Sometimes you have to clean out the bedsores and redress them. clean out an infected surgery site, remove impactions, and take care of the burnt flesh or those patients with gangrene. The ones that really made me gag were the ones with burnt flesh and those with gangrene. That has to be the most awful of scents one could imagine. You go ahead and take care of them anyway and smile and act like the smell was not getting to you.

One day I changed my mind. We admitted a patient who had cancer of the larynx and had a trach in to help him breathe. I did not notice any unpleasant odor about him. I did my interveiw with him and asked him the reason for admission. He said that something was wrong with his trach. I knew the first order the doctor wrote was to irrigate the wound and suction the trach to clear out his air way.

I removed his dressing and immediately swallow over and over to keep from vomiting. This man did not take good care of his trach at home. I dropped the dressing in the floor. His trach was full of maggots. I finally carried out the orders and rid him of his infestation.

Believe me I could not eat rice for a long time after that.

That turned out to be the most gross thing I ever saw in nursing. Give me the gangerine and the burnt flesh and the smell of cancer anyday.