The Enema is your Enemy

Nurses love Students because we perform grunt work. Lots of it. But it is a reciprocal relationship, because we are required to perform these grunt work procedures or we don't pass.

Thus, students are drawn to grunt work like mosquitoes to bare flesh on a humid July evening.

One grunt procedure that Nurses most want to pass onto a Student is the administration of an Enema.

This is also the procedure that the experienced Student will never volunteer to perform.

The first part of the enema is a bit embarrassing for the patient, but not that bad for either party. A plastic tube or the tip of a squirt bottle is inserted into the rectum. Fluid is instilled into the GI tract.

The patient is then asked to hold the fluid in for as long as possible. Yeah, right.

The deluge hits.

The large quantities of fluid that was dumped into the bowels, sometimes over a liter, comes out forcefully and often uncontrollably, accompanied by the week's worth of crap that had been stuck in the intestines.

If the patient doesn't make it to the toilet in time, this concoction is sprayed on the bed, floor, chair, wall, equipment, and especially me.

I always wear a plastic body suit, two pairs of gloves and a mask, but the smell penetrates the protective gear and sticks on my skin.

And this, my dear friends, is why the Enema is your Enemy.