What is your weakness?

We all have our nursing weakness. That one thing that we as a nurse have to ‘gear-up’ for just to make it through the experience.
We have to ‘stomach’ some pretty disgusting things throughout our day, and for the most part we don’t think twice about it.

BUT there is always one thing that every nurse has a tough time with.

Me?

Decubitus Ulcers.

I mean the really bad ones. Like a stage IV that is necrotic, tunneling and oozing the most mal-odorous funk-da-fied drainage known to man. 🙁

Yeah… ya know what I’m talking about. That ischial or sacral ulcer that is tunneling so bad that you can fit your fist as far up as your elbow in there.

I blame my weakness on nursing school. LOL

There was a particular patient that every student had the pleasure of taking care of. We all had our rotation of taking care of this certain patient, since the patient was almost a permanent fixture in the facility.

The patient had two very large stage IVs on their backside that were exactly as I described above. And due to the lack of help and staffing, we all teamed up on a daily basis to change the dressings. I’ve lost count on how many times I saw those two horrifying sites. They are forever burned into my brain, as well as the foggy aroma that emanated from them!

I’m told an aversion to sputum (mucous) is quite a popular weakness these days. Luckily sputum and I have no differences of opinion. This is especially good news since we have quite the intimate relationship, with me working in Critical Care.

Intubated patients. Need I say more?

So what was, or what is your weakness? We all have one.

“What Is Your Vice?” originally posted on My Strong Medicine.