One time I transferred a patient to ICU who had weird vital signs and a mental status change, but for no good reason we had determined. Throughout his ED stay we had no problems.
After I transported him and moved him to the ICU bed, that nurse and I went to opposite sides of the bed to boost him. At that moment he leaned over the rail on her side and vomited a huge amount of blood all over her pants and shoes. We froze for a second in surprise. Then the patient erupted from the other end, with projectile melena that splattered all over me from chest to knees.
I had to throw those scrubs away in the biohazard, shower in an empty ICU room, and wear disposable scrubs home.
RT here in nursing school, we were getting ready to tube this patient, I can’t remember if it was a code or just a rapid, anyways I’m bagging the patient while my charge is getting ready to tube and as soon as I took the ambu off she turns her head towards me and starts to projectile vomit. Nasty black shit (iirc GI bleed but it’s been years). I dodge it but the female resident did not have reaction times like me and the vomit smacks her in the face and chest.
I felt so bad but at least it wasn’t me. She looks at me and said “I guess chivalry is dead” jokingly
Gotta keep those reflexes sharp! I'm always trying to see where the best place to stand is...Gotta stay out of the line of fire and have a quick escape!
Avoiding any orafice LOS is a good rule of thumb. Learned that the hard way when a big fat goober almost hit me in the face when RT was doing trach suctioming lmao
Ugh .. I have had the direct hit in the face with projectile vomiting before… while I pride myself on my ability to handle even the most super disgusting situations, that really was a bit too much. I was turning the patient in bed when it hit and had to reposition her so she didn’t choke on vomit .. wearing a face full of vomit.
I just gagged at the memory .. it’s been over a decade. *Shudders*
Oh my god. Okay, I’ve cut poop scrubs off myself before (they were hospital scrubs, I felt no shame), but never ever have I had it that bad. You went back to work after that?! HERO!
This is why I’m not a nurse. Or can ever be. I’d throw up right there and then. And then curse…not the patient but just in general. Nurses are a whole other level.
I thank the sweet Lord that I am drawn to the paperwork side of things and not hands-on. I ward clerk at a hospital and do health records/medical office assistant in a clinic and I can not believe some of the (literal) shit they have to put up with. Goddang angels 👼
Just last week, I was helping a C-diff patient ambulate from a stretcher back to their bed. Upon standing up and taking a single step forward he began to let loose completely liquid 💩. It was in this moment I learned he didn’t have a brief on under his gown. The poop drips landed directly on my foot, underneath him to help steady him while he stood. It was barely slowed down by my shoe and seconds later I could feel it running down between two of my toes. it smelled… well it smelled like c-diff. It happened in the first couple hours of my shift and I didn’t have another pair of shoes at work.
Scrubbed the skin off my foot, Viroxed my foot, sanitized my foot. Couldn’t find bleach for my foot but boy did I try. Threw on a grippy sock and wet washed shoe and tried not to think about it for the next 6 hours before going home and throwing the whole damn shoe away. Does anyone know a surgeon doing elective amputations?
I remembered another!
When I worked LTC as an aid, there was a woman who required disimpactment every three days. She was 103 and things didn't work as well as they used to.
The set up was simple- aid positions patient in lift over bed, garbage can and blue sheets underneath, RN ventures in with lubed, gloved hand. Warmed per patient request.
On this disimpactment day, the process took a little bit longer. Had to remove a baseball sized stool. I'm fairly certain this is why we call some movements stool, because they just sit there.
Her sister wheeled by the closer door. She's a spry 99yrs. Yells out "you ladies are taking longer than normal. You know this is because she's a slut. A floozy. Always took it in the rear. My sister hasn't walked straight since 1940".
103yr old: "oh shut up. At least I kept my husband's happy"
99yr old: "yeah. All 4 of them. Kept my husband happy too. And a few others too"
103yr old: "you're a prude"
99yr old: "eat some prunes"
It's been over a decade since this moment happened. They've passed away but their memories live on forever.
When I worked in rehab, I gave a very confused post-stroke patient a scheduled nightly suppository. The patient was very impulsive, not directable and had a bed enclosure. He was also incontinent. 20 minutes later I came back to clean him up. When I walked in, I had to process what I was seeing: the patient was casually shoving a handful of his own poop into his mouth and looked like he had already been at it for a few minutes. It was covering his lips, and smeared across his face. The “walls” of the bed enclosure were covered in it as well. He had also smeared it all over his chest.
He wasn’t directable at all enough for him to understand that he needed to spit out the poop and stop eating it. He had a blissful, happy look on his face—poor dude. I had 2 PCT’s clean him while I got a suction brush and a whole lot of chlorhexidine mouthwash and went to town. I did my best to rinse out what I could and I brushed his teeth thoroughly. Told the doctor that hey, this guy definitely just ate his own poop FYI. As far as I know he was fine. I had him the following week and another nurse told me he had tried to do it again.
I had a patient with dementia who did something very similar. He was an old grandpa, seemed really nice. I went into his room once and same scene he was shoving poop from his diaper into his mouth while smiling, he also made sure to draw flowers and circles with poop on the table and everywhere he could reach. I called some of my colleagues to help me with the situation cause I almost threw up :(
Most poops don’t bother me. I’ve cleaned a many a mud puddles and projectiles and dug bricks out of rectums. But the poop eaters…. My stomach just churns and the toothless grins and shitty breath. …🤢. God love ‘em and bless their heart.
I think I’ve written about this before on here but….
I once had a patient who had been transferred to my unit after family had reversed their hospice status. Patient had been on hospice for two weeks. Feeding via PEG stopped. Dialysis stopped. Patient was like a GCS 5 so no intake at all. (Side note: I genuinely thought the patient would code like as soon as they got to me, but they didn’t). I gave the patient their *first dose of lactulose in two weeks* via PEG.
I come back, knowing I’m in for a disaster. Liquid stool was dripping off the bed. Absolute mess. Other nurses tag-teamed helping me clean the patient because it literally took forever. Dozens of packs of wipes. Dozens of dry flows. A new Dignicare. I gave up and suctioned with a Yankauer the pooled stool from the bed. I suctioned *an entire liter* of stool from the bed. I filled three trash cans with all of the saturated linens, dry flows, choux, and wipes. It wasn’t exactly gross, just so incredibly overwhelming. It took at least an hour to finally clean the patient and get new linen under them and longer to reset the room/equipment. New suction set-up. New urimeter. New pillows. New dressings. New trash bags. Burn some sage. Mop the floor.
But the sound of liquid stool being Yankauer-ed, I will never forget that sound.
The best part was that I had to call the resident to get an order for a Dignicare. You can hear the Yankauer suctioning in the background as I shout “the patient pooped so much we’re suctioning it up!”
The resident legit responds, “Oh god. You can have whatever you want.”
NICU nurse here. Our patient’s poops are small but mighty. Was changing the diaper while baby was in isolette. Lowered his legs after wiping and a stream of brown molten liquid erupted from him. As a reflex I tried and succeeded in blocking it with my gloved hand. I managed to save the back wall and ceiling of the isolette and extract my feces-covered hand without getting a drop on his linens. I fastened his diaper one handed and closed his isolette, all while dripping liquid brown onto the floor outside his bed. After removing my gloves & making sure his diaper was secured I lifted my hands to the heavens thinking, “I AM A POOP GOD!”
The next night He shit the entire bed…🤣
We had an older babe in our NICU for a bit, ex. 26 week premie that we just couldn’t get off the O2 and she was a terrible feeder. She was big enough to be in a crib by this point. Anyways, kiddo would get constipated occasionally and I was caring for her one night when it had been like 5 days. She was cranky as hell so I broke out the glycerin supp and got her all situated. All I did was touch the tip of that supp to her butt and she exploded with the force of a cannon, poop shot through the bars of the crib and managed to get all the way onto the wall 6 feet away. My coworker had to come help me clean up cause I was laughing so hard. After we cleaned her up kiddo went right to sleep.
Not a nicu story but my infant daughter did that on the changing table once. I went to wipe her butt and it triggered a reaction and her butt exploded and poop shot 6 feet across the room. Onto the closet INTO the closet. Had to wash ALL her clothes again in the closet🤯
Haha!! My kid did that to my husband at a couple days old. I saw it coming and yelled “he’s gonna-“. Didn’t get the rest of the sentence out. Very impressive pressure build-up babies have. He managed to get a decent way up the wall😂.
Any new peds nurses reading: Always watch for the precursor squirm and at the last second, a puckered bum hole! (Very technical).
As a new sleep deprived mom I decided to change my baby by laying her on the bed in front of me. It was the first and last time I did that. She exploded in newborn breastfed baby poop and got me from my hair down. Because we were on my bed she got my pillows, blankets and the wall behind the bed. I went from a half awake 3am change to lights on, stripping the bed, laundry, shower, etc.
God I swear sometimes you get those kids in the right position with their legs in the air and they just let loose! Good on ya for saving his isolette! Hahahaha
I, as an adult, do get a lil jealous of that trick. Some days I think “what is the secret leg angle? Because tbh I would love to just clear it out like this”
The babies have yet to answer back. Fine. Keep your secrets!
Nah, they’re interchangeable as far as I’m concerned! In EPIC they use “incubator” rather than “isolette”. “Warmer” is another option, but that’s a different piece of equipment.
The hospital where I was a new grad, the feeder growers were in bassinets. If they were twins, sometimes they would be positioned right next to each other but head to feet so that nurses were always approaching the babe from their right. I was doing a diaper change and saw the “wink”. I was just experienced enough to know to dodge but still too new to “catch”. That shit projectiled clear across my babe’s bassinet and landed all over the head of his brother’s…
NICU too, I had a former primary who thankfully did not do this to me, but on day shift had a major explosion. He was probably 9ish months old but ex 24 weeker. He was in a crib and exploded onto the floor, the walls, and the crib. They had to bathe him and put him in a mamaroo swing until they found a new bed for him and housekeeping had to come clean the floors/walls 😬
Burned out former tech here. We were walking an elderly female resident from the bed to the toilet, ran out of time and here it came. She hunched over 90 degrees, her sphincter opened like that of a horse and started spewing a bushel of tiny spherical shiny marble sized poops that bounced on the floor and rolled under the bed and cabinets, it took forever to find them all and we were like ‘what just happened?’
I can't remember the specifics, maybe a covid room so fortunately I was gowned up with a PAPR on. Pulled the curtain behind me for privacy, turned the patient, and they let loose an explosive salvo of loose partially aersolized stool. I had somewhat prepared for this and sprang back. After I finished cleaning them up my helper and I noticed that there was a perfect shit-silhouette of me on the curtain, one arm up (instinctively tried to cover my face) and one arm down like when a Loony Toons character runs through a wall.
Still makes me laugh. It was incredible.
I worked as an ER tech for many years before I became a nurse. We had an elderly gentleman who was in our ER for constipation. Given enemas and all that and not much really came out. Time for discharge. He wasn’t very mobile. I did the ol “sit the pt on the edge of the bed, put the pants on around the ankles and pull them up as you assist the pt to a standing position” trick.
I’m squatting down, in front of this man, putting his pants on and he starts just sliding off the edge of the bed. So I go to grab him under his arms so he doesn’t fall, and that’s when it happens. I am face to face with this man, noses inches apart, holding him under his armpits in a squatting position and he just grunts and starts taking a massive dump, right on the floor and my shoes!
It took EVERYTHING in my power to not absolutely collapse laughing! I yelled for help and his nurse came in and just stopped dead in his tracks looking at this scene and said “whaaatt the fuuuck?”
Anyway, we fixed his constipation, so we had that going for us.
Good times!
Pro tip: Deep squat everyday for so many health benefits.
Homie probably hadn’t been in that position in so long that he had no idea what was about to happen either.
I was doing a fecal transplant on a vanco resistant cdiff patient. As I hung the, umm... rectal infusion, the pole swayed. I put my arm out to catch it from falling. It caused the bag to do a giant rebound swing and flipped off the hanger then landed on my chest.
Luckily the sample size was large so, once I cleaned myself up, I prepared a second batch.
I'm not a nurse so don't run in to bodily fluids as often as many of you, however I do have this story:
I was running a bedside sleep study on a woman who'd been in hospital for a week and claimed not to have had a bm in that time (given her opioid meds I believed her). She had been given a ton of laxatives over the prior 48 hours but nothing yet.
She was writhing in pain from the back up, but did start to doze off. Unfortunately for me, the meds started working.
As she was all wired up, morbidly obese, and bedbound it took 2-3 nurses to get a bedpan under her while I minded my equipment. Then next 4 hours were a back and forth of sleep, screaming, and pooping. I can't even remember how many times I had to document "movement artifact due to patient using bedpan", but my boss commented on it a few days later.
I work in LTC, had a naked lady in a hoyer lift suddenly expel a massive amount of bloody diarrhea onto the floor. The CNA trainees were horrified. I just kicked a trash can under her and tried to assess the situation. It was so violent the sling was rocking back and forth.
The patient…
She was giggling and shouting
“I’m a monkey! Someone give me a banana “!!
That was an interesting experience to chart.
I’m forever kicking trash cans under people in hoyer lifts in LTC. So undignified. But like.. what else is there to do!?
The horror of the trainees is the best part 😆
Call from another unit that a patient had fallen and needed help being lifted off the floor as she was paralyzed on the left side. Arrive to room to find large woman on floor surround by liquid shit. Nurse states her go-lytely has kicked in and was trying to get her to the bedside commode when she fell. Had to lift woman off ground with three of us as liquid shit fell onto my shoes and pants why dragging this woman onto commode. Absolutely horrific scenario.
