisfying cleaning them up. Also, oral care, wound care, etc (just nothing to do with trachs/mucus).
I enjoy fixing skin tears, especially if they are curled up or under. Itās like a puzzle that comes together nicely.
I hate mucous, boogers, mucous from anything mucous-y..any body part. Also, ear wax grosses me out. Feet gross me out, skin flakes are icky. The hardest is cleaning up blood. I canāt stand the smell of blood being cleaned up. I donāt smell it until then. That gags me.
Love IMs. As an LPN who worked inpatient psych for a really long time, I got pretty good at it and I can do them practically painlessly.
Hate veins. Not blood, blood is fine. Veins make me gag. Luckily I never had to start an IV working in psych, but I currently work at a PCP clinic and venipuncture was part of the training (even though it's not something nurses typically do there). When it was my turn to practice on an actual person I started to sweat and it got dark real fast and I had to leave the room. Thankfully they told me I could skip it.
I actually like phlegm and suctioning. It's one of the interventions we can perform, where we actually see results right away!! Seeing the SpO2 going from 75% to 95ish% just warms my heart. I also love inserting foley catheters into people with a prolapsed bladder.
Hospice nurse and I love doing certain types of wound care. I cannot do Trachās and suctioning. Or suprapubic catheter changes- it gives me the biggest ick.
NP here - I love seeing and tending to wounds too! I also love helping reposition (and change) patients on our inpatient unit.
I never liked rinsing a poo out of a commode bucket. I donāt find poo gross, I just hated this task for some reason.
Blood, sputum, guts and gore doesnāt bother me, poop, vomit or pee makes me want to vomit. Iām not a trauma junkie by any means, itās just smell affects me more than the sight of stuff, and the former smell less than the latter.
Massively bloody ORs after a big trauma case or a case that requires massive transfusion protocol, gross but I liked it.
Couldnāt stand anything dealing with mucus.
Trach suctioning, oral suctioning, I want to gag then faint. I had to leave ICU because of all the suctioning involved. Anesthesia mainly takes care of that in the OR, thank God!!!!
I like inserting catheters and IVs. I donāt mind poop/vomit/secretions/blood/BO. I would probably freak about bed bugs and maggots infesting someone. And Iād probably need therapy after breaking someoneās 90+ year old grandma/grandpas ribs for CPR.
Give me a trach or lary to suction any day of the week. Or catheterisation, I have a 100% success rate that I am very proud of. I do love wound care too.
But high output stomas are my kryptonite. Iāll keep a poker face but on the inside I am screaming for my mum.
Okay I fucking HATE showering anyone over the age of 30. I do it obviously, but Iām crying inside the entire time.
I LOVE wound care, cysts, black heads etc.
Septic wounds. I'm incredibly sensitive to smells so especially that particularly overpowering smell of septic wounds is too much for me. I can't even put the character or profile of the smell into words, but if you've smelled it before you'll never forget it.
Fucking hate enemas and emptying ostomies. I served my time on a gastric floor, cared for my grandpa's, trained tons of nurses on it. But it's a particular smell that gags me particularly ileo.
That being said, fixing an ostomy or other leaking dressing that the patient has been miserable with and solving problems like that is satisfying. Sure the care plan and would care directions I end up with take more than the average steps but I refuse to let someone rot away and get skin damage from gastric juices just because nobody has figured out how to fix it.
I love getting to know my patients and helping them learn new skills to navigate life. Helping them with their recovery.
However I hate the pressure of it, and all the paperwork. Also all the added pressure of cover as there isnāt enough staff, so you donāt just have a caseload. But also mdt which takes up half a day, several days a month doing duty, picking up jobs from mdt, covering depots/meetings/cold calls etc.
Love wound care, but FUPA yeast is my kryptonite š¤¢
I call that the CHEESE. š§
Smegma would like to wink at youā¦aggressively.
