After reading many a comment on the forums I have come to realise that I am definitely not the only person with such a dislike for anything related to sputum.
dreaded specimen in nursing
My aversion to it began some 17 odd years ago when I was a new graduate in an adult facility working on a medical ward. I had never seen so much sputum, let alone all of those older men and women spitting it up and keeping it in a cup beside their bed. I was horrified.
Even more horrifying to me was the fact that when the ward supply of polystyrene cups ran out, the nurses had no hesitation in using the polystyrene cups that had SPUTUM written across them in bold red writing. I just couldn’t do it. I know, they were brand new clean cups and probably no different to the plain white ones that come from the same factory but there is no way I could drink my morning coffee out of it.
Since moving to paeds I am mildly less grossed out by sputum but I still find it pretty yuk. Poo, spew and a gross wound are far less awful than any amount of sputum.
What is it that you find disgusting?????
The worst specimen I’ve had was unusual and came from an unusual place. About ten years ago I was caring for a Noumean boy who was recovering from cardiac surgery. I had weaned his ventilation and proceeded to extubate him. Minutes after successfully extubating him he began to cough and gag. I grabbed the yankeur sucker and a small bowl in preparation for what I thought was about to happen. It went on and on for almost ten minutes. I grabbed a neuro torch and looked in his mouth to try to ascertain what was happening. I could see something white about the width of an NG tube in his oropharyngx. I knew it couldn’t be the NG tube as it had accidently dislodged during the extubation. I took the yankeur sucker and attempted to suction the white material.
It stuck to the end of the sucker and I began to withdraw it from the child’s mouth. It just kept coming. I grabbed some magill’s forceps and grasped the material. It began to mooove! 10cm later, I had extracted a tape worm. I dropped it into a specimen jar and walked into the registrars office. I tapped the registrar on the shoulder and sat the jar down in front of him. He jumped up in horror and asked me where it came from. I thought he was going to throw up on the spot!
that is an amazing story
Ew grossssssss Lucky you were there imagine that being the cause of death on his certificate suffocation by tape worm ewwwwwww
Arrrh, yes. I had a similar one.
Child bought into ED by mum. Something up his nose….
Young female Intern, tweezers, yes, yes, there it is…. got it. Start to pull ‘it’ out of the child’s nose….. long stringy and smelly !!!
Intern drops tweezers, and walks away quickly, holding mouth.
‘It’ turned out to be a piece of rotten meat, the child self inserted into his nose…. about a week or two ago !!! ( said mum )
Guess what it smelt like ??? ( ask the doctor who got first whiff of it !! )