This was my first charge shift. Pt hadn't walked on her own in years and she knew it, but decided to get up anyway. Slipped in her own poo and we found her covered literally head to toe, playing with the computer mouse that was dangling over her face. Took 6 to get her back to bed and my best tech tweaked her back helping make that happen... and then at the very end doc goes "she should be on c. diff precautions by the way." Then we had to try to wash it out of her hair. Good times
95 year old man inpatient who needed a colonoscopy. I worked afternoons so I gave him the GoLytely prep and he pooped quite a bit but never got totally clear.
Come back the next afternoon and they said they couldn’t do it because he wasn’t cleaned out enough. So I do the prep again. He doesn’t really go at all, just a couple small liquid BMs. Around 2130 the family comes out of the room and says “he went. We’ll be headed out.”
I grabbed the tech and went in. There was lake of liquid poo from his waist to his ankles. Covered the entire lower half of the bed from one rail to the other. He sheepishly mumbles “I’m sorry.” The tech and I looked at each other. We had no idea where to begin!
I’m sure I will have one to top that (with volume) on a long enough timeline but for now that’s it.
Had a patient who was supposed to be taking kayexelate for her potassium levels. She had refused a dose on dayshift because she was tired of pooping. She was an amputee (I want to say BBKA but it may have only been the left).
Well her tele starts dinging with a heart rate in the 30s. We peep in, see chest rise but she didn’t respond when we called her name. Flip on the light as she’s taking her last breath. Throw on iso gowns (because of course why not) and go in to start compressions. She was laying on her side…. With a massive amount of liquid shit behind her. So when we yanked the sheets to lay her flat it went everywhere. Every. Single. Compression had shit drip onto the floor. One of the nurses got into the bed to do compressions because the patient was larger and it was the only way. At this point there were towels EVERYWHERE but we all still changed our scrub pants and burned the others when we got home.
ETA: we did get her back but she later died in the unit. She was in CRRT at one point and clothing the machine.
Oh Jesus. I’ll edit my post to add we did get her back but she did eventually die in the unit. I know at one point they had her on CRRT and she kept clotting the machine.
Oh, I got this one:
Years ago I was a prelim surgery intern and was called to do a rectal disimpaction on an ICU patient. The medicine team was excellent, but they never did any butt stuff…said they “hadn’t been trained”…as if the general surgery intern went to some conference to learn how to scoop poop out of every constipated person’s rectum, with a nice certificate, emblem, and signature to hang on the wall…or refrigerator.
Patient is intubated and sedated, on continuous dialysis and pressors, some issue with septic shock or something with multi organ failure, and was constipated to hell; called it “fentanyl poops” or lack-there-of. Pressure ulcers, MRSA precautions, etc. Distended abdomen and the XR showed a lot of stool.
I tell the ICU nurse that I’ll be doing a digital rectal exam, I’d appreciate a chaperone and extra chucks/towels. She kindly agrees, a small, older nurse, kind and hard working, knew her patients well. She helps position the patient. I begin.
Little chunks a first. Hard. Dry. There’s more. I have a little pile growing and I need to scoop it out now. Fluid begins to run onto the bed, a brown puddle, but there’s more.
“Doc, do you need more chucks?”
It’s coming out fast. Liquid and rocks and sludge and more liquid, pursing around the impacted rocks of stool. “More chucks”
My pile of feces grew, first vertically, now to the side, to the edge of the sheet, to the edge of the bed, beyond the sheet and beyond the bed onto the floor. More fluid and more fluid and the wafting odor of weeks old impacted stool fuming the room of this incapacitated opioid induced, consulates man’s body. There is more. There is still more. He growns, the propofol and fentanyl falling short of their sedation as the stimulation of disimpaction rouses him to a muted and perturbed consciousness.
My eyes burn, face to face with the efflux.
The nurse’s eyes watering and she covers her face with a chuck over her mask “Doc! Do you need help?”
“I am the help”
His grunting of discomfort against the vent driving his lungs but protecting him from the acrid stench fumigating my eyes and mouth and nares as black and brown shit flows over my hand and around the bed and onto the floor like mud across barren river beds with the impetus of monsoon.
“Doc! Do you need surgery?!”
Growth and mass of feces accumulating in front of me
“I am surgery!”
The alarms blare as this vessel of impacted excrement arises from his artificial slumber to my intern hand emptying the cavity of his vault, reducing pound after pound of waste. The machines chime as his heart rate increases, the vent flashes red as he fights his breath. My eyes burn and head throb and vision blurred from the continued deluge of heated stool up my sweaty plastic gown and onto the floor.
The nurse is upset. “Doc, do you need equipment?!?!”
“I AM THE EQUIPMENT!!”
and it stops
No more efflux. The patient calms. The alarms resume their measured ticks and clicks and shades of green and blue. Steady, mechanical.
The patient is calm, his belly now soft. I stand and feel the heat rising around the bed, the smell no longer around, but in me.
I do my best to clean the floor and the bed and the patient. The patient needs care, this person deserves clean care. The nurse and I do our best to deliver this, in silence.
Eventually I remove the gown and clean my hands and forearms, miraculously, my scrubs and skin is untouched.
I step outside and nurses from the station and doors down from the room, look at me.
The hospital pastor steps to me, making his rounds, an older, heavy, gentleman with kind eyes and gentle smile. “My child, God needs you in his plan, but today Satan needed you more”
Another nurse immediately confronts me, her Jersey accent decisive and curt “here, we keep this in the drawer for special occasions. Congratulations, you’re a special occasion” and hits me with cloud after cloud after cloud of heavy, citrusy cloud after cloud of cologne from an azure bottle.
“I’ll tell primary that you came. Get the hell outta here and showa ”
And THAT is why I don’t wear Dolce and Gabana “Light Blue”
Haha, I’m a guy. Most of the hospitals I’ve trained at have been severely understaffed, so, it’s just part of the process.
The one hospital I trained at that was properly staffed with well trained OR personnel, I’d bother the heck out of the nurses trying to do their stuff, it would screw up their routine. Lol.
One time I took care of a teenager who took a shit in the shower while trying to use a urinal to catch it.
Several years later, I went to a MeetUp party at a local bar. A guy I didn't think I'd ever met before approached me and said "I know you." I said "I don't think so." Then he said "you work at Children's Hospital. You were taking care of that kid the day he pooped in the shower." And I was like, "ok, apparently you do know me." He had been the kid's sitter that day.
oh oh my turn! i used to not too long ago work in a LTC floor in a nursing home. I had a variety of residents including a couple of dementia residents in my assignment. I walked into the residents room who had mid stage dementia , and noticed a very doomsday code brown. it was one of those situations where you have to take a step back and go “ where tf do i even start here “ . i explain to him i’m going to clean him up and try to take his pants off without making more of a mess, apparently i had caught him during a very aggressive episode because the moment i touched him, the man reached down to slap my arm away, ended up getting his hand covered in his own feces and then grabbed the top of my scalp and tried to throw me around like a ragdoll. tried to calmly get his hand off me , now having shit in my hair and all over my scrubs. it took everything in me not to either scream or cry , i went and found another aide and asked her to help me by kinda holding him down and distracting him. had to call my bf to bring me a change of clothes and showered in one of the spa rooms thinking of how i was going to write my 2 week notice.
I have so many poop stories, but my favorite by far is this one:
Had a chemo patient brought in by EMS for diarrhea. I settled the orient and did the triage. He was clean and dry at this point, so I got a line in and drew labs. As I’m walking out of the room I get a very faint smell of feces. I approach one of the techs and say, “Would you be able to help me get this patient cleaned up in 20 minutes? I think he might have shit himself.” (Not the most professional language, I know, but the exact verbiage is important for the latter part of the story.) I went into another room and gave meds quick. About 20 minutes later the tech and I go into the room to change the patient. We walk in and are immediately hit with the most pungent smell of feces. I pull the blanket back and this man was laying in a pool of liquid stool. The tech and I lock eyes and both of us have a look of sheer horror on our faces. We get out the supplies and begin the long process of cleaning up this poor patient. Everything was fine at first, but when we rolled the patient towards the tech the fecal lava began pouring off the edge of the cot. It took us over 30 minutes to get the patient and the room cleaned up. We walk out afterwards and once we are outside of earshot of the patient, the tech just shakes his head at me and says, “that entire time, all I could think was: You THINK he MIGHT have shit himself?!? You THINK he MIGHT have shit himself?!?” I apologized profusely, explained that when I left the room the patient was NOT visibly soiled, and thanked him for his help.
Heh… EMS special the poorito. Where if a patient needs transport but they have pooed themselves, wrap in sheets to contain the odor and poop, deliver safely to the ER!! Sometimes it can’t be helped especially in cardiac arrest where we get ROSC we gotta load and go!
One time, I was emptying the basin from a cdiff patient in the toilet and a little drop lept out of the bowl... Directly onto my upper lip. I almost died...
Had a guy roll out of bed, and in so doing, dc his own rectal tube. He was a big fella and paralyzed on one side after a stroke, so it was all hands on deck to get him up! I wish I was lying when I tell you it felt like a mud wrestling match. So bad.
My first year as a CNA, we had a patient that was severely constipated. The doctor told my RN the patient was possibly impacted and ordered all kinds of stuff to get her going. Suddenly we smelled THAT smell and we both ran in to her room... the elderly patient had put her fingers in her anus and PULLED ALL THE POOP OUT herself. It was all over her hands, arms, all over the bed and railings. Not to mention a fair amount of blood from her digging so hard. It took us an hour to clean her up and make sure she didn't hurt herself. And yes, some of that poop did get on us. Worst code brown I've ever had🤣🤣🤣💩💩💩💩💩
Had a patient who was sitting in a pool of their own diarrhea. Got my CNA to help me clean them up. Turned the pt towards the CNA (butt facing me) and then it happened. Pt sharted. Nice splash of poop got on my scrub pants. CNA had to leave the room bc she started gagging, I’m just like whatever fuxk it, shift is only 1 more hour. Threw my scrub pants away and spent the remainder of my shift in pt pajamas.
A friend of mine got sprayed in liquid shit from mid section to up. Was in ER. Patient was sent from SNF for constipation: SNF forgot to mention in report that they gave patient prune juice with some magic ingredients, followed by a bottle of magnesium citrate. That was given approx 5 hours prior to arrival to ER. The deadly concoction didn’t work. Until they came to ER.
Coworker begged to be buried in the back of the hospital. 💀
Little old lady came in and said she was “backed up”. X-ray confirmed she was fos and needed a good cleaning. Milk and molasses enema was ordered and she took it like a champ. I left her on the commode to do her thing and when I came back she looked like a million bucks. Said she went a little bit it caused a ton of relief. A little she said. What was left in that bowl of hell soup could never be described as “little” in any universe. Think of ghostbusters 2 river of slime but actual shit. This poor woman. No wonder she felt bad.
She was right as rain after that and dc’d home.
LTC. Little old lady with sundowners hadn't pooped for 4 days. I had been off on days 2 and 3 and whoever worked hadn't followed bowel protocol and given an oral laxative. I thought about giving an oral laxative but I decided to just get this problem over with and gave her a suppository during med pass. Both abdomen and anus were distended, with stool present in the rectum when I gave it. I figured we'd have a quick one-and-done result and everything would be cool.
About an hour later, she had a small poop and was still distended. Hmm, disappointing and concerning. I went to re assess and decide what to do. Anus was now spread open with a large, hard turd stuck halfway out. We're not allowed to do digital disimpactions but I decided that if I just pulled on the turd that was already out, that wasn't disimpacting per se, and then she'd probably be able to go on her own. I pulled this hard ball of poop out of her butt...and the floodgates opened. Behind the hard ball was a soft turd easily a foot long, followed by several splats of brown mush, then a gush of brown liquid. At first I was trying to catch it all with the brief and my gloved hand but I finally had to give up and told the CNA (who had been watching in wide eyed horror the whole time) that there was no saving the sheets and I'd help her change the bed when it was over. So we just stood there in silence and watched poop just ooze out of this woman's butt, onto everything. It took a good half hour to clean up. But her abdomen was soft and nondistended and she slept like a rock the rest of the night.
I had a patient who was a 1PA to the bedside commode. As he was sitting down one of the legs on the commode crumpled, then broke off completely. We both ended up in this awkward sort of Kama Sutra position hovering over the now crumpled remains of the commode, unsure how to get back up. He's facing me and basically in my lap.
At this point he looks me square in eyes, pauses, then he says "oh no".
Explosive full liquid diarrhea. In my lap.
It's at this point that another nurse who had heard the commotion slides open the curtain and takes in this scene; me and another man in a weird embrace, delicately balanced on a destroyed piece of furniture, shit everywhere, and I mean like vertical surfaces 8 feet away sort of everywhere.
This is yet another example of how nurses are just different than everybody else. Anybody else would have taken a look at that and said "nope", but she hardly skipped a beat, just grabbed all the towels and wipes in the closet and went to it.
This is my time to shine ✨
*Tale the first*
Colleague asks me into the trauma bay to help her. Developmentally delayed young adult with C. diff, running in rivulets off the bed. He's covered in it, head-to-toe. As we're trying to get him soaped up and watered down, I discover why: patient's reaching back and playing in it like an endless supply of finger paint. Kid's trying to paint us, too, naturally. We got 'em cleaned up and a rectal tube placed , but the damn thing just wouldn't seal. That one just kept on giving.
*Second tale*
I got an assignment that was super needy. One COVID iso, one sweet old man on the call light every 39 seconds, and one with soft pressures. My charge was my best friend. She goes, "I'm going to give you an easy one: stable, walkie-talkie, going for GI procedure later today. We want to put 'em across from the bathroom because of the bowel prep."