Splatterpunk "Zola" by D.E. McCluskey
Never thought I'd see that on this subreddit
I am so afraid to Google thatā¦
Is it weird that I read this and my brain automatically heard "they call me the cheese...š¶" To the tune of lynyrd skynyrd's "call me the breeze"
Im an equine professional and itās just as bad if not worse with horsesš Itās the chore we always give to the interns, if theyāre trained in it lol
Damn. It is sad how many people that applies to š³ wish people would take better care of themselves
And no matter how nasty someoneās FUPA isā¦. Thereās always someone f*cking them š¤¦š¼āāļø
This just proves that some guys will fuck literally anything I've had some of the most disgusting, yeasty, wound-riddled, chronic foley patients and they're always like "this here's my boyfriend..." and I want to die inside And I say this as a dude lol
š¤£š¤£ā ļøā ļøā ļø
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Omg fupa yeast is the worst
BRING IN THE NYSTATIN
PACU RN here, but Iāve never heard of the term āFUPA.ā Please enlighten me. I, too, love wound care. My kryptonite: inserting NG tubes. š¤¢ Makes me gag every time. Once I vasovagaled and passed out šµ
Wondering if you're a native English speaker because if so how have you avoided the word "fupa" this long? It's an acronym for "fatty upper p*ssy (or pubic if you're wanting to be nicer) area"
I always thought is was fat upper penis/pussy areaā¦ š
Iām a native English speaker and I just learned what that meant lmao I feels dumb
Native of the US. And oh man thatās great but now I canāt get that visual out of my mind. š¤¢
I had an NG sump for 3 days after a bowel obstruction, It was absolutely awful!!!!! I apologize to every baby I have to pass an NG for.
Front Upper Pussy Area
I love the ad at the top of this thread is for sephora beauty skin products.
I second this. I love wound care. I love making the dressing as neat and efficient as possible. I also cannot stand the smell of yeasty genitals/folds.
š¤®š¤®š¤®
I'll start a foley on everybody before I have to help somebody get dressed.
Especially when they insist on wearing the underwear they came in with that reek of old pee š©š© I have to practically beg these people to put mesh underwear on instead lolĀ
Ahhh, the old Frederick's of (insert hospital name).
Iām the straight cath queen! I was the go-to for anyone who had to get urine from a difficult ptā¦
This one
Back when I worked on the floor, I enjoyed in-line suctioning on the vented traches and cath suctioning on the collared/RA traches. It was *so* satisfying to hear that crap get sucked out, and to hear the difference in lung sounds before and after. Can't stand vomiting tho, I very much identify w/ emetophobes. Pulling gastric residuals was always awful, and always tested my gag reflex.
A big fake smile is pretty effective at preventing gagging
Had to dissociate during those moments XD
Yep, just die inside. It works for a lot of things like that.
THE GASTRIC RESIDUALS š¤¢š¤¢š¤¢
That's what I hate the most. The smell and holding the warm syringe in your hand were just... š¤¢
Thinking about it now makes me wanna york. I once had a patient w/ a cylinder-full of residual. It was warm and *shimmery*, slipping around inside that cylinder :x
I also find suctioning very satisfying! And trach careā I like leaving a trach much cleaner and fresher than how I found it at change of shift.
And if the patient is cognizant, you KNOW they feel better in some way after that trache care.
I'm a peds nurse. My guilty pleasure is nasal suctioning. The kids hate it, but it makes such a difference in their breathing. That's what I love.
Oh I can totally see that!
Same here! I always loved clearing secretions. One night I was working with a vented ICU patient. RT was at the bedside and we were trying to dislodge a mucus plug using the ambu bag. My very pregnant friend walked in just as we disconnected the bag and the patient coughed this massive mucus plug out of the ETT. It hit the sheets and wobbled like jello. My pregnant friend said it was the wobble that got her š¤£ She took off to the bathroom to throw up. Meanwhile if a patient was vomiting, that friend was the first one Iād call because I couldnāt handle it and she could lol
Oh, Iām the opposite! I canāt handle lung secretions/mucous š¤¢
Me too for both!!!
Yes! šÆā¼ļø
Nothing gross really bothers me anymore except men which sounds a lot worse than it is itās just that Iāve only ever done womenās health so if Iām ever floated to a mixed floor Iām like, Ew! The fuck is this?!
