A Post Not for the Weak of Stomach

As a nurse I see gross stuff. It comes with the job. I usually do ok at not being too grossed out. Even when I sat in the operating room looking at the surgeon operating on a man’s heart my stomach didn’t turn.

I’ve only gotten sick twice before last night. The first time was watching my buddy nurse doing trache care on a woman who had just had oral surgery to remove cancer from her jaw. As I watch the nurse clean the trache my world began to spin. I looked down at my hand holding a syringe; it seemed to be the only thing not moving in the room. Jamie Mills was in the room with me and asked me if I was going to be ok. “No” I managed to get out before I almost fell on the floor. The nurse told me to go sit in the hallway with my head between my knees.

The time after that I was watching the ostomy nurse fit a sack to a piece of intestine sticking out my patient’s stomach.

Last night was the first time that I didn’t feel dizzy; I just felt the bile rising in my throat. My patient had one large diabetic ulcer on the heels of each of his feet. I went into to change the bandage on them. I noticed a deep part on one wound that looked like it was pack full of gauze. I pulled at it, it didn’t come out. I got tweezers and pulled, it didn’t come out. I had another nurse come in and try to get the pack out. She didn’t have any luck either. After watching her try to pull the pack with a clamp I thought I was going to be sick. I left the room and moved for the bathroom where I dry heaved into the toilet a few times.

In the morning I told the nurse who had dressed the wounds the previous day that I couldn’t get the packing out. She looked at my puzzled. “I didn’t put any pack in the wounds” she said.

As it turns out I had been pulling on his tendon.