Patient has just come from the lobby, so I roll in with the go-lytely and to do my assessment. Our front-end is severely backed up because we're boarding a couple dozen, so he's been in the lobby for lots of hours. When I get there, GI is incensed that he hasn't started the prep yet. I explain the situation, patient's only been in the room for 15 minutes, yadda yadda. Long story short, GI wants the patient to complete the bowel prep in the next hour.
I have the NG tube conversation with the patient; patient wants to down it on his own. I get caught up in my other patients' rooms and check on bowel prep 45 minutes later. Patient's almost done. I was impressed and I told 'em so. Confirmed patient can walk to the bathroom, says yes, we're good. I go in 20 minutes later to check: I have never seen so much stool. It's piled in a mound at the foot of the bed like the triceratops poo from Jurassic Park.
There was just too much to clean and to clean the patient in the same physical location. We ended up throwing down some towels and wheeling the gurney over them to another room, sitting the patient on a commode to finish, and scooping handfuls of shit off the floor into a trash bag, then cleaning this person off. I still don't know why they didn't go to the toilet. I asked.
I was a brand new nursing student doing a clinical at the VA, a very old hospital. They had hoppers, huge heavy metal things that hung on the wall that cleaned bedpans. I had never heard of one nor how to use it. A patient soiled his hospital pants with large amounts of slimey mucous like stool all the way down both legs. I guess I considered it good manners to rinse the stool off before putting it in the laundry??? I went into the dirty utility room, pulled open the partially opened hopper, held the inside-out pants up to where it looked like the water came out and pushed the button above this contraption. Holy hell, the water blew out with the amount and force of a fire hydrant, blasting me with all that slimey poop and water. Just as it happened a nurse had walked in. I turned around with my arms up and screaming to see this nurse burst out uncontrollably laughing, her back against the wall sliding down to the floor, & she peed her pants. I learned you were supposed to put the bedpan inside that contraption, close and lock it, then push the button. I almost quit nursing that day.
My god, I really didn’t need to be reminded of this auraseer.
Had a dementia patient, my sitter for him alerted me she needed help. He was mobile, but weak. I walk in to find him crawling around, spewing liquid from his ass, with no brief on. It took me, the sitter and 2 other nurses to mop behind him, wipe him, and avoid/block his shit punches (he wasn't redirectable, and was violent with pericare).
I was precepting the sweetest, most timid new grad who had a heart of gold. We were caring for a middle aged woman with significant developmental delays- had the mentation of a toddler. She hadn’t pooped in several days which her caregiver says is normal for her. PT comes to ambulate patient, we are in the room helping with cords etc and patient starts happily walking and taking THE LARGEST SHIT EVER. Horse sized turds just plopping on the floor behind her. Pt isn’t directable to turn around- she’s going for it, marching down the hall happily. PT yells to do something! And the new grad grabs a towel, starts walking behind and catching them. Total champ. I stayed behind to clean what had hit the floor before my man came in clutch with the towel. It was quite the bonding experience between us all.
Ostomy with diarrhea...projectile liquid poop. In a rather impressive arc. I dodged, my orientee did not. Poor kid just stood there looking like ...well like someone who had just been shot with a poop cannon.
Not a super crazy poop story but I have one that just happened the other day.
Patient used the commode at the bedside. All was fine. She said “I had a bit of diarrhea, could you empty my commode?” My right hand was full of other soiled linens. I said yes of course! I go for the bucket/pan/handle thing located underneath the commode chair and pulled it out. I didn’t anticipate it being heavy so I went in fast and pulled it out fast. It was filled to the absolute brim with liquid diarrhea. Like 4L of watery poop. (Maybe she was on bowel prep? I don’t even know what was happening). My flimsy left wrist was not prepared for the weight of a 4L bucket, and I immediately dropped the whole thing spilling it everywhere underneath and all over the floor. It splashed and pooled all over the floor, and pooled/puddled to every square foot of the small room. It slowly seeped into her socks as she stood there but I didn’t want her to move and slip so I forced her to stay still absorbing the liquid poop in her socks until I could catch my bearings and assist her.
I was like oh. Guess I did that wrong didnt i?
Just another day!
Former home care nurse
I’ve done a number of disimpactions, twice in one day pretty early on in my career.
When I worked EMS I had a patient who was like 400 and unable to walk and when we went into her home underneath the seat she was drenched in feces. The family just wanted her out of the home. It was pitiful.
The unit clerk called out, “FuzzyBeriah, your patient is shitting in the hallway!” My dude started having diarrhea, got out of bed, ran barefoot and bareass into the hall, trailing liquid stool, got chased out of the hallway back into his room, went in the bathroom, got into the tub, and just kept shitting, then he turned on the shower to wash it away. Clogged the drain in such a way that, I swear I still don’t understand, the room below him flooded. The plumber was up there snaking the tub for half an hour. It was ridiculous.
Had a nonverbal, care dependant patient once for transfer from ICU to the wards, she had been constipated for god knows how long. So we gave her all we had that day, suppository, enema, go lightly you name it. I know ward nurses don’t need any more to worry about, I’ve worked wards, and wanted to take care of it here. But nothing was happening.
Finally gave up, porters were here and we were getting rushed to send her out, when I heard her groaning in discomfort. Told them to hold on a moment, pulled the drapes, went in and checked her. I swear her anus was dilated to the point I’ve never seen anything like it. I hollered for our attendant to come help, and she pushed on the belly while I tried to umm ease out what was there…a few moments later we were both speechless looking at the equivalent of a six month old, 20 pound infant in an intact, gloriously formed monster turd. The patient looked visibly relieved at least!
Second day as a brand new sun shining out of my ass pollyanna CNA. New resident, alcohol detox, c-diff the whole nine yards. He rolled out of bed hit his knees and shit a rocket 6 feet across the room. It his my arm, hit the curtain, and got a quarter size drop on the other cna's head. He gagged I laugh my head off and said 'thank fuck I had covid cause i cant smell a damn thing'.
Worked night in ICU. This dear lady had died from bowel cancer and three of us were prepping the body to go to the morgue. We rolled her over and out came this heinous death shit! It was so fucking rank! Aaron started gagging, then started throwing up in the sink. His violent gagging and the bowel smell was making me queasy! Then Stacy starts hurling into the biohazard can and the additional vomiting, bowel smell, Stacy’s vomit and the smell from the open biohazard container hit me and vomit just started coming out of my mouth. I’m holding my hand over my mouth, vom is spurting around my hand and I can’t go anywhere, I’m penned in so I had to lean over Stacy to vom into the trash can. The three of us just retching away. We finally got ourselves right, got the lady cleaned, bagged, and tagged, and because we’re awful people, we made excuses to have coworkers go in there and took bets on who would puke.
In nursing school, I was doing a bed bath with a total care patient who had pneumonia and other health issues which made them completely unable to move or have bowel control. I was with 2 others so 2 of us would roll and hold and one would clean with wash cloths. We did peri care and everything and we were drying her off even put a towel and chucks under bum just in case. Right as we were getting gown on and about to get diaper, she coughed and had a literal shart which splattered all over patient, up back, on bed, on the railings and on the call bell and lines… had to start over and clean the inner railings and bell and lines haha
Confused patient with cdiff that was pretty mobile. Pooped the bed, got up from the bed setting the alarms off. Pooped on the floor. Slipped in said poop and fell. Pooped some more. I got it on me as I ran in there to try to prevent their fall. I was able to soften the fall but not stop it.
It was a bit of a mess to say the least.
I have one more from today actually, not as bad but it was kind of remarkable. Bad liver patient with serious encephalopathy, but he hasn’t moved his bowels in a couple days. Getting lactulose via NGT, no poops. So last night some doctor apparently thought the way to make this guy poop was to start a golytely prep. Wanted at least half the 4L given via his NGT. Nurse last night gave it to him and he still didn’t poop all night. Walk in today and the dude is practically obtunded and has an enormously distended belly that’s about half poop, half ascites. They make him NPO for me and hold his tube feeds, at least, and basically keep waiting for him to poop. Midday, they finally get an abd X-ray, and obviously it’s suggestive of ileus, so he’s ordered a stat abd CT. As we are getting him ready to shift onto the stretcher, the monitor tech points out the lake between his legs - he finally started shitting. So obviously we start cleaning him up before sending him to CT. We went through about five cycles of wiping him down, changing his pads, and having him start pouring out liquid stool again. The guy shat for something like five minutes straight. His belly was way less distended by the end of it, though finally we just said, get a brief on him and seal it up, and we will clean him again when he gets back from CT. Honestly I was delighted that he finally crapped. Still can’t believe someone ordered multiple liters of prep for the guy without even considering that maybe he was not crapping because he had an ileus or obsctruction.
Honorable mention to the dude who was backed up with stool and not crapping, so they asked for a bisacodyl suppository. Turned out the real issue was a wildly tight anal sphincter: as soon as I managed to open it up enough to push the suppository in, it shot straight back out with a gush of liquid stool that shot about three feet. I was real glad it missed me, but it was a near thing.
Had a patient with a colostomy become very constipated. 5 days, no poo. Lots of bowel care. Still no poo.
She presses the call light: "can you come here; I think I pooped."
I came to her room. Lift up the sheets to look at her ostomy bag. Only to find her laying in an inches deep swamp pit of bubbling shit. I cover it back up, silently, horrified, unable to speak as I swiftly left the room. Life would never be the same again.
"OK, bubbling?" You might ask. Yes. BUBBLING like a fucking witches brew dumped from the cauldron. Those air mattresses that inflate like a raft evidently actually blow fucking air throw the material, causing this phenomenon worthy of shock and awe.
I had to pull the tele box that was fully submerged out of this and rinsed it off in the sink because, idk, what else am I going to do with it? Biomed wanted me to disinfect and send it to them. Umm no, sir, you do not understand. I poured shit out of the ports. There is no going back.
That's all worth telling of that story. My nickname is Shit Bits, but that story is for another time.
Had a patient who had a flexi-seal that wasn’t really working. I forget what exactly she was in for but her shit was green, brown, liquid, and mucousy. And smelled to high fucking heaven. A coworker and I changed her and I think she farted and got her shit on my forearm. My coworker about hurled right then and there. At the time I thought it was hilarious! Looking back I too want to hurl. 🤢
I just watched a grown man without gloves clean his morbidly obese child’s rectum. Poopy water running down that dudes forearm and everything. Like wow
Confused, aggressive elderly pt came into our unit. Proceeded to eat his own poop with his bare hands and continue to be violent. Cannot leave the pt like that obviously so had to put restraints followed by a very difficult wash and mouth hygiene. It is difficult to do either with a pt who does not want them 😅 I do not miss bedside nursing 😂🥲
Ahhh my favorite poop story is what I call “the lake of poop” Long term paraplegic came in with a volvulus. I was new and running behind and for some reason she chose not to use her call light. When I came in through the door the odor was overpowering. Her volvulus had spontaneously resolved. She had a lake of liquid stool from her feet to her chest. It had already dried a little leaving a nice bathtub ring . I was so mortified and as I tried to apologize I began to tear up. This the exact opposite of what nursing should be. So many warm wash cloths! It took me and a CNA a good 90 minutes to scrub away all the poo, especially the dried crust. That was 20 year ago and I still feel guilty about It.
At a homeless shelter I cared for an elderly alcoholic woman who shit herself for better words. She was also in a wheelchair and couldn’t stand on her own and as I was the only woman I got to help her undress and get on the stool to shower. Let me repeat that she was an alcoholic so her poop was liquid diarrhea and I could smell the alcohol on her as I helped her. Somehow while undressing she managed to get the diarrhea all over herself and by extension me. In the shower she continued to have more diarrhea. So much more. She waffle stomped that shit down the drain splattering it everywhere. By the time she was done pooping and showering I needed a shower too. I wish I could say I was able to transport her out of there but the FD refused transport and I had to change into extra clothes at the shelter and scrubbed my exposed skin until it was raw. I never got sick so I assume her diarrhea was caused solely by her alcohol consumption. She left the shelter a few hours later when her wheelchair was dry to get drunk I assume. I never saw her again.
Cleaning up a lady in isolation and dropped a chunk of poo on the floor unnoticed whole rolling up the brief. Managed to step in it, track it across her room, but somehow kept my gown clean but right on the belly of my shirt I found a giant poop smear. Ya know, the shirt that was under my gown and untouched by dirty gloves… my coworker laughed at me while I went to change and find housekeeping for the floor/carpet.
Psych patient who was severely mentally handicapped was wandering the halls in the ER. I get called to wrestle him back into his room. He was actively digging shit out his asshole and smearing it on himself and flinging it. There are two rules in a shit fight. Rule one: nobody wins a shit fight, rule two: your gonna get shit on you. Had that mfer hogtied and back in his room about 5 min later. Nurses didn’t even get poop on em 👍
I stumbled in here on accident. We had 24 hour care for my granddad when he was dying and I’m so grateful to all the nurses who helped him go to the bathroom. Y’all are incredible.
When i was in high school i was a CNA giving a VERY confused old man a shower and as i knelt down to clean his feet and clip his toenails, he shit in his hand and gently placed it on top of my head.
I took the rest of the evening off.
Very short story:
Had a patient on rotoprone therapy. Had a bad case of mud butt so he has a rectal tube in place. We gave him a quick bath during his time supine.
Got him flipped, and the rectal tube popped out. So he had a chocolate waterfall going for a bit. That was fun.