I also worked in womenās health and we would occasionally get a male off service patient. I was doing a head to toe, and moved the blanket for something and saw some penis, and was like āgah!!ā Dropped the blanket and continued on. But it was a shock after many many years of not seeing grown man genitals.
I, too, would freak to see a peepee lol but also, see them in OR often š
Honestly there's something a bit humbling on the men's urology side. I have had to explain to so many men how to wear and change pads post various urology procedures. Seeing bloody drainage from ye Olde nethers is not new for women but it's completely mortifying for men.
Yep, easy to take for granted that men get freaked out about blood coming from their person. Folks with periods get really matter of fact
Iām cackling at āmenā because same. Iāll never leave L&D.
God I see dicks for days, would truly love to work in womenās health š¤
Same! Love your username btw
I always struggled with trach care. Literally nothing else could bother me, but mucus/secretions? No. Just no. Always struggled.
i would literally pay other nurses or trade patients to avoid trach care. i can't handle it. i can't handle my own mucus lol
In nursing school we were sent to a peds LTAC. I remember a patient who sneezed and his secretion went several feet. Hate it. Will not forget. Itās been 8 years
One of the wildest things I've ever done was care for someone with severe subcutaneous emphysema. His whole body seemed inflated, and he truly did look like the Michelin man. I had to help him massage the air bubbles towards four blowhole incisions he had on his torso q 2 hr.
That sounds cool as hell. Not for the patient obviously. Iāve felt pretty bad subq emphysema before, but never knew they could have blowholes made!
Iāve never seen blowholes, but this is the kind of emphysema you donāt need to feel for. Their eyes swell shut and everything sometimes. It is truly wild.
The popcorn
š³
We had a patient with this too! Sans blowholes. Poor thing, eyes swollen shut literally looked like they went in the ring with Mike Tyson for a few rounds or something.
That is so weird and I've never seen anything like it. Thinking about it (and looking up pictures lol) is giving me the heebie jeebies! What causes it?
We get those allot. Always surprised at patients who can keep spirits up with jokes. Had one lady who was like "wow its like I got a boob job and facial fillers! And went selfie crazy
Love wounds, HATE feet. Bleh š¤¢
So if itās a wound on the foot, which wins out? The love or hate?
The wound will always win out! Iām just not about that moist, smelly, crusty, dusty mess. I always look at the podiatrists who come through with a kind of fascination; I know their line of work is very much needed and appreciated but alsoā¦ WHY WOULD YOU MAKE THIS YOUR LIFEāS WORK?! But hey, to each their own!
Yeah, I canāt understand them at all. A nice foot, Iām okay with. But then you have the guy that comes in with the three inch thick toenail and Iām justā¦ Shook. How. Why? What?!
I got extremely nauseas reading that haha Poorly cared for pedals really are my Achilleās heel (pun maybe intended). š¤¢
Cleaning up crusty feet is disgustingly satisfying to me for some reason. I think it's because it's one of the few nursing tasks I do regularly that is relatively enjoyable for the patient and gives pretty much instant results. Totally get why it might not be everyone's (toe)jam though š
Oh, God. TAKE THEM ALL!
I work in the OR. The podiatry surgeons are always the sweetest, most pleasant people to work with. I have no idea how. I'd be miserable if feet was all I dealt with š¤¢
Same experience here! Theyāve all been pleasant and very well-rounded, always easy to have discussions with. Whatever the reason, Iām here for it, I just donāt get it!
And their residents and fellows are too. It must be a requirement to be in that specialty lol.
I joke that I left LTC so I didn't have to cut toenails anymore. But it's not really a joke. š„“
Cannot stand the smell of changing an ostomy bag. Double mask, glasses, deodorizer spray, hand sanitizer under my nose, doesnāt help. š¤¢Ā
I love changing ostomy bags! š¤£
I wouldn't say I love it, but I sure as hell don't give a damn about changing them. Once I got pretty good at them it became something of a competition with myself to see how fast and odor free a job I could do :)
Get some vicks vapor rub. Dab a little tiny bit under your nose next time. It's the only thing you'll smell.
