Practice final - example essay

I would like to think that I have a fairly strong stomach. Working at the hospital, I can't very well be gagging in every patient's room just because they are bleeding or messed themselves. However, there is one thing that no matter how often I see it, my stomach involuntarily lurches. It's called phlegm, mucus, snot, respiratory excretions, lugies, among other things. It is DISGUSTING! Send me into a room to clean feces, help a bleeding patient, or even someone covered in crusty sores, but dear God, please don't make me help a respiratory patient! Recently, I had the misfortune of dealing with my nemesis, on three different occasions.

In August, I was doing clinicals at Stillwater Healthcare. One of my favorite patients was affectionately called "Sistah" by the staff there. Sistah was adorable - she would sing all day long. However, Sistah had a condition that caused her to vomit at almost every meal. It wasn't just your garden variety vomit - it was full of PHLEGM! The first time I went into her room to empty her vomit bucket I almost added to it. It was so full of phlegm that it undulated, then slithered down the drain. One day she missed the bucket and threw up all over herself and the floor. By the time this was noticed the mucus-vomit had started to congeal on the floor. By the time I got out of that room, I was pale and had completely lost my appetite.

There was a man at Stillwater Healthcare that perpetually had a long line of snot dangling from one nostril. Every time I saw him my stomach would heave. One day I had to help another student walk him up the hall. As we walked farther and farther down the hall, the clear snot hanging from his nostril got longer and longer. I developed a few beads of sweat on my brow, and my stomach started making some warning "glurps". Somehow, I made it through the walk. I chose to skip lunch that day.

Last week on Grant 5, I was a little leary of the patient I had with pneumonia. It turned out that he had aspiration pneumonia, so I figured I was off the hook. I went into his room to help him get cleaned up. Only one of his arms worked, so I had to do a lot for him. The first thing we did was brush his dentures. He started brushing them, and then took them out for me to rinse off in the sink. The vision is now burned into my head - the man reached into his mouth, pulling out his top denture, which was connected to the top of his mouth with a long, thick, shiny glop of, you guessed it - PHLEGM! My stomach gave a heave as I reached out for his dentures. My mouth was filling as I reached for the bottom dentures, which had an identical slimy line of phlegm attached to them as well. How I made it out of that room without losing my cookies I'll never know.

So there you have it - go ahead and show me blood clots the size of apples from a postpartum patient, pus on the end of a man's catheterized penis, or even an elderly person's diaper filled with shit. Give me vomit, a catheter bag to empty filled with bloody urine, or a bedpan to clean. I'll even empty out a smelly wound drainage bag, but please - keep the phlegm away from me.