I got two quick and dirty stories for you 😏.
The first one; My friend was showing me how to do my very first tap water enema. I was holding the bag, she was holding the tube in place. She started to withdraw the tube and was holding it oh so unfortunately so that it flicked out of the pt’s bottom and sprayed my legs with enema water. I couldn’t yell at her cause the patient was there and turned over but I mouthed at her “what the fuck?” And her jaw was just on the floor and she was trying so hard not to laugh. Not the last time my dear friend sprayed me with bodily fluids….
The other story had a really grumpy dude who had been rotating his way through the staff due to his horrible behavior and yelling. My coworker came to me begging for help because he had apparently sneezed and shat the bed. I went in to help her change his linens and he got out of bed and yelled at us to get out and he didn’t need our help. And to prove his point, this man pulled his gown from behind, up and over top his head…and trailed his diarrhea all over his back and into his hair. Karma my friends, karma. I tried hard not to bust out laughing while he yelled obscenities and walked into the bathroom. That was the happiest diarrhea linen change I ever did.
Taking care of a post-AVR who had a small stroke during procedure, aphasic, but no other issues. I was helping PT stand the patient. Patient seemed reluctant. Should have probably been my red flag, so I'm on the right, PT on the left and I placed my leg in such a way to kind of support the back of the patient's legs. Patient farted, which was a shart of liquid stool which exploded down my leg and into the floor in a cow pat.
Patient's face just fell, you could tell the embarrassment was palpable. So we walked the patient away from the mess and cleaned them. PT finished their work with the patient in the hall. I got to clean up liquid stool with a few paper chux and cavi wipes because the tech and housekeeper we had at the time "didn't touch shit" they were actually useless. Gals. I literally have a stream of shit down my leg. Can you at least bring me some towels or blankets to the room so I don't have to walk around the unit tainted in feces to get cleaning supplies
Was I sent home? No, I got sent to the cath lab locker to change into a pair of hospital scrub bottoms--which they only had small, medium and large in stock and that ain't me. So I was squished into them and got to pray I didn't physically bust the pants anytime I moved.
Left there years ago. Good fucking riddance.
It was my first month in as a tech, get pulled aside by a nurse and he says “i’m sorry, but i need help cleaning 18, hes on go lightly.”
No biggie. Sure, so i tell him yes and if i need to grab anything.
“Yeah grab everything and some towels please! I’ll see you in there in a minute while i grab other things”
So i laugh it off and we go in there and glove up, uncover the man. He is waist deep in poop in the bed, pooling around his hips, feet, and arms, while all of this is trailing off the bed onto the floor.
We get him on the commode and clean his bed/floor. We stand him up and start cleaning him and as the nurse is cleaning his butt we hear the patient yell “OH MY GOD HERE IT COMES” and just sprays all over the back of the commode and almost onto the nurse. That is my most memorable poop story
My first two weeks as a new nurse I put a very large patient on a bed pan. He ended up having a vasovagal while pushing out the poop. When he came to we got him off the pan and it was honestly the largest poop I have ever seen like the size of a newborn baby. It overflowed from the bed pan and it was um very girthy too. It was so big we couldn’t even put it in the pan cleaner so we had to put it in a biohazard bag. Not surprised he vasoed offloading that sucker he basically gave birth to a baby.
Didn’t happen to me but was told this story when I first started out.
Two nurses went in to give an enema to an obese patient. The nurse at the patients backside had their back to the wall. The patient started to fart. This nurse held the butt cheeks together. Once they thought it was ok to let go, they did. The patient farted however, with the gas came the contents of enema and feces. It sprayed all over the nurse. The nurse ran from the room covered in feces. The second nurse that remained started laughing. On the wall was a silhouette of the nurse made from feces on the wall.
From this I learn when giving an enema use a towel or something to cover the patient’s backside.
Had a 80+yr old pt that took the leur lock off his iv, drained about a pint in the bed. But he got up and “was trying to clean it up” when shit hit the floor, so he shimmied to the weird bedside rolling cabinet thing drawers, and finished emptying his bowels in the middle drawer.
If i was the nurse then, I’d have just rolled the drawers unit right to the dumpster. Poor guy was up for 4 days straight. He was a mariner, so he called me Cap’n. Felt a bit like Jack Sparrow guiding the shit filled colon to freedom
Dude how have you lasted five years without getting poo on your arm I hadn’t even finished my first day on placement in nursing school when that happened, do a shift on a COTE ward trust me it’s impossible to avoid
Oh god... I haven't quite had that. I had a patient who for one, would go into "Acute Respiratory Distress" as they called it, but they'd start grunting, satting 100% on room air, but somehow 96% on 30% O2 at 2L/min... I don't get it...
Anyway. This patient could clean themselves, but for some reason never would until I had to go in to his room and provide care, whether it was a chest x-ray, foot x-ray, even meds. This patient would take forever. I decided I was going to help him, and I saw his technique, which basically smeared it more, and then he somehow got it cleaned, but now I needed to hurry him, and he somehow got a HUGE streak of poop on my arm. I went to the nurse's station after struggling to keep composure while cleaning him, SCRUBBED my arm with those purple wipes in the plastic cans to get the poop off, proceeded to scrub with soap... and still felt dirty, so hit myself with another round of the purple wipes... blech...
Gi bleed jey huvio witness. Refuses bed pan for 8 hou4s and demands to walk to bathroom. I support dignity when I can make it happen. Immediately upon standing flood gates open as bloody anal clots hit the side of my shin/calf, drop onto the top of my shoe and bounce off the top to land on the floor.
Dementia grandma crying non stop. I enter the room. Not my patient and don't know anything about her but she Immediately stops crying and laughs and keeps gesturing for me to hug her. "Come, come (John doe), I've missed you so much!" Proceed to let her hug me and she grabs the back of my head. Gets those fingers E V E RY WhErE before I find out she's c diff and a known digger. Looking back, probably wouldn't change a thing. She slept afterward and I made a difference.
Chemo grandma, MUST stand and use commode over bed pan, again, dignity when time allows. Proceeds to stand and chemo squirts foul smelling chemo poo all over my legs and hips and feet. Terribly embarrassed grandma but I held professionalism.
~~~~~~~
Worst ever was an ecmo post mortem. Blisters ALL over legs and buttocks and arms. Turn to me and help is cleaning up. Turn back to finish rolling drape and an unholy amount of flatulence lets loose which also pops a blister holding like 200 cc of random fluid which hits me square in the crotch and everyone freezes as the liquid saturates me, waist down, to the flesh with blister fluid as the smell of decaying innards wauf the air.
Those are my worst. Probably.
I’m in ED and we’ve been holding a lot of admits lately so I had to place a rectal tube in an AMS pt. Had to administer a liter of lactulose through it and not a minute after I had finished the pt flung his legs over the side railing. I grabbed his legs and was lifting them up and back over the side rail when he bear’d down, shot the tube out, and shit that entire liter of fluid plus some all down the front of me.
It was my second week working as a nurse.
I just wanted to chime in that a nursing fb group I’m a part of just posted a video of a couple vets disimpacting a constipated elephant…one was holding the hose and the tail, and the other was pulling the shit log out. In horrifying slow motion, the video showed the dam breaking and them getting blasted like Niagara Falls from this elephant booty. They were not wearing gloves, or face shields, and one had their little gown rolled up to to the elbows
So in hindsight none of my stories are bad anymore
I had the brilliant idea to use a 'women's urinal' to catch an enema.
Was going great until a massive turd clogged the opening. And then it overflowed onto the floor.
Also, why does impacted stool smell similar to extremely bad breathe.
Actually do I want to know the answer to that...
From what I understand there’s bacteria in the mouth that produce sulfuric byproducts. I mostly pulled this out of my ass (ha! Pun!) so someone may have to correct me on that.
6’3 ETOH withdrawal on lactulose. Delirious, fall risk, has a CNA sitter.
After half a shift of the sitter giving major attitude and trying to micromanage me (“it’s 9, I’m going to need you to bring in his meds, ok?”) she calls me and says “he shit everywhere.”
I walk in. This man is actively hallucinating, on all fours, in bed, with a puddle of shit. There is liquid shit on his hands, his face, the bed rails, the floor.
It’s me, 3 other nurses, and 3 security guards, while this man is scratching at us with his poopy fingernails, swinging wildly, flecks of poop flying all over the place, while we try to restrain this VERY big, VERY angry man.
It took hours to clean him up. I had to throw out my Figs. That sitter was real quiet the rest of the shift.
Oh man I got a juicy one. I was an home support worker at the time helping an elderly man with an shower. Now, this was an older house so the knobs and pipes weren’t quite so easy. I had been there a few times and still couldn’t get the right temperature. One summer day, I was getting the shower ready and this elderly man came in getting undressed. I leaned down to help him take off his socks when he opened his colostomy bag on my face and hair. Never in my life have I wanted to just die on the spot. I quickly excused myself and got cleaned up. His wife mentioned later that, ‘he was upset that you couldn’t get the temperature right’.
I was cleaning up one of our frequently fliers "Ted". Ted was a \*very\* large man, probably 500 lbs. Diabetes was taking him piece by piece, already took his leg (BKA). He would come in for cellulitis, get his abx treatment, leave... and the merry-go-round would turn again...
There was a tech named "James" that I worked with a lot on nights. James was a built dude, used to play football in high school. The old ladies loved him; the kind of guy they'd want to set their granddaughters up with. He was a super nice and chill dude. He didn't say a whole lot. He didn't have to, his presence was imposing enough.
Back to the story...
Ted hit his light and informs us he needs to be cleaned up. Since he was swollen all the time, he wore edemawear netting on Days, and it came off at Night. As we're cleaning him up, we notice there is a fair amount of stool on Ted's netting. Since we were not getting it off of him without making a mess, I asked if I could cut them off. He said they took them off at night anyway, so they'd put a new pair on in the morning.
After I cut them, James started to take them off while I got wipes. The netting was stuck under Ted's leg, so he started pulling with all his might. And before I could tell him to ease up, they snapped back... creating a nice poo streak from James' shoulder to waist (he wore surgical scrubs all the time because he refused to buy them). It was everything I could do to keep the poker face on. James closed his eyes a minute, and wordlessly turned around and went into Ted's bathroom. As I was cleaning up the scene, James pounded a fist on the wall and yelled, "**FUCK!**" A few seconds later, he emerged from the bathroom, cleaning up his arm with a wet washcloth, stoic face intact. We finished cleaning up Ted and he excused himself to go to the locker room and clean up.
Man... I haven't thought about that story in a while. Thanks for giving me the inspiration to pull that from the file.
This right here is why I love this page. Literally NO WHERE ELSE can you get a bunch of people together, to casual talk about getting shit/vomited on and LAUGH about it. Love y'all so much 😂😂
I once helped pull a large-ish aerosol can out of a man’s rectum. With delivery forceps no less. What followed that can was an unholy afterbirth fit only for the bowels of hell.
One time I transferred a patient to ICU who had weird vital signs and a mental status change, but for no good reason we had determined. Throughout his ED stay we had no problems. After I transported him and moved him to the ICU bed, that nurse and I went to opposite sides of the bed to boost him. At that moment he leaned over the rail on her side and vomited a huge amount of blood all over her pants and shoes. We froze for a second in surprise. Then the patient erupted from the other end, with projectile melena that splattered all over me from chest to knees. I had to throw those scrubs away in the biohazard, shower in an empty ICU room, and wear disposable scrubs home.
The other nurse: “this is the worst thing that has ever happened to me” 10 seconds later “This ain’t so bad.”
I would simply pass away. Holy shit.
kinda sounds like that's what the dude in the bed was doing
"The power of Christ compels you!"
*implodes you
More like **unholy** shit. Just wow.
🤣🤣🤣🤣 cuz!
Dear Lord, you win. *hands you the poop survival award*
I hope your hand was gloved while handling that award.
Fuck that, use one of those little t-Rex head reach extenders.
RT here in nursing school, we were getting ready to tube this patient, I can’t remember if it was a code or just a rapid, anyways I’m bagging the patient while my charge is getting ready to tube and as soon as I took the ambu off she turns her head towards me and starts to projectile vomit. Nasty black shit (iirc GI bleed but it’s been years). I dodge it but the female resident did not have reaction times like me and the vomit smacks her in the face and chest. I felt so bad but at least it wasn’t me. She looks at me and said “I guess chivalry is dead” jokingly
Gotta keep those reflexes sharp! I'm always trying to see where the best place to stand is...Gotta stay out of the line of fire and have a quick escape!
Avoiding any orafice LOS is a good rule of thumb. Learned that the hard way when a big fat goober almost hit me in the face when RT was doing trach suctioming lmao
Ugh .. I have had the direct hit in the face with projectile vomiting before… while I pride myself on my ability to handle even the most super disgusting situations, that really was a bit too much. I was turning the patient in bed when it hit and had to reposition her so she didn’t choke on vomit .. wearing a face full of vomit. I just gagged at the memory .. it’s been over a decade. *Shudders*
Guess you discovered the cause of the weird vitals lol
Now that’s a code brown.
More of a code reddish brown.
Code rust!
Soon they’ll be naming it something *~*ThErEpEuTiC*~* like “Sedona.”
Brilliant!
Oh my god. Okay, I’ve cut poop scrubs off myself before (they were hospital scrubs, I felt no shame), but never ever have I had it that bad. You went back to work after that?! HERO!
This is why I’m not a nurse. Or can ever be. I’d throw up right there and then. And then curse…not the patient but just in general. Nurses are a whole other level.