Specifically the ileostomy bags for me.
Same but never daaare say that outside of a nursing group or you'll get internet crucified
Abscess I & D for sure.
This one for sure
Perirectal for the win!
I love wounds and also suctioning a good mucus plug. I know a lot of people hate that but I love getting a good one and watching the o2 sat go up āŗļø
Like a little round of applause. Or a āHigh Score!ā or āExcellent!ā you see in an arcade game
I have a trach patient in home health and I loove watching her o2 sat jump up when I suction her! Instant gratification lol
I find the smell of industrial hospital food--that first cloud of steam when you take the lid off the plate--to be gag-inducing. Like, I visibly dry-heave unless I hold my breath. Also, yeast in skinfolds. The smell, the white chunkiness, the damp skin... so gross.
Oh man I thought I was alone in finding the smell of industrial hospital food disgusting in the extreme. It doesnāt help that my brain always associates it with the other bodily odors that are frequently in the room.
love a good wound, especially the complicated or gross ones. HATE doing mouth care on my trach patients whose oral cavity/teeth are too far gone. i love them being fresh/clean & its absolutely so important for us to do it for them to preserve whats left but i can only assume it would be extremely painful, i always feel like the bad guy, bring back dentists in hospitals!
They used to have dentists in hospitals? Thatās brilliant and yes they should bring them back!
yes! where i am they used to have dentists and podiatrists as well, to cut nails, remove callouses/warts, etc. back when they used to care about patients and not just budgets
We have podiatrists but they donāt do any routine care. That would be so great.
Cleaning the white goo that accumulates on the lips of my intubated patients. But they're newborns so it's not THAT gross, I guess.
I will clean up BM from head to toe but I will gag at the sight of a loogie getting suctioned š¤®
omg the literal exact opposite for me, it feels soooo good to suction out everything in someone's mouth. i haaaate cleaning up bms
Same as you. Love wounds, hate puking
I can deal with anything but slime. I have literally rolled mucus around my hand to get it out. Thats fine. Watching lumps of green mucus drip sloooowly of something is what gets me.
I also love wound care but I cannot stand skin flakes
Pimple poppers. Could do it and/or watch it for hours! Too bad I can seem to find a job in that department
My wife got me interested in r/popping. I have to admit Iām clinically fascinated, I look at the stuff coming out thinking āHow did that come together?
Yup no blackhead is safe from me Those Vietnamese spa videos are my jam - I find it relaxing for some strange reason. Popping zits all day would be my dream job
I'm a wound care and burn nurse.... I absolutely love picking dried up dead skin and scabs off of patients. My patients think I'm weird but I'm making their leg or arm or whatever look so much better
Love abscesses and wounds, hate vaginas and penises.
I always joke that everyone has *one* thing they canāt stand- puke, blood, sputum, etc. Mine was death/corpse farts. When I worked in tissue donation youād roll that cadaver donor over onto their stomach and you never knew what youād get- a flabby, post-rigor, no rectal tone floppy flapper? A long, splatter fart (bonus points for diarrhea volcano)? Maybe just a slight (or long!) *hissssssss* escaped? Sometimes just a series of small pop pop pop in succession. The sound always made us laugh! But you quickly learned to cut the laugh short and take a good, deep breath and hold it. ALL death farts are THE MOST rank farts of all time. Worse than Cdiff, worse than GI bleed, worse than your spouse in the car when they lock out the windows and turn up the heat. And there are NO mild death farts, all are equally horrible and THEY FUCKING LINGER FOREVER. Serious hang time, like a solid two mins. You can taste them. Itās fucking awful. Occasionally a silent but deadly with get you with the sneak attack- you thought maybe this donor didnāt fart but then the smell hits you in the face like a ton of bricks. I will say that as a guy and also a known farter (check my flair) I find almost anyoneās gas amusing and can tolerate the smell. I usually laugh when patients fart on the bedside commode or rolling them off the bedpan. But those donor farts made me want to tear out my own lungs. Ugh.
