2005_04_01_archive

Oh my GOD...

Work was going fine, I was caught up and just humming along with the

variety of patients in our booked-solid-not-a-bed-in-sight ICU on a

drizzly Sunday morning. Usually when every bed is full, they'll pull a

CNA up from another floor to help me. I didn't have any help, but

there's nothing I can do about it. I work the same amount of hours and

get pretty much the same amount of stuff done. Unfortunately, that

means that a lot of nurses don't get help with little things, and can

really only use me when they need to transfer someone or get ABG's run

down to the lab. They're 2:1, I'm 16:1 - what can I do?

So, J.,RN asks me to help her patient to the commode. No biggie, this

is usually a quick thing and so few of our patients actually can get

up to a commode that it doesn't happen often. I'll just do that, and

then on to other things. PT says "I might only have gas, I can't

tell.. Maybe I don't have to do anything." now she's turning on the

bed and lowering her feet toward the side "Well, maybe.." she

hesitates "I may have gotten some on the sheets."

"No problem!" I smile at her. "Thats just going to take me a second to

change those out, and you'll have nice clean sheets. Lets get you to

the commode first."

She's weak, and a bit skinny. As I face her and help her to bring her

legs to the floor, I notice there is some very wet poo (yes, that is a

technical term :) )on the bed. "We'll have to wash your legs a bit,

also." I tell her. Her feet touch lightly to the floor and she stands

with my assistance. Not very steady. Some poo is on her gown and

sheets.

She's got IV tubing, tele monitor, BP and SpO2 cables strung up to the

video screen from all over. O2 via nasal cannula barely long enough to

reach. She's not standing up all the way, sort of hunched over. She

farts just a small fart and liquid poo dribbles down her legs and onto

the floor. She looks at me with a flat affect "I think I got some on

the floor". I'm already dreading the mess on her bottom and her legs,

and now I sense imminent disaster (You've probably already figured it

out). As we make the rotation to the commode, she lets loose with a

huge fart. The mother lode of poo sprays out like a firehose - I watch

it cover the commode from left to right and spray the wall, the

windows, the vertical blinds, the IV pole, the bedside table, and the

nightstand. I felt more than saw splatters hitting my pants and shoes.

I gently helped her down onto the dripping, filthy commode, having no

other choice.

I called J.,RN in to help me. Yeah, I'm sure my voice did have a sort

of panicky quality to it. I don't recall a chapter in any textbook on

dealing with the combination of explosive diarrhea and vertical

blinds. J and I did get the bulk of it cleaned up, although it took

about a half hour. Housekeeping took care of the rest. Lucky I had a

spare set of scrubs in my locker.

Strangely, with all of the experience the nurses on duty had, they

only had second-hand stories of this ever happening before. S0-and-so

went quickly into a dark room and slipped and fell in it, someone else