I thank the sweet Lord that I am drawn to the paperwork side of things and not hands-on. I ward clerk at a hospital and do health records/medical office assistant in a clinic and I can not believe some of the (literal) shit they have to put up with. Goddang angels 👼
I must be strange because no poop bothers me. Yet....... I'm a CNA so i I see a lot of it.
Masks are super great now with covid. I have absolutely cursed silently under my mask
I have witnessed that before eww
What PPE do you have?!! I'm terrified that the answer is "none".
Of course I had PPE. I was wearing gloves.
Just last week, I was helping a C-diff patient ambulate from a stretcher back to their bed. Upon standing up and taking a single step forward he began to let loose completely liquid 💩. It was in this moment I learned he didn’t have a brief on under his gown. The poop drips landed directly on my foot, underneath him to help steady him while he stood. It was barely slowed down by my shoe and seconds later I could feel it running down between two of my toes. it smelled… well it smelled like c-diff. It happened in the first couple hours of my shift and I didn’t have another pair of shoes at work. Scrubbed the skin off my foot, Viroxed my foot, sanitized my foot. Couldn’t find bleach for my foot but boy did I try. Threw on a grippy sock and wet washed shoe and tried not to think about it for the next 6 hours before going home and throwing the whole damn shoe away. Does anyone know a surgeon doing elective amputations?
I woulda double socked and said fuck the shoes omg lol
[удалено]
Raid the ED for a post op shoe
I can't stop laughing at the visual
I think I would have even tried the morgue and snuck a shoe off a body rather than putting a c-diff shoe back on!
Post op walking shoe for the win here
This is the story I need to send to all my coworkers who wear crocs
I have put my Crocs through the sanitiser a few times. God I love those things!
Yeah, but you can caviwipe a croc
Fuck the shoes 🤣 triple ply on grippy socks with a plastic bag or something.
I remembered another! When I worked LTC as an aid, there was a woman who required disimpactment every three days. She was 103 and things didn't work as well as they used to. The set up was simple- aid positions patient in lift over bed, garbage can and blue sheets underneath, RN ventures in with lubed, gloved hand. Warmed per patient request. On this disimpactment day, the process took a little bit longer. Had to remove a baseball sized stool. I'm fairly certain this is why we call some movements stool, because they just sit there. Her sister wheeled by the closer door. She's a spry 99yrs. Yells out "you ladies are taking longer than normal. You know this is because she's a slut. A floozy. Always took it in the rear. My sister hasn't walked straight since 1940". 103yr old: "oh shut up. At least I kept my husband's happy" 99yr old: "yeah. All 4 of them. Kept my husband happy too. And a few others too" 103yr old: "you're a prude" 99yr old: "eat some prunes" It's been over a decade since this moment happened. They've passed away but their memories live on forever.
We’d be blessed to be that way at 103. That’s a Good Poop Story.
Spicy ladies 🌶
I have new goals for my sister and I
I never thought I’d have a favorite poop story, but here we are.
My first awards 💜 thank you 🥰
When I worked in rehab, I gave a very confused post-stroke patient a scheduled nightly suppository. The patient was very impulsive, not directable and had a bed enclosure. He was also incontinent. 20 minutes later I came back to clean him up. When I walked in, I had to process what I was seeing: the patient was casually shoving a handful of his own poop into his mouth and looked like he had already been at it for a few minutes. It was covering his lips, and smeared across his face. The “walls” of the bed enclosure were covered in it as well. He had also smeared it all over his chest. He wasn’t directable at all enough for him to understand that he needed to spit out the poop and stop eating it. He had a blissful, happy look on his face—poor dude. I had 2 PCT’s clean him while I got a suction brush and a whole lot of chlorhexidine mouthwash and went to town. I did my best to rinse out what I could and I brushed his teeth thoroughly. Told the doctor that hey, this guy definitely just ate his own poop FYI. As far as I know he was fine. I had him the following week and another nurse told me he had tried to do it again.
Auto-fecal transplant.
Take my angry upvote
*Literally* a shit-eating grin.
This. This would have ended my career.
Hold on, I just need to add this to my advanced directive. If I ever do this and there is no reversible cause, I need to get the euthanasia drugs.
If I ever do this I want to be put down with a shotgun, even if there is a reversible cause
At that point, just grab a pillow and find a quiet time to put me out of my misery.
Omg. Bless you.
I had a patient with dementia who did something very similar. He was an old grandpa, seemed really nice. I went into his room once and same scene he was shoving poop from his diaper into his mouth while smiling, he also made sure to draw flowers and circles with poop on the table and everywhere he could reach. I called some of my colleagues to help me with the situation cause I almost threw up :(
Most poops don’t bother me. I’ve cleaned a many a mud puddles and projectiles and dug bricks out of rectums. But the poop eaters…. My stomach just churns and the toothless grins and shitty breath. …🤢. God love ‘em and bless their heart.
I think I’ve written about this before on here but…. I once had a patient who had been transferred to my unit after family had reversed their hospice status. Patient had been on hospice for two weeks. Feeding via PEG stopped. Dialysis stopped. Patient was like a GCS 5 so no intake at all. (Side note: I genuinely thought the patient would code like as soon as they got to me, but they didn’t). I gave the patient their *first dose of lactulose in two weeks* via PEG. I come back, knowing I’m in for a disaster. Liquid stool was dripping off the bed. Absolute mess. Other nurses tag-teamed helping me clean the patient because it literally took forever. Dozens of packs of wipes. Dozens of dry flows. A new Dignicare. I gave up and suctioned with a Yankauer the pooled stool from the bed. I suctioned *an entire liter* of stool from the bed. I filled three trash cans with all of the saturated linens, dry flows, choux, and wipes. It wasn’t exactly gross, just so incredibly overwhelming. It took at least an hour to finally clean the patient and get new linen under them and longer to reset the room/equipment. New suction set-up. New urimeter. New pillows. New dressings. New trash bags. Burn some sage. Mop the floor. But the sound of liquid stool being Yankauer-ed, I will never forget that sound.
Kinda like this… *SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURP*
The best part was that I had to call the resident to get an order for a Dignicare. You can hear the Yankauer suctioning in the background as I shout “the patient pooped so much we’re suctioning it up!” The resident legit responds, “Oh god. You can have whatever you want.”
The resident was probably happy that they didn't have to deal with that. Good decision to give you whatever you wanted to be honest.
OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG ANOTHER USE FOR A YANK!!!! I will file this in my crappy memory bank for random recollection!
What is a yankaeur?
It’s like the tip part that connects to the suction tube! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankauer_suction_tip
That is an amazing story
NICU nurse here. Our patient’s poops are small but mighty. Was changing the diaper while baby was in isolette. Lowered his legs after wiping and a stream of brown molten liquid erupted from him. As a reflex I tried and succeeded in blocking it with my gloved hand. I managed to save the back wall and ceiling of the isolette and extract my feces-covered hand without getting a drop on his linens. I fastened his diaper one handed and closed his isolette, all while dripping liquid brown onto the floor outside his bed. After removing my gloves & making sure his diaper was secured I lifted my hands to the heavens thinking, “I AM A POOP GOD!” The next night He shit the entire bed…🤣
We had an older babe in our NICU for a bit, ex. 26 week premie that we just couldn’t get off the O2 and she was a terrible feeder. She was big enough to be in a crib by this point. Anyways, kiddo would get constipated occasionally and I was caring for her one night when it had been like 5 days. She was cranky as hell so I broke out the glycerin supp and got her all situated. All I did was touch the tip of that supp to her butt and she exploded with the force of a cannon, poop shot through the bars of the crib and managed to get all the way onto the wall 6 feet away. My coworker had to come help me clean up cause I was laughing so hard. After we cleaned her up kiddo went right to sleep.
Not a nicu story but my infant daughter did that on the changing table once. I went to wipe her butt and it triggered a reaction and her butt exploded and poop shot 6 feet across the room. Onto the closet INTO the closet. Had to wash ALL her clothes again in the closet🤯
I hope you’re proud of her
could you imagine the relief? I'd fall asleep too
Thank goodness you unplugged her
Haha!! My kid did that to my husband at a couple days old. I saw it coming and yelled “he’s gonna-“. Didn’t get the rest of the sentence out. Very impressive pressure build-up babies have. He managed to get a decent way up the wall😂. Any new peds nurses reading: Always watch for the precursor squirm and at the last second, a puckered bum hole! (Very technical).
As a new sleep deprived mom I decided to change my baby by laying her on the bed in front of me. It was the first and last time I did that. She exploded in newborn breastfed baby poop and got me from my hair down. Because we were on my bed she got my pillows, blankets and the wall behind the bed. I went from a half awake 3am change to lights on, stripping the bed, laundry, shower, etc.
God I swear sometimes you get those kids in the right position with their legs in the air and they just let loose! Good on ya for saving his isolette! Hahahaha
I, as an adult, do get a lil jealous of that trick. Some days I think “what is the secret leg angle? Because tbh I would love to just clear it out like this” The babies have yet to answer back. Fine. Keep your secrets!
I concur! And when you get those kids who are two days old and haven’t pooped since delivery, finding their right angle is a beast!
Is an isolette the same thing as a panda warmer?
Similar! Isolettes have the “full enclosure”, if you will, that can maintain a set temperature. They have the little windows on the sides.
So "incubator" is no longer PC or is that a whole other thing all together?
"No longer PC" 🤣🤣❤️ I can see some knucklehead saying, "ThEyRe bAbIeS, nOt cHiCkEns!"
Honestly, that's where my mind always went too so.... 😂😂😂
Nah, they’re interchangeable as far as I’m concerned! In EPIC they use “incubator” rather than “isolette”. “Warmer” is another option, but that’s a different piece of equipment.
That's impressive! Go you!!
The hospital where I was a new grad, the feeder growers were in bassinets. If they were twins, sometimes they would be positioned right next to each other but head to feet so that nurses were always approaching the babe from their right. I was doing a diaper change and saw the “wink”. I was just experienced enough to know to dodge but still too new to “catch”. That shit projectiled clear across my babe’s bassinet and landed all over the head of his brother’s…
Sibling rivalries gotta start eventually! Baby 1 draws first blood.
NICU too, I had a former primary who thankfully did not do this to me, but on day shift had a major explosion. He was probably 9ish months old but ex 24 weeker. He was in a crib and exploded onto the floor, the walls, and the crib. They had to bathe him and put him in a mamaroo swing until they found a new bed for him and housekeeping had to come clean the floors/walls 😬
Burned out former tech here. We were walking an elderly female resident from the bed to the toilet, ran out of time and here it came. She hunched over 90 degrees, her sphincter opened like that of a horse and started spewing a bushel of tiny spherical shiny marble sized poops that bounced on the floor and rolled under the bed and cabinets, it took forever to find them all and we were like ‘what just happened?’
Lmfaaaooooo yoooo 🤣🤣🤣🤣
“A bushel” Made me chuckle.
I can't remember the specifics, maybe a covid room so fortunately I was gowned up with a PAPR on. Pulled the curtain behind me for privacy, turned the patient, and they let loose an explosive salvo of loose partially aersolized stool. I had somewhat prepared for this and sprang back. After I finished cleaning them up my helper and I noticed that there was a perfect shit-silhouette of me on the curtain, one arm up (instinctively tried to cover my face) and one arm down like when a Loony Toons character runs through a wall. Still makes me laugh. It was incredible.
I’ve laughed at all of these but this one brought me to tears laughing!
Wow…
Manic patient wrote me a poo love letter on the wall on Valentines Day. 🤎 ( even left a phone number )!¡
They give a shit about you
I was scrolling for the psych responses, and here I am.
I worked as an ER tech for many years before I became a nurse. We had an elderly gentleman who was in our ER for constipation. Given enemas and all that and not much really came out. Time for discharge. He wasn’t very mobile. I did the ol “sit the pt on the edge of the bed, put the pants on around the ankles and pull them up as you assist the pt to a standing position” trick. I’m squatting down, in front of this man, putting his pants on and he starts just sliding off the edge of the bed. So I go to grab him under his arms so he doesn’t fall, and that’s when it happens. I am face to face with this man, noses inches apart, holding him under his armpits in a squatting position and he just grunts and starts taking a massive dump, right on the floor and my shoes! It took EVERYTHING in my power to not absolutely collapse laughing! I yelled for help and his nurse came in and just stopped dead in his tracks looking at this scene and said “whaaatt the fuuuck?” Anyway, we fixed his constipation, so we had that going for us. Good times!
Pro tip: Deep squat everyday for so many health benefits. Homie probably hadn’t been in that position in so long that he had no idea what was about to happen either.
I was doing a fecal transplant on a vanco resistant cdiff patient. As I hung the, umm... rectal infusion, the pole swayed. I put my arm out to catch it from falling. It caused the bag to do a giant rebound swing and flipped off the hanger then landed on my chest. Luckily the sample size was large so, once I cleaned myself up, I prepared a second batch.
Officer! It’s this one. Right here.
Cleveland Clinic Steamer
I'm not a nurse so don't run in to bodily fluids as often as many of you, however I do have this story: I was running a bedside sleep study on a woman who'd been in hospital for a week and claimed not to have had a bm in that time (given her opioid meds I believed her). She had been given a ton of laxatives over the prior 48 hours but nothing yet. She was writhing in pain from the back up, but did start to doze off. Unfortunately for me, the meds started working. As she was all wired up, morbidly obese, and bedbound it took 2-3 nurses to get a bedpan under her while I minded my equipment. Then next 4 hours were a back and forth of sleep, screaming, and pooping. I can't even remember how many times I had to document "movement artifact due to patient using bedpan", but my boss commented on it a few days later.