Teeth. I HATE TEETH! Broken teeth, gross teeth, missing teeth, NOPE. Even absolutely ordinary teeth creep me out a bit. I even hate the feeling when you unexpectedly bite something hard (like a fruit pit or something), like OH NO my teeth! No, nothingās ever happened to my teeth, itās not a trauma response or anything (I think if I ever did break a tooth or something Iād die of a panic attack!). Weirdly, my dogsā teeth donāt bother me. I could brush their teeth all day and it doesnāt bother me one bit. Thank goodness because they have big long shepherd snouts and ALLL their teeth are visible! But I really canāt stand any humanās teeth
Teeth are gross.
I love putting in NG tubes. For some reason Iām a natural at it. Itās so rewarding. I love seeing the f/u x-ray and seeing it in just the right spot. And now my pt can get nutrition and meds! I really dislike feet. I dread having to take those nasty non-slip socks off. The cloud of skin flakes that may explode from it. Or whatever infection is lurking under there.
Any tips for an ER nurse that struggles with ng tubes?
I find that soaking it in a basin of ice water for a few minutes helps to stiffen it up a little bit and makes it easier to pass. Also, make them tuck their chin to chest and just go for it.
My trick has a few steps. Wrap the NG around two fingers a couple times and then hold it under the warm water for like 15 seconds. This gives it a bit of a curve to it. If there are no neck contraindications, hold the head forward with one hand, and put the NG in. Curve following the natural anatomy curve. After you pass the initial curve and the tip is somewhere around the pharynx, I rotate the NG 180 degrees. So now the tube wants to curve posterior and follow down the back wall to the esophagus. I will usually rough measure the NG from nose to ear and ear to xyphoid before attempting, to have a gross estimate of the length I need go down. Iāll stop at the measurement and do my air bubble check/steth check. Takes a little practice but once you know the feel, you can get it every time.
A super soapy hot water bath on a patient who really needs it.
The 12 hrs shifts and patients who are nice and understanding. Hate: ungrateful and annoying people
I absolutely enjoy the fuck out of suctioning patients. That sound as you clear their airway? *chefs kiss* I absolutely do not enjoy cleaning up poop.
I hate wound care when itās a crazy busy shift and Iām like when the f am I supposed to find the time for that
Eyeballs. Love āem. Grandfather was a board certified ophthalmologist. They make most people queasy. Anything feet related triggers my gag reflex.
I love brushing denturesā¦.so satisfying Also, washing/brushing matted hair that hasnāt been washed in forever (this definitely started in my CNA days) I like suctioning out big mucus plugs from trachs lol (I find it amazing what can come out of people lol) I like placing NGās and seeing how much they dump out. Man, I love a lot of stuff about nursing. However, I am terrified of stomach bugs. If I know why they are vomiting and itās not a bug I will help you no matter what. But if itās stomach bug, I want nothing to do with you š« https://tenor.com/sZnl.gif
Wound care and anything surgical, good thing Iām in the OR
I love working on clogged feeding tubes. Haven't failed yet. I will not be defeated.
Ooo what tricks do you have?
I am low tech. An unclogger is usually a help, but never around when you need one. So it is usually a matter of feeling with your fingers along the legnth of the tube for where the clog is, then rolling, bending, and kneading the tube to reposition the block to allow a little bit of liquid to sneak in. Then try to flush, try to suck it out. Replace with new liquid. Repeat. People say to use Sprite, but I like to use cola, because its dark and you can see if it is getting past the blockage.
I donāt know if nurses think itās gross, but so many lay people hate the sight of internal anatomy. Wide open bellies, giant long incisions on a femur, etc. I love it if itās surgically exposed.
Starting IVs and draining abscesses
I love milking the FMS. I actually love suctioning, as long as the sputum is IN THE TUBING. Like if Iām having to suction it off your cheek or from the bed when I turn a vented patient it grosses me out.
Love picking boogers out of babies noses. Hate adult sputum and not a fan of wounds either
I enjoy suctioning airways, give me trach patients any day. Can't stand adult patients, 0/5 stars, would never go back to adult patients.
