The first job of the morning has stayed with me for the rest of the day
*Warning: not for the faint of heart* Herein lays a tale of Scaryduck stylings.
I was sent to a 'Male, 59, fitting – locked in empty bathroom'. I got there quickly, within eight minutes, so already it was a 'successful' job.
As the person who met me opened the door to the flat I was overwhelmed with an intense, and incredibly disgusting smell. At first I thought that it was the person opening the door (he was rather dishevelled, and I've smelt breath that bad before), but no, the smell got stronger as I entered the flat.
There were four people there, all of them looked like the man who opened the door, and the state of the flat made me think that everyone in there was an alcoholic.
Sitting, or rather, propped up on the sofa was the man who had been fitting. His friends had managed to undo the door to the bathroom, and had manhandled him into the living room.
“He's been drinking, we were both drinking heavily yesterday”, I was told.
“Fair enough”, I said, “Is he epileptic, or does he have alcoholic fits?”
“Both, I think”, replied his friend.
Then I looked down.
Something the size of a snooker ball had rolled down the inside of his jeans and was sitting in front of him. It was brown, it was wet, and was rather horrible looking.
A pile of poo. His poo. A poo done after a night of heavy drinking.
Suddenly I realised where the smell was coming from.
I'm sure that most people realise that after a night on the town, the first poo you do can stink to high heaven. This was that epic a poo. I imagine that there was a lot more of it smeared over the inside of his jeans. This is the sort of poo that would issue forth from the arse of Satan himself. It was the sort of poo that shouldn't be flushed away, but instead sealing in a barrel and buried in a place that has lots of warning signs pinned to the barbed wire fence surrounding it.
It really did smell that bad.
His friend (who actually didn't know him that well), picked up the poo with a bit of newspaper and ran it into the toilet.
I could hear him gagging from his new-found proximity to the toxic poo. When he came back into the room his face was an interesting shade of pale green, and there was a thin film of sweat upon his brow.
I treated the patient, actually quite a simple job. Then the ambulance crew turned up, and I pointed out that the patient's shoe was covered in his own sticky poo.
Carrying the patient down the stairs, the poo managed to get transferred from the shoe onto the shirt of one of the crew. He wasn't happy.
I stopped myself from laughing.
…almost.
The only problem is that I can still, several hours later, smell the rank stench of that demonic poo from hell. Actually, I can still taste the poo in the air.
I almost feel sorry for the nurses at the hospital…
What is it about poo? If you get it on your hands (I have a multiply-disabled child so it happens quite often) you have to wash your hands about 10 times before the smell goes – the bleach idea might work though 😉
Living in student halls for a year, I smelt that smell many a time. Even gave it a name, a PBS (Post Beer Sh*te). 2 toilets, 12 guys, weekends were torture on that corridor!
Smell is an odd thing, I found an old tube of chapstick the other day and the second I smelled it I was transported back in my memory to when I last used it, which was clever really.I have a problem with people who wear too much perfume. It actually gives me heartburn. Does anyone else have that? On the tube some mornings I'm close to puking acid from all the people who've emptied half a bottle over themselves. The ironic thing is, they can't smell it. Reynolds posted about the before, there's a name for it where you stop being able to smell the perfume you put on, so you have to put more and more on just so you can smell it.
Well it does my head in. There should be a public information film about how you only need one squirt, and other people can smell it fine, even if you can't.
They must put some pretty nasty chemicals in perfume for it to make the acid tide up to my tonsils, is all I can think. That Lynx advert, spray more, get more: NO! Do not spray more!
As for poo, some of my poos smell quite nice, but that's because I don't digest food properly or something. They just smell like the food they used to be. I'm sure you wanted to know that. I'm going to post anonymously now, out of shame.
How does that work then?
I'm with you on that one – halls of residence, 3 working toilets and 22 students. Not pleasant at all
Vic's just as good and easier to get hold of.
You should put him in one of those vacuum cupboards and poke him with rubber-gloved-fingers and long-tonged scissors.Nicely written, keep 'em coming.
I almost feel sorry for the nurses at the hospital…Errrm, but of course by the time he reaches hospital you'll have cleaned him up…. right? :p
That sounds… shit. Boom. Boom.
There is something about the word poo that is funny regardless of the context. Or maybe I just have the sense of humour of a five year old…
Oh what *is* it about smells?? The memory of them is so powerful and so is the lingering in your nose. I can still remember, vividly, the only time I ever smelled gangrene…. I felt so sorry for the person who had it and was so isolated…I never got any better at coping with the smells and that's one of the main reasons I went off to specialise in the psychiatry side of things. I had a bottle of Chanel perfume (from a bloke I wasn't that keen on) that I used to drench my hanky every morning so I could breathe that in before going into the toxic zone. Strangely, I've never liked Chanel since!!! Poor guy; I feel guilty now!
Tiger Balm is a wonderful wonderful thing. Get yourself to Boots (or a nice asian shop) and buy yourself some!
Ah yes, the wonderful “code brown.” Did you wrap him in blankets, like a toxic burrito, for the nurses to unwrap after your hasty departure? That's SOP here.
Ah yes, the good old blanket wrap. We got a patient from a toilet in a club once, absolutely covered in crap – hands, face, hair, clothes, everything. He was orientated, though he couldn't really explain what had happened (a bit of a psych was our diagnosis). We rolled him up snug as a bug with just his face showing, and transported. Later the casesheet came back from the bosses with a question about why we hadn't checked the guy's BSL!
Truly, there was a lot of woe in that post. 😉
oh yes… saved many a pair of nostrils that has.
Many years ago I asked my Father who was a Senior Nursing Officer in a large psychiatric hospital, how he coped with all the poo and vomit? Its simple son, he replied. Its simply a case of mind set. Shite is shite and puke is puke and I get paid to deal with these things and thats what I do. You just get on with it and put up with the smell, it doesnt last long!Nothing can bee worse than the putrid smell of suppurating leg sores, on a very warm afternoon in mid-July! Put up and shut up!
As a highly untrained amateur, I prescribe bleach. Soak your face and nostrils in a 100% Concentration of bleach for at least a week, and it will get rid of that smell, guranteed!
you smear a bit around your nose and upper lip, and then you can't smell anything else for an hour or so 🙂
Vicks is greasier though, and I don't know about anyone else but it stings my eyes.
agreed! (about the perfume thing, that is) How about a slogan for the public information film? Like “it's perfume, not marinade…”
If only we had the water…the wipes…the clean clothes…the time…and the inclination.Sure then we'd clean him up.
Funny, one of the things I learned when I was an A&E nurse, was that if the ambulance crew brought them in wrapped up in the blanket, and then said, “you can keep the blanket”, I'd need to wear gloves and an apron in order to unwrap them.
I heard that vicks has a harsh menthol thing thats not actually good for you to inhale (ironically) and can cause irritation. Olbas Oils are good for inhaling when you're bunged up, they don't have that in.
We wrap them in our ubiquitous yellow 'safety blanket', and call them The Human Shit Burrito…Oh, and “the first poo you do” sounds rather like something Dr. Seuss would write. Very good!
I once was called to a woman who had diarrea for 3 days. The smell of the exhaust from the ambulance never smelt so sweet-like a breath of fresh air.