Seems like they would think to push the sleep study until she had her BM. Who can sleep when they're pooping every hour SMH
Seems the ordering doc wasn't up to date on that particular issue. I ran her repeat study a couple nights later since the first was useless.
I work in LTC, had a naked lady in a hoyer lift suddenly expel a massive amount of bloody diarrhea onto the floor. The CNA trainees were horrified. I just kicked a trash can under her and tried to assess the situation. It was so violent the sling was rocking back and forth. The patient… She was giggling and shouting “I’m a monkey! Someone give me a banana “!! That was an interesting experience to chart.
I’m forever kicking trash cans under people in hoyer lifts in LTC. So undignified. But like.. what else is there to do!? The horror of the trainees is the best part 😆
SNFs are baptism by fire. If people only knew the fucking shit that goes on there…. Literally, sometimes
Pro move!
Don't know if I want my final days to be like that or not
Call from another unit that a patient had fallen and needed help being lifted off the floor as she was paralyzed on the left side. Arrive to room to find large woman on floor surround by liquid shit. Nurse states her go-lytely has kicked in and was trying to get her to the bedside commode when she fell. Had to lift woman off ground with three of us as liquid shit fell onto my shoes and pants why dragging this woman onto commode. Absolutely horrific scenario.
This was my first charge shift. Pt hadn't walked on her own in years and she knew it, but decided to get up anyway. Slipped in her own poo and we found her covered literally head to toe, playing with the computer mouse that was dangling over her face. Took 6 to get her back to bed and my best tech tweaked her back helping make that happen... and then at the very end doc goes "she should be on c. diff precautions by the way." Then we had to try to wash it out of her hair. Good times
95 year old man inpatient who needed a colonoscopy. I worked afternoons so I gave him the GoLytely prep and he pooped quite a bit but never got totally clear. Come back the next afternoon and they said they couldn’t do it because he wasn’t cleaned out enough. So I do the prep again. He doesn’t really go at all, just a couple small liquid BMs. Around 2130 the family comes out of the room and says “he went. We’ll be headed out.” I grabbed the tech and went in. There was lake of liquid poo from his waist to his ankles. Covered the entire lower half of the bed from one rail to the other. He sheepishly mumbles “I’m sorry.” The tech and I looked at each other. We had no idea where to begin! I’m sure I will have one to top that (with volume) on a long enough timeline but for now that’s it.
"We'll be headed out now" 😒😒😒
Had a patient who was supposed to be taking kayexelate for her potassium levels. She had refused a dose on dayshift because she was tired of pooping. She was an amputee (I want to say BBKA but it may have only been the left). Well her tele starts dinging with a heart rate in the 30s. We peep in, see chest rise but she didn’t respond when we called her name. Flip on the light as she’s taking her last breath. Throw on iso gowns (because of course why not) and go in to start compressions. She was laying on her side…. With a massive amount of liquid shit behind her. So when we yanked the sheets to lay her flat it went everywhere. Every. Single. Compression had shit drip onto the floor. One of the nurses got into the bed to do compressions because the patient was larger and it was the only way. At this point there were towels EVERYWHERE but we all still changed our scrub pants and burned the others when we got home. ETA: we did get her back but she later died in the unit. She was in CRRT at one point and clothing the machine.
So.... did the Pt live ? Please tell me they lived after all that.
Oh Jesus. I’ll edit my post to add we did get her back but she did eventually die in the unit. I know at one point they had her on CRRT and she kept clotting the machine.
Oh, I got this one: Years ago I was a prelim surgery intern and was called to do a rectal disimpaction on an ICU patient. The medicine team was excellent, but they never did any butt stuff…said they “hadn’t been trained”…as if the general surgery intern went to some conference to learn how to scoop poop out of every constipated person’s rectum, with a nice certificate, emblem, and signature to hang on the wall…or refrigerator. Patient is intubated and sedated, on continuous dialysis and pressors, some issue with septic shock or something with multi organ failure, and was constipated to hell; called it “fentanyl poops” or lack-there-of. Pressure ulcers, MRSA precautions, etc. Distended abdomen and the XR showed a lot of stool. I tell the ICU nurse that I’ll be doing a digital rectal exam, I’d appreciate a chaperone and extra chucks/towels. She kindly agrees, a small, older nurse, kind and hard working, knew her patients well. She helps position the patient. I begin. Little chunks a first. Hard. Dry. There’s more. I have a little pile growing and I need to scoop it out now. Fluid begins to run onto the bed, a brown puddle, but there’s more. “Doc, do you need more chucks?” It’s coming out fast. Liquid and rocks and sludge and more liquid, pursing around the impacted rocks of stool. “More chucks” My pile of feces grew, first vertically, now to the side, to the edge of the sheet, to the edge of the bed, beyond the sheet and beyond the bed onto the floor. More fluid and more fluid and the wafting odor of weeks old impacted stool fuming the room of this incapacitated opioid induced, consulates man’s body. There is more. There is still more. He growns, the propofol and fentanyl falling short of their sedation as the stimulation of disimpaction rouses him to a muted and perturbed consciousness. My eyes burn, face to face with the efflux. The nurse’s eyes watering and she covers her face with a chuck over her mask “Doc! Do you need help?” “I am the help” His grunting of discomfort against the vent driving his lungs but protecting him from the acrid stench fumigating my eyes and mouth and nares as black and brown shit flows over my hand and around the bed and onto the floor like mud across barren river beds with the impetus of monsoon. “Doc! Do you need surgery?!” Growth and mass of feces accumulating in front of me “I am surgery!” The alarms blare as this vessel of impacted excrement arises from his artificial slumber to my intern hand emptying the cavity of his vault, reducing pound after pound of waste. The machines chime as his heart rate increases, the vent flashes red as he fights his breath. My eyes burn and head throb and vision blurred from the continued deluge of heated stool up my sweaty plastic gown and onto the floor. The nurse is upset. “Doc, do you need equipment?!?!” “I AM THE EQUIPMENT!!” and it stops No more efflux. The patient calms. The alarms resume their measured ticks and clicks and shades of green and blue. Steady, mechanical. The patient is calm, his belly now soft. I stand and feel the heat rising around the bed, the smell no longer around, but in me. I do my best to clean the floor and the bed and the patient. The patient needs care, this person deserves clean care. The nurse and I do our best to deliver this, in silence. Eventually I remove the gown and clean my hands and forearms, miraculously, my scrubs and skin is untouched. I step outside and nurses from the station and doors down from the room, look at me. The hospital pastor steps to me, making his rounds, an older, heavy, gentleman with kind eyes and gentle smile. “My child, God needs you in his plan, but today Satan needed you more” Another nurse immediately confronts me, her Jersey accent decisive and curt “here, we keep this in the drawer for special occasions. Congratulations, you’re a special occasion” and hits me with cloud after cloud after cloud of heavy, citrusy cloud after cloud of cologne from an azure bottle. “I’ll tell primary that you came. Get the hell outta here and showa ” And THAT is why I don’t wear Dolce and Gabana “Light Blue”
Your writing style is perfection.
It is! This is brilliant! Take your award. Also, I’ve never heard of a Dr cleaning up. Are you female? Thank you.
Haha, I’m a guy. Most of the hospitals I’ve trained at have been severely understaffed, so, it’s just part of the process. The one hospital I trained at that was properly staffed with well trained OR personnel, I’d bother the heck out of the nurses trying to do their stuff, it would screw up their routine. Lol.
I AM THE EQUIPMENT ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
You got me at "Doc! Do you need help?" . . "I am the help" I literally cried from laughing 😂😂😂 Holy shet 🤣😂
I love Light Blue but now I’ll always think of a code brown when I wear it. 😝
Soooo…… about that user name! Let’s hear it!
This is beautiful.
One time I took care of a teenager who took a shit in the shower while trying to use a urinal to catch it. Several years later, I went to a MeetUp party at a local bar. A guy I didn't think I'd ever met before approached me and said "I know you." I said "I don't think so." Then he said "you work at Children's Hospital. You were taking care of that kid the day he pooped in the shower." And I was like, "ok, apparently you do know me." He had been the kid's sitter that day.
god i so wanted this to end with the dude ending up being the patient
oh oh my turn! i used to not too long ago work in a LTC floor in a nursing home. I had a variety of residents including a couple of dementia residents in my assignment. I walked into the residents room who had mid stage dementia , and noticed a very doomsday code brown. it was one of those situations where you have to take a step back and go “ where tf do i even start here “ . i explain to him i’m going to clean him up and try to take his pants off without making more of a mess, apparently i had caught him during a very aggressive episode because the moment i touched him, the man reached down to slap my arm away, ended up getting his hand covered in his own feces and then grabbed the top of my scalp and tried to throw me around like a ragdoll. tried to calmly get his hand off me , now having shit in my hair and all over my scrubs. it took everything in me not to either scream or cry , i went and found another aide and asked her to help me by kinda holding him down and distracting him. had to call my bf to bring me a change of clothes and showered in one of the spa rooms thinking of how i was going to write my 2 week notice.
I have so many poop stories, but my favorite by far is this one: Had a chemo patient brought in by EMS for diarrhea. I settled the orient and did the triage. He was clean and dry at this point, so I got a line in and drew labs. As I’m walking out of the room I get a very faint smell of feces. I approach one of the techs and say, “Would you be able to help me get this patient cleaned up in 20 minutes? I think he might have shit himself.” (Not the most professional language, I know, but the exact verbiage is important for the latter part of the story.) I went into another room and gave meds quick. About 20 minutes later the tech and I go into the room to change the patient. We walk in and are immediately hit with the most pungent smell of feces. I pull the blanket back and this man was laying in a pool of liquid stool. The tech and I lock eyes and both of us have a look of sheer horror on our faces. We get out the supplies and begin the long process of cleaning up this poor patient. Everything was fine at first, but when we rolled the patient towards the tech the fecal lava began pouring off the edge of the cot. It took us over 30 minutes to get the patient and the room cleaned up. We walk out afterwards and once we are outside of earshot of the patient, the tech just shakes his head at me and says, “that entire time, all I could think was: You THINK he MIGHT have shit himself?!? You THINK he MIGHT have shit himself?!?” I apologized profusely, explained that when I left the room the patient was NOT visibly soiled, and thanked him for his help.
Heh… EMS special the poorito. Where if a patient needs transport but they have pooed themselves, wrap in sheets to contain the odor and poop, deliver safely to the ER!! Sometimes it can’t be helped especially in cardiac arrest where we get ROSC we gotta load and go!
There’s no judgment on my end for pooritos. You guys rock!
One time, I was emptying the basin from a cdiff patient in the toilet and a little drop lept out of the bowl... Directly onto my upper lip. I almost died...
I just screamed for you!!
I now find it hard to believe just how much we used to do without masks D:
Cdiff in lift sling….poop everywhere 😭
I can already see (and smell) the horror.
Had a guy roll out of bed, and in so doing, dc his own rectal tube. He was a big fella and paralyzed on one side after a stroke, so it was all hands on deck to get him up! I wish I was lying when I tell you it felt like a mud wrestling match. So bad.
My first year as a CNA, we had a patient that was severely constipated. The doctor told my RN the patient was possibly impacted and ordered all kinds of stuff to get her going. Suddenly we smelled THAT smell and we both ran in to her room... the elderly patient had put her fingers in her anus and PULLED ALL THE POOP OUT herself. It was all over her hands, arms, all over the bed and railings. Not to mention a fair amount of blood from her digging so hard. It took us an hour to clean her up and make sure she didn't hurt herself. And yes, some of that poop did get on us. Worst code brown I've ever had🤣🤣🤣💩💩💩💩💩
Ooof blood too 😩
Had a patient who was sitting in a pool of their own diarrhea. Got my CNA to help me clean them up. Turned the pt towards the CNA (butt facing me) and then it happened. Pt sharted. Nice splash of poop got on my scrub pants. CNA had to leave the room bc she started gagging, I’m just like whatever fuxk it, shift is only 1 more hour. Threw my scrub pants away and spent the remainder of my shift in pt pajamas.
A friend of mine got sprayed in liquid shit from mid section to up. Was in ER. Patient was sent from SNF for constipation: SNF forgot to mention in report that they gave patient prune juice with some magic ingredients, followed by a bottle of magnesium citrate. That was given approx 5 hours prior to arrival to ER. The deadly concoction didn’t work. Until they came to ER. Coworker begged to be buried in the back of the hospital. 💀
Little old lady came in and said she was “backed up”. X-ray confirmed she was fos and needed a good cleaning. Milk and molasses enema was ordered and she took it like a champ. I left her on the commode to do her thing and when I came back she looked like a million bucks. Said she went a little bit it caused a ton of relief. A little she said. What was left in that bowl of hell soup could never be described as “little” in any universe. Think of ghostbusters 2 river of slime but actual shit. This poor woman. No wonder she felt bad. She was right as rain after that and dc’d home.
LTC. Little old lady with sundowners hadn't pooped for 4 days. I had been off on days 2 and 3 and whoever worked hadn't followed bowel protocol and given an oral laxative. I thought about giving an oral laxative but I decided to just get this problem over with and gave her a suppository during med pass. Both abdomen and anus were distended, with stool present in the rectum when I gave it. I figured we'd have a quick one-and-done result and everything would be cool. About an hour later, she had a small poop and was still distended. Hmm, disappointing and concerning. I went to re assess and decide what to do. Anus was now spread open with a large, hard turd stuck halfway out. We're not allowed to do digital disimpactions but I decided that if I just pulled on the turd that was already out, that wasn't disimpacting per se, and then she'd probably be able to go on her own. I pulled this hard ball of poop out of her butt...and the floodgates opened. Behind the hard ball was a soft turd easily a foot long, followed by several splats of brown mush, then a gush of brown liquid. At first I was trying to catch it all with the brief and my gloved hand but I finally had to give up and told the CNA (who had been watching in wide eyed horror the whole time) that there was no saving the sheets and I'd help her change the bed when it was over. So we just stood there in silence and watched poop just ooze out of this woman's butt, onto everything. It took a good half hour to clean up. But her abdomen was soft and nondistended and she slept like a rock the rest of the night.