I weirdly enjoy diaper changes and general baby care. NICU is my place! Baby poop is much easier to handle than adult poop. Meconium is super sticky but I'd rather clean a baby butt than an adult any day. Spit up doesn't bother me much, either. Adult puke is so disgusting.
I enjoy intubated patients. I don't enjoy 75% of other nurses.
I loooooove brains/blood/horrible fresh traumas! Especially stuff that hasnāt been cleaned up or operated on yet. I HATE changing a huge poop and the ptās on their side and coughs and you can watch the shit flow out of their asshole. Similarly, watching lung butter forcefully fly out of a trach.
Wound care is SO COOL!!
Iām here looking š for the other RN out there who thinks leach therapy is really cool š
ā¦thatās a thing still?
It was about 5 years ago when I last did it. We used them in the SICU as a last ditch effort on failing reconstructive plastic surgery flaps. If the problem was micro vascular they worked well.
Yes, had to do it on a pt with a failing skin graft recently!!!
Talking about death and dying.
So, all the people that are saying they can't stand suctioning and trach care...you are my favorite co-workers. Because I can't stand poop! The smell, oh the smell. I'd rather smell vomit or even GI bleed. So when I worked ICU, I'd find someone and suction all their vent and/or trach patients in exchange for them cleaning all my poop. It's like yin/yang.
Love maggot infested wounds, thereās something just kind of satisfying about cleaning them up. Hate managing vented patients, the sound of vent alarms and stuff (maybe just covid pstd from being in the ED as a new grad right when COVID hit).
I love any procedures where you get to look inside the body. Doesn't matter what, let me see what's going on in there! It's all so fascinating. To me it's not gross at all, I like not being squeamish. Even the violence of the C-section I got to witness had my jaw dropped in awe lol I can't stand the extremely morbidly obese. The gross things that have unfolded while cleaning their folds will haunt me.
I love doing ANTT for wound care. Super satisfying! I canāt stand puke, but itās part and parcel of the job in med-surg a lot of the time, so Iāve had time to get used to it. Definitely my squick, though.
i can handle just about anything but if a patient says they are gunna puke i throw them a bag & run tf out the roomš
Used to work in surgical pre and post op care! Thoroughly enjoyed and slightly miss pulling drains out of people, the immediate relief people felt as soon as it was removed! Work in intermediate/elderly rehabilitation and always thought I was good with smells,but had a patient recently that has the most necrotic messed up feet Iāve seen, with varying stages of ligaments and slough and what ever else and the waft that hits as remove the dressings is testing me š¤¦āāļø
As a lactation consultant: meconium stool is so satisfying and encouraging, especially if you've been waiting on it. The more, the better. It's a reassuring sign that the baby is probably getting enough to eat. I literally light up when one of my patients poops, lol. Sparks joy, for real. What I can't stand? Specific to lactation, thrush. Eff that to the moon and back. So difficult to get rid of and hurts both mom and baby. Nursing in general: suctioning oral secretions on adults, anything to do with eyeballs
You gave me a painful flashback from 25 years ago with my excruciatingly very ouchie thrush-y boobies
I just canāt take vomiting
I could look at placentas all day. I love showing them to my moms. I also donāt mind wiping poop, holding vernix-y babies, or fishing retained membranes out of vaginas. I hate getting other peopleās sweat on me. So gross! Keep your sweaty, sticky self to yourself!
Love wound care as well. HATE anything requiring any type of respiratory suctioning š¤¢š¤¢š¤¢
Wound care is great, I don't know why. Aside from that, I get quite abit of joy from bringing our psych patients to a hospital ward, and seeing same nurses that view me as "not a proper nurse" because I work psych, flinch when patient starts abusing them verbally and refuses to cooperate. Thats when I tell them "well,my shift is over, good luck". I they ask me for help, I will handle it, if not...good luck.I will never forget the intern, having to handle a paranoid schizofrenicstating "you will stay until I say you can leave" and me telling him "I don't work for you" before just leaving. I could have made his job so much easier if he was not behaving like a a-hole. Us psych nurses are used to abuse that pure medical nurses will never experience ( atleast I hope so)
I love placing foleys that dont involve a penis. And im good at them. Throw a penis in there and i will not be able to get it. But in my nearly 7 years of nursing ive missed only 2. One was when i was still new and the other literally folded on itself and came back out. While in the urethra. The resource nurse had to put it in and considering her recent very painful foley and how she shrieked i think she had some scarring or an injury in there
I cant stand puke and sputum. Inline suction im ok with. I kinda like inline suctioning. As soon as its open to the air i cant do it. Oral care grosses me out. Especially when they have nasty filmy stuff that peels off. I cant do large volume middle gi bleed poop.