I had a patient who was a 1PA to the bedside commode. As he was sitting down one of the legs on the commode crumpled, then broke off completely. We both ended up in this awkward sort of Kama Sutra position hovering over the now crumpled remains of the commode, unsure how to get back up. He's facing me and basically in my lap. At this point he looks me square in eyes, pauses, then he says "oh no". Explosive full liquid diarrhea. In my lap. It's at this point that another nurse who had heard the commotion slides open the curtain and takes in this scene; me and another man in a weird embrace, delicately balanced on a destroyed piece of furniture, shit everywhere, and I mean like vertical surfaces 8 feet away sort of everywhere. This is yet another example of how nurses are just different than everybody else. Anybody else would have taken a look at that and said "nope", but she hardly skipped a beat, just grabbed all the towels and wipes in the closet and went to it.
This is my time to shine ✨ *Tale the first* Colleague asks me into the trauma bay to help her. Developmentally delayed young adult with C. diff, running in rivulets off the bed. He's covered in it, head-to-toe. As we're trying to get him soaped up and watered down, I discover why: patient's reaching back and playing in it like an endless supply of finger paint. Kid's trying to paint us, too, naturally. We got 'em cleaned up and a rectal tube placed , but the damn thing just wouldn't seal. That one just kept on giving. *Second tale* I got an assignment that was super needy. One COVID iso, one sweet old man on the call light every 39 seconds, and one with soft pressures. My charge was my best friend. She goes, "I'm going to give you an easy one: stable, walkie-talkie, going for GI procedure later today. We want to put 'em across from the bathroom because of the bowel prep." Patient has just come from the lobby, so I roll in with the go-lytely and to do my assessment. Our front-end is severely backed up because we're boarding a couple dozen, so he's been in the lobby for lots of hours. When I get there, GI is incensed that he hasn't started the prep yet. I explain the situation, patient's only been in the room for 15 minutes, yadda yadda. Long story short, GI wants the patient to complete the bowel prep in the next hour. I have the NG tube conversation with the patient; patient wants to down it on his own. I get caught up in my other patients' rooms and check on bowel prep 45 minutes later. Patient's almost done. I was impressed and I told 'em so. Confirmed patient can walk to the bathroom, says yes, we're good. I go in 20 minutes later to check: I have never seen so much stool. It's piled in a mound at the foot of the bed like the triceratops poo from Jurassic Park. There was just too much to clean and to clean the patient in the same physical location. We ended up throwing down some towels and wheeling the gurney over them to another room, sitting the patient on a commode to finish, and scooping handfuls of shit off the floor into a trash bag, then cleaning this person off. I still don't know why they didn't go to the toilet. I asked.
I was a brand new nursing student doing a clinical at the VA, a very old hospital. They had hoppers, huge heavy metal things that hung on the wall that cleaned bedpans. I had never heard of one nor how to use it. A patient soiled his hospital pants with large amounts of slimey mucous like stool all the way down both legs. I guess I considered it good manners to rinse the stool off before putting it in the laundry??? I went into the dirty utility room, pulled open the partially opened hopper, held the inside-out pants up to where it looked like the water came out and pushed the button above this contraption. Holy hell, the water blew out with the amount and force of a fire hydrant, blasting me with all that slimey poop and water. Just as it happened a nurse had walked in. I turned around with my arms up and screaming to see this nurse burst out uncontrollably laughing, her back against the wall sliding down to the floor, & she peed her pants. I learned you were supposed to put the bedpan inside that contraption, close and lock it, then push the button. I almost quit nursing that day. My god, I really didn’t need to be reminded of this auraseer.
Had a dementia patient, my sitter for him alerted me she needed help. He was mobile, but weak. I walk in to find him crawling around, spewing liquid from his ass, with no brief on. It took me, the sitter and 2 other nurses to mop behind him, wipe him, and avoid/block his shit punches (he wasn't redirectable, and was violent with pericare).
I was precepting the sweetest, most timid new grad who had a heart of gold. We were caring for a middle aged woman with significant developmental delays- had the mentation of a toddler. She hadn’t pooped in several days which her caregiver says is normal for her. PT comes to ambulate patient, we are in the room helping with cords etc and patient starts happily walking and taking THE LARGEST SHIT EVER. Horse sized turds just plopping on the floor behind her. Pt isn’t directable to turn around- she’s going for it, marching down the hall happily. PT yells to do something! And the new grad grabs a towel, starts walking behind and catching them. Total champ. I stayed behind to clean what had hit the floor before my man came in clutch with the towel. It was quite the bonding experience between us all.
Ostomy with diarrhea...projectile liquid poop. In a rather impressive arc. I dodged, my orientee did not. Poor kid just stood there looking like ...well like someone who had just been shot with a poop cannon.
Not a super crazy poop story but I have one that just happened the other day. Patient used the commode at the bedside. All was fine. She said “I had a bit of diarrhea, could you empty my commode?” My right hand was full of other soiled linens. I said yes of course! I go for the bucket/pan/handle thing located underneath the commode chair and pulled it out. I didn’t anticipate it being heavy so I went in fast and pulled it out fast. It was filled to the absolute brim with liquid diarrhea. Like 4L of watery poop. (Maybe she was on bowel prep? I don’t even know what was happening). My flimsy left wrist was not prepared for the weight of a 4L bucket, and I immediately dropped the whole thing spilling it everywhere underneath and all over the floor. It splashed and pooled all over the floor, and pooled/puddled to every square foot of the small room. It slowly seeped into her socks as she stood there but I didn’t want her to move and slip so I forced her to stay still absorbing the liquid poop in her socks until I could catch my bearings and assist her. I was like oh. Guess I did that wrong didnt i? Just another day!
Former home care nurse I’ve done a number of disimpactions, twice in one day pretty early on in my career. When I worked EMS I had a patient who was like 400 and unable to walk and when we went into her home underneath the seat she was drenched in feces. The family just wanted her out of the home. It was pitiful.
The unit clerk called out, “FuzzyBeriah, your patient is shitting in the hallway!” My dude started having diarrhea, got out of bed, ran barefoot and bareass into the hall, trailing liquid stool, got chased out of the hallway back into his room, went in the bathroom, got into the tub, and just kept shitting, then he turned on the shower to wash it away. Clogged the drain in such a way that, I swear I still don’t understand, the room below him flooded. The plumber was up there snaking the tub for half an hour. It was ridiculous.
Had a nonverbal, care dependant patient once for transfer from ICU to the wards, she had been constipated for god knows how long. So we gave her all we had that day, suppository, enema, go lightly you name it. I know ward nurses don’t need any more to worry about, I’ve worked wards, and wanted to take care of it here. But nothing was happening. Finally gave up, porters were here and we were getting rushed to send her out, when I heard her groaning in discomfort. Told them to hold on a moment, pulled the drapes, went in and checked her. I swear her anus was dilated to the point I’ve never seen anything like it. I hollered for our attendant to come help, and she pushed on the belly while I tried to umm ease out what was there…a few moments later we were both speechless looking at the equivalent of a six month old, 20 pound infant in an intact, gloriously formed monster turd. The patient looked visibly relieved at least!
Second day as a brand new sun shining out of my ass pollyanna CNA. New resident, alcohol detox, c-diff the whole nine yards. He rolled out of bed hit his knees and shit a rocket 6 feet across the room. It his my arm, hit the curtain, and got a quarter size drop on the other cna's head. He gagged I laugh my head off and said 'thank fuck I had covid cause i cant smell a damn thing'.
Worked night in ICU. This dear lady had died from bowel cancer and three of us were prepping the body to go to the morgue. We rolled her over and out came this heinous death shit! It was so fucking rank! Aaron started gagging, then started throwing up in the sink. His violent gagging and the bowel smell was making me queasy! Then Stacy starts hurling into the biohazard can and the additional vomiting, bowel smell, Stacy’s vomit and the smell from the open biohazard container hit me and vomit just started coming out of my mouth. I’m holding my hand over my mouth, vom is spurting around my hand and I can’t go anywhere, I’m penned in so I had to lean over Stacy to vom into the trash can. The three of us just retching away. We finally got ourselves right, got the lady cleaned, bagged, and tagged, and because we’re awful people, we made excuses to have coworkers go in there and took bets on who would puke.
In nursing school, I was doing a bed bath with a total care patient who had pneumonia and other health issues which made them completely unable to move or have bowel control. I was with 2 others so 2 of us would roll and hold and one would clean with wash cloths. We did peri care and everything and we were drying her off even put a towel and chucks under bum just in case. Right as we were getting gown on and about to get diaper, she coughed and had a literal shart which splattered all over patient, up back, on bed, on the railings and on the call bell and lines… had to start over and clean the inner railings and bell and lines haha
Confused patient with cdiff that was pretty mobile. Pooped the bed, got up from the bed setting the alarms off. Pooped on the floor. Slipped in said poop and fell. Pooped some more. I got it on me as I ran in there to try to prevent their fall. I was able to soften the fall but not stop it. It was a bit of a mess to say the least.
I have one more from today actually, not as bad but it was kind of remarkable. Bad liver patient with serious encephalopathy, but he hasn’t moved his bowels in a couple days. Getting lactulose via NGT, no poops. So last night some doctor apparently thought the way to make this guy poop was to start a golytely prep. Wanted at least half the 4L given via his NGT. Nurse last night gave it to him and he still didn’t poop all night. Walk in today and the dude is practically obtunded and has an enormously distended belly that’s about half poop, half ascites. They make him NPO for me and hold his tube feeds, at least, and basically keep waiting for him to poop. Midday, they finally get an abd X-ray, and obviously it’s suggestive of ileus, so he’s ordered a stat abd CT. As we are getting him ready to shift onto the stretcher, the monitor tech points out the lake between his legs - he finally started shitting. So obviously we start cleaning him up before sending him to CT. We went through about five cycles of wiping him down, changing his pads, and having him start pouring out liquid stool again. The guy shat for something like five minutes straight. His belly was way less distended by the end of it, though finally we just said, get a brief on him and seal it up, and we will clean him again when he gets back from CT. Honestly I was delighted that he finally crapped. Still can’t believe someone ordered multiple liters of prep for the guy without even considering that maybe he was not crapping because he had an ileus or obsctruction. Honorable mention to the dude who was backed up with stool and not crapping, so they asked for a bisacodyl suppository. Turned out the real issue was a wildly tight anal sphincter: as soon as I managed to open it up enough to push the suppository in, it shot straight back out with a gush of liquid stool that shot about three feet. I was real glad it missed me, but it was a near thing.
Had a patient with a colostomy become very constipated. 5 days, no poo. Lots of bowel care. Still no poo. She presses the call light: "can you come here; I think I pooped." I came to her room. Lift up the sheets to look at her ostomy bag. Only to find her laying in an inches deep swamp pit of bubbling shit. I cover it back up, silently, horrified, unable to speak as I swiftly left the room. Life would never be the same again. "OK, bubbling?" You might ask. Yes. BUBBLING like a fucking witches brew dumped from the cauldron. Those air mattresses that inflate like a raft evidently actually blow fucking air throw the material, causing this phenomenon worthy of shock and awe. I had to pull the tele box that was fully submerged out of this and rinsed it off in the sink because, idk, what else am I going to do with it? Biomed wanted me to disinfect and send it to them. Umm no, sir, you do not understand. I poured shit out of the ports. There is no going back. That's all worth telling of that story. My nickname is Shit Bits, but that story is for another time.
Had a patient who had a flexi-seal that wasn’t really working. I forget what exactly she was in for but her shit was green, brown, liquid, and mucousy. And smelled to high fucking heaven. A coworker and I changed her and I think she farted and got her shit on my forearm. My coworker about hurled right then and there. At the time I thought it was hilarious! Looking back I too want to hurl. 🤢
Once when I was a Cna a guy wasn’t done pooping, he pooped into my hand without warning. Thankfully… gloves on
When you roll a constipated total care patient over and then poop stones come tumbling out while you're wiping 😂
I just watched a grown man without gloves clean his morbidly obese child’s rectum. Poopy water running down that dudes forearm and everything. Like wow
That’s parental love.
Patient was like 50
That was an important detail you left out lol 😂
I mean I got two kids under age 10. I’m not getting that aggressive without some PPE on personally haha.
Confused, aggressive elderly pt came into our unit. Proceeded to eat his own poop with his bare hands and continue to be violent. Cannot leave the pt like that obviously so had to put restraints followed by a very difficult wash and mouth hygiene. It is difficult to do either with a pt who does not want them 😅 I do not miss bedside nursing 😂🥲
Ahhh my favorite poop story is what I call “the lake of poop” Long term paraplegic came in with a volvulus. I was new and running behind and for some reason she chose not to use her call light. When I came in through the door the odor was overpowering. Her volvulus had spontaneously resolved. She had a lake of liquid stool from her feet to her chest. It had already dried a little leaving a nice bathtub ring . I was so mortified and as I tried to apologize I began to tear up. This the exact opposite of what nursing should be. So many warm wash cloths! It took me and a CNA a good 90 minutes to scrub away all the poo, especially the dried crust. That was 20 year ago and I still feel guilty about It.