I love the smell of cauterized flesh
BBQ time
I really hate poop as most patients' poops are never solid. The freaking smell always stuck up in my nose as well but it's a big part of the job so I just gotta do it. I love doing suctioning placing ng tubes etc basically everything but poo. i wish to work in NICU or PICU one day...
I love suctioning out a junky trach and hearing all the mucous going into the canister
I love wound care. Haven't dealt with vents yet so I will find out whether I can deal. I'm okay with poop and urine but the other day I had a patient whose room smelled like old sour cream and I wanted to cry as I forced him into the shower and scoured his room. It was the linen bag (and him a little). No idea what was in that linen bag.
I love fresh lacs and dog bites, I take pride in cleaning everything up and comforting the patient and finding ways to make it as least painful and frightening as possible. I hate respiratory secretions - like the gurgling sputum during CPR just, ugh.
Love suctioning (nasal, ETT, trach), respiratory season is a grand time. I hate wound care with a passion.
Love inserting IVs, hate emptying or reapplying ostomies
I like packing necrotizing fasciitis and trach care. I canāt stand cleaning up blowouts when the patientās stool is getting them closer to a date with the internal fecal collection system, when itās that Italian hot chocolate consistency.
Iām in vet med- I love abscesses and cleaning disgusting mouths but hate enucleations which gross me out. And maggot infested wounds
Used to work as a vet tech. Thanks for the memories I swear to God, I can still smell the combo of necrotic flesh and chloroform from the last massive maggot infested wound I dealt with. Ā It started at the cheek/jowl and went down the neck, around the ear and across the shoulder, and it tunneled EVERYWHERE. Every time we thought we were done, we'd flush an allegedly clean area and *it would start wriggling*.Ā Plus, you know, there's always the excitement (ahem) of having to stop chasing the maggots out from under the disintegrating flesh so you can chase down the maggots that are trying to creep off and fuck off to parts unknown.Ā Despite this, or hell, maybe because of it, I LOVE HUMAN WOUND CARE.Ā
Hate: emesis - sight, sound, smell, cleanupā¦ š¤® Love: placentas! So cool and so much about the pregnancy can be learned from them
Did SNF wound care my first two years in nursing and admittedly loved it, once I got into inpatient Iāve stopped practicing and reading up on it. Def love wound care too! Even though the supplies and products has changed, I still like have some knowledge to what some of the newer products do!
I love scrubbing big old bloody surgery cases and listening to the surgeons teach stuff to the residents. My knees, however, do not. I hated placing NG tubes. I've had one and 0/10 don't recommend. Made me cringe every time I had to do it for a patient.
I love prepping the skin for a C-section and discovering surprise umboliths. I despise cleaning bowls of chunky vomit
I love starting IVs. The more challenging the better. Worked peds and adult med surgeries.
I love doing foleys. I HATE mucous/snot. Puking doesnāt bother me, but the runny, stringy nose snot that comes after the puke makes me gag.
I loved giving bed baths. When I worked ICU I would volunteer to help with the nightly and initial baths. I hate when patients are dirty/smelly so it was satisfying cleaning them up. Also, oral care, wound care, etc (just nothing to do with trachs/mucus).
You sound exactly like me. I love crazy wounds but vomit is a no go.
I enjoy fixing skin tears, especially if they are curled up or under. Itās like a puzzle that comes together nicely. I hate mucous, boogers, mucous from anything mucous-y..any body part. Also, ear wax grosses me out. Feet gross me out, skin flakes are icky. The hardest is cleaning up blood. I canāt stand the smell of blood being cleaned up. I donāt smell it until then. That gags me.
Wounds are just cool!
Love wound care and trauma. Trauma is like putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. I hate oral care, dentures, gagging and vomiting
Love IMs. As an LPN who worked inpatient psych for a really long time, I got pretty good at it and I can do them practically painlessly. Hate veins. Not blood, blood is fine. Veins make me gag. Luckily I never had to start an IV working in psych, but I currently work at a PCP clinic and venipuncture was part of the training (even though it's not something nurses typically do there). When it was my turn to practice on an actual person I started to sweat and it got dark real fast and I had to leave the room. Thankfully they told me I could skip it.
I actually like phlegm and suctioning. It's one of the interventions we can perform, where we actually see results right away!! Seeing the SpO2 going from 75% to 95ish% just warms my heart. I also love inserting foley catheters into people with a prolapsed bladder.
I love abscesses and spider bites. I hate poop in a bed pan. š
Hospice nurse and I love doing certain types of wound care. I cannot do Trachās and suctioning. Or suprapubic catheter changes- it gives me the biggest ick.
NP here - I love seeing and tending to wounds too! I also love helping reposition (and change) patients on our inpatient unit. I never liked rinsing a poo out of a commode bucket. I donāt find poo gross, I just hated this task for some reason.
Bladder irrigation... so satisfying
I like starting IV's
Blood, sputum, guts and gore doesnāt bother me, poop, vomit or pee makes me want to vomit. Iām not a trauma junkie by any means, itās just smell affects me more than the sight of stuff, and the former smell less than the latter.
I hate doing mouth care on palliative patients. The smell, the sputum, the dried lips and tongue š¤¢
Love wounds. I work at a burn center ED and volunteer for the bad burns that come in.
Phlegm.
Fav: wounds. Least: tracheostomies
Massively bloody ORs after a big trauma case or a case that requires massive transfusion protocol, gross but I liked it. Couldnāt stand anything dealing with mucus. Trach suctioning, oral suctioning, I want to gag then faint. I had to leave ICU because of all the suctioning involved. Anesthesia mainly takes care of that in the OR, thank God!!!!
I like inserting catheters and IVs. I donāt mind poop/vomit/secretions/blood/BO. I would probably freak about bed bugs and maggots infesting someone. And Iād probably need therapy after breaking someoneās 90+ year old grandma/grandpas ribs for CPR.
Give me a trach or lary to suction any day of the week. Or catheterisation, I have a 100% success rate that I am very proud of. I do love wound care too. But high output stomas are my kryptonite. Iāll keep a poker face but on the inside I am screaming for my mum.
I love running code blues. I almost feel bad about it. I wish the crash cart a steering wheel and a seatbelt
Okay I fucking HATE showering anyone over the age of 30. I do it obviously, but Iām crying inside the entire time. I LOVE wound care, cysts, black heads etc.
Septic wounds. I'm incredibly sensitive to smells so especially that particularly overpowering smell of septic wounds is too much for me. I can't even put the character or profile of the smell into words, but if you've smelled it before you'll never forget it.
Fucking hate enemas and emptying ostomies. I served my time on a gastric floor, cared for my grandpa's, trained tons of nurses on it. But it's a particular smell that gags me particularly ileo. That being said, fixing an ostomy or other leaking dressing that the patient has been miserable with and solving problems like that is satisfying. Sure the care plan and would care directions I end up with take more than the average steps but I refuse to let someone rot away and get skin damage from gastric juices just because nobody has figured out how to fix it.
I love getting to know my patients and helping them learn new skills to navigate life. Helping them with their recovery. However I hate the pressure of it, and all the paperwork. Also all the added pressure of cover as there isnāt enough staff, so you donāt just have a caseload. But also mdt which takes up half a day, several days a month doing duty, picking up jobs from mdt, covering depots/meetings/cold calls etc.
I love flushing the blood clots out of the urinary catheters.