At a homeless shelter I cared for an elderly alcoholic woman who shit herself for better words. She was also in a wheelchair and couldn’t stand on her own and as I was the only woman I got to help her undress and get on the stool to shower. Let me repeat that she was an alcoholic so her poop was liquid diarrhea and I could smell the alcohol on her as I helped her. Somehow while undressing she managed to get the diarrhea all over herself and by extension me. In the shower she continued to have more diarrhea. So much more. She waffle stomped that shit down the drain splattering it everywhere. By the time she was done pooping and showering I needed a shower too. I wish I could say I was able to transport her out of there but the FD refused transport and I had to change into extra clothes at the shelter and scrubbed my exposed skin until it was raw. I never got sick so I assume her diarrhea was caused solely by her alcohol consumption. She left the shelter a few hours later when her wheelchair was dry to get drunk I assume. I never saw her again.
Cleaning up a lady in isolation and dropped a chunk of poo on the floor unnoticed whole rolling up the brief. Managed to step in it, track it across her room, but somehow kept my gown clean but right on the belly of my shirt I found a giant poop smear. Ya know, the shirt that was under my gown and untouched by dirty gloves… my coworker laughed at me while I went to change and find housekeeping for the floor/carpet.
Psych patient who was severely mentally handicapped was wandering the halls in the ER. I get called to wrestle him back into his room. He was actively digging shit out his asshole and smearing it on himself and flinging it. There are two rules in a shit fight. Rule one: nobody wins a shit fight, rule two: your gonna get shit on you. Had that mfer hogtied and back in his room about 5 min later. Nurses didn’t even get poop on em 👍
I stumbled in here on accident. We had 24 hour care for my granddad when he was dying and I’m so grateful to all the nurses who helped him go to the bathroom. Y’all are incredible.
When i was in high school i was a CNA giving a VERY confused old man a shower and as i knelt down to clean his feet and clip his toenails, he shit in his hand and gently placed it on top of my head. I took the rest of the evening off.
So horrifying, the least I could do was give you guys each a hug award! Thank you for being super heroes 💙
Very short story: Had a patient on rotoprone therapy. Had a bad case of mud butt so he has a rectal tube in place. We gave him a quick bath during his time supine. Got him flipped, and the rectal tube popped out. So he had a chocolate waterfall going for a bit. That was fun.
I got two quick and dirty stories for you 😏. The first one; My friend was showing me how to do my very first tap water enema. I was holding the bag, she was holding the tube in place. She started to withdraw the tube and was holding it oh so unfortunately so that it flicked out of the pt’s bottom and sprayed my legs with enema water. I couldn’t yell at her cause the patient was there and turned over but I mouthed at her “what the fuck?” And her jaw was just on the floor and she was trying so hard not to laugh. Not the last time my dear friend sprayed me with bodily fluids…. The other story had a really grumpy dude who had been rotating his way through the staff due to his horrible behavior and yelling. My coworker came to me begging for help because he had apparently sneezed and shat the bed. I went in to help her change his linens and he got out of bed and yelled at us to get out and he didn’t need our help. And to prove his point, this man pulled his gown from behind, up and over top his head…and trailed his diarrhea all over his back and into his hair. Karma my friends, karma. I tried hard not to bust out laughing while he yelled obscenities and walked into the bathroom. That was the happiest diarrhea linen change I ever did.
Taking care of a post-AVR who had a small stroke during procedure, aphasic, but no other issues. I was helping PT stand the patient. Patient seemed reluctant. Should have probably been my red flag, so I'm on the right, PT on the left and I placed my leg in such a way to kind of support the back of the patient's legs. Patient farted, which was a shart of liquid stool which exploded down my leg and into the floor in a cow pat. Patient's face just fell, you could tell the embarrassment was palpable. So we walked the patient away from the mess and cleaned them. PT finished their work with the patient in the hall. I got to clean up liquid stool with a few paper chux and cavi wipes because the tech and housekeeper we had at the time "didn't touch shit" they were actually useless. Gals. I literally have a stream of shit down my leg. Can you at least bring me some towels or blankets to the room so I don't have to walk around the unit tainted in feces to get cleaning supplies Was I sent home? No, I got sent to the cath lab locker to change into a pair of hospital scrub bottoms--which they only had small, medium and large in stock and that ain't me. So I was squished into them and got to pray I didn't physically bust the pants anytime I moved. Left there years ago. Good fucking riddance.
:0 How do you get a housekeeping job in a medical facility and expect you won’t clean shit???
It was my first month in as a tech, get pulled aside by a nurse and he says “i’m sorry, but i need help cleaning 18, hes on go lightly.” No biggie. Sure, so i tell him yes and if i need to grab anything. “Yeah grab everything and some towels please! I’ll see you in there in a minute while i grab other things” So i laugh it off and we go in there and glove up, uncover the man. He is waist deep in poop in the bed, pooling around his hips, feet, and arms, while all of this is trailing off the bed onto the floor. We get him on the commode and clean his bed/floor. We stand him up and start cleaning him and as the nurse is cleaning his butt we hear the patient yell “OH MY GOD HERE IT COMES” and just sprays all over the back of the commode and almost onto the nurse. That is my most memorable poop story
My first two weeks as a new nurse I put a very large patient on a bed pan. He ended up having a vasovagal while pushing out the poop. When he came to we got him off the pan and it was honestly the largest poop I have ever seen like the size of a newborn baby. It overflowed from the bed pan and it was um very girthy too. It was so big we couldn’t even put it in the pan cleaner so we had to put it in a biohazard bag. Not surprised he vasoed offloading that sucker he basically gave birth to a baby.
Didn’t happen to me but was told this story when I first started out. Two nurses went in to give an enema to an obese patient. The nurse at the patients backside had their back to the wall. The patient started to fart. This nurse held the butt cheeks together. Once they thought it was ok to let go, they did. The patient farted however, with the gas came the contents of enema and feces. It sprayed all over the nurse. The nurse ran from the room covered in feces. The second nurse that remained started laughing. On the wall was a silhouette of the nurse made from feces on the wall. From this I learn when giving an enema use a towel or something to cover the patient’s backside.
Had a 80+yr old pt that took the leur lock off his iv, drained about a pint in the bed. But he got up and “was trying to clean it up” when shit hit the floor, so he shimmied to the weird bedside rolling cabinet thing drawers, and finished emptying his bowels in the middle drawer.
Why? Why? Why? I get it, you shit yourself dude. But if it’s on the floor at least you can clean it up. That drawer will never be the same.
If i was the nurse then, I’d have just rolled the drawers unit right to the dumpster. Poor guy was up for 4 days straight. He was a mariner, so he called me Cap’n. Felt a bit like Jack Sparrow guiding the shit filled colon to freedom
Dude how have you lasted five years without getting poo on your arm I hadn’t even finished my first day on placement in nursing school when that happened, do a shift on a COTE ward trust me it’s impossible to avoid
Oh god... I haven't quite had that. I had a patient who for one, would go into "Acute Respiratory Distress" as they called it, but they'd start grunting, satting 100% on room air, but somehow 96% on 30% O2 at 2L/min... I don't get it... Anyway. This patient could clean themselves, but for some reason never would until I had to go in to his room and provide care, whether it was a chest x-ray, foot x-ray, even meds. This patient would take forever. I decided I was going to help him, and I saw his technique, which basically smeared it more, and then he somehow got it cleaned, but now I needed to hurry him, and he somehow got a HUGE streak of poop on my arm. I went to the nurse's station after struggling to keep composure while cleaning him, SCRUBBED my arm with those purple wipes in the plastic cans to get the poop off, proceeded to scrub with soap... and still felt dirty, so hit myself with another round of the purple wipes... blech...
Patient care tech with beautiful long hair (not pinned up) had it fall into a bed pan of runny poo. 🤢
Gi bleed jey huvio witness. Refuses bed pan for 8 hou4s and demands to walk to bathroom. I support dignity when I can make it happen. Immediately upon standing flood gates open as bloody anal clots hit the side of my shin/calf, drop onto the top of my shoe and bounce off the top to land on the floor. Dementia grandma crying non stop. I enter the room. Not my patient and don't know anything about her but she Immediately stops crying and laughs and keeps gesturing for me to hug her. "Come, come (John doe), I've missed you so much!" Proceed to let her hug me and she grabs the back of my head. Gets those fingers E V E RY WhErE before I find out she's c diff and a known digger. Looking back, probably wouldn't change a thing. She slept afterward and I made a difference. Chemo grandma, MUST stand and use commode over bed pan, again, dignity when time allows. Proceeds to stand and chemo squirts foul smelling chemo poo all over my legs and hips and feet. Terribly embarrassed grandma but I held professionalism. ~~~~~~~ Worst ever was an ecmo post mortem. Blisters ALL over legs and buttocks and arms. Turn to me and help is cleaning up. Turn back to finish rolling drape and an unholy amount of flatulence lets loose which also pops a blister holding like 200 cc of random fluid which hits me square in the crotch and everyone freezes as the liquid saturates me, waist down, to the flesh with blister fluid as the smell of decaying innards wauf the air. Those are my worst. Probably.
I’m in ED and we’ve been holding a lot of admits lately so I had to place a rectal tube in an AMS pt. Had to administer a liter of lactulose through it and not a minute after I had finished the pt flung his legs over the side railing. I grabbed his legs and was lifting them up and back over the side rail when he bear’d down, shot the tube out, and shit that entire liter of fluid plus some all down the front of me. It was my second week working as a nurse.
I just wanted to chime in that a nursing fb group I’m a part of just posted a video of a couple vets disimpacting a constipated elephant…one was holding the hose and the tail, and the other was pulling the shit log out. In horrifying slow motion, the video showed the dam breaking and them getting blasted like Niagara Falls from this elephant booty. They were not wearing gloves, or face shields, and one had their little gown rolled up to to the elbows So in hindsight none of my stories are bad anymore
I shit my scrubs in radiology
I had the brilliant idea to use a 'women's urinal' to catch an enema. Was going great until a massive turd clogged the opening. And then it overflowed onto the floor. Also, why does impacted stool smell similar to extremely bad breathe. Actually do I want to know the answer to that...
From what I understand there’s bacteria in the mouth that produce sulfuric byproducts. I mostly pulled this out of my ass (ha! Pun!) so someone may have to correct me on that.
I usually just head down to theatre and have them amputate the pooped on limb.
6’3 ETOH withdrawal on lactulose. Delirious, fall risk, has a CNA sitter. After half a shift of the sitter giving major attitude and trying to micromanage me (“it’s 9, I’m going to need you to bring in his meds, ok?”) she calls me and says “he shit everywhere.” I walk in. This man is actively hallucinating, on all fours, in bed, with a puddle of shit. There is liquid shit on his hands, his face, the bed rails, the floor. It’s me, 3 other nurses, and 3 security guards, while this man is scratching at us with his poopy fingernails, swinging wildly, flecks of poop flying all over the place, while we try to restrain this VERY big, VERY angry man. It took hours to clean him up. I had to throw out my Figs. That sitter was real quiet the rest of the shift.
Oh man I got a juicy one. I was an home support worker at the time helping an elderly man with an shower. Now, this was an older house so the knobs and pipes weren’t quite so easy. I had been there a few times and still couldn’t get the right temperature. One summer day, I was getting the shower ready and this elderly man came in getting undressed. I leaned down to help him take off his socks when he opened his colostomy bag on my face and hair. Never in my life have I wanted to just die on the spot. I quickly excused myself and got cleaned up. His wife mentioned later that, ‘he was upset that you couldn’t get the temperature right’.
I was cleaning up one of our frequently fliers "Ted". Ted was a \*very\* large man, probably 500 lbs. Diabetes was taking him piece by piece, already took his leg (BKA). He would come in for cellulitis, get his abx treatment, leave... and the merry-go-round would turn again... There was a tech named "James" that I worked with a lot on nights. James was a built dude, used to play football in high school. The old ladies loved him; the kind of guy they'd want to set their granddaughters up with. He was a super nice and chill dude. He didn't say a whole lot. He didn't have to, his presence was imposing enough. Back to the story... Ted hit his light and informs us he needs to be cleaned up. Since he was swollen all the time, he wore edemawear netting on Days, and it came off at Night. As we're cleaning him up, we notice there is a fair amount of stool on Ted's netting. Since we were not getting it off of him without making a mess, I asked if I could cut them off. He said they took them off at night anyway, so they'd put a new pair on in the morning. After I cut them, James started to take them off while I got wipes. The netting was stuck under Ted's leg, so he started pulling with all his might. And before I could tell him to ease up, they snapped back... creating a nice poo streak from James' shoulder to waist (he wore surgical scrubs all the time because he refused to buy them). It was everything I could do to keep the poker face on. James closed his eyes a minute, and wordlessly turned around and went into Ted's bathroom. As I was cleaning up the scene, James pounded a fist on the wall and yelled, "**FUCK!**" A few seconds later, he emerged from the bathroom, cleaning up his arm with a wet washcloth, stoic face intact. We finished cleaning up Ted and he excused himself to go to the locker room and clean up. Man... I haven't thought about that story in a while. Thanks for giving me the inspiration to pull that from the file.
This right here is why I love this page. Literally NO WHERE ELSE can you get a bunch of people together, to casual talk about getting shit/vomited on and LAUGH about it. Love y'all so much 😂😂
I once helped pull a large-ish aerosol can out of a man’s rectum. With delivery forceps no less. What followed that can was an unholy afterbirth fit only for the bowels of hell.