Gross stuff, I mean. *I deal in gross stuff on a day to day basis- diarrhea, blood, bloody diarrhea, and abscesses. Cat bite abscesses, the Grandaddy of Nastiness. It is important that you keep this in mind as I tell you this story.
I was very happy when my daughter’s kindergarten teacher recently asked me to be one of the chaperones on their very first field trip. They were going to a nature reserve, and as a biology major and lover of all that nature-y stuff I couldn’t imagine a more fun way to spend the day.
I boarded the bus, my 5 year old hanging onto my leg like a little barnacle. We worked our way back towards the middle of the bus, where she suddenly had a change of heart and abandoned me for her little buddy Lucy, leaving me stuck sitting next to That Kid, the one no one else wanted to sit with, the one who stared at me without blinking for 5 minutes straight before announcing that she ate franks and beans the night before and had a lot of gas.
“That’s great,” I assured her.
“Guess what else I had?” she asked.
“Um, apples?”
“No.”
“Ice cream?”
“No.”
“I give up.”
“No guess! YOU HAVE TO GUESS!!!”
After about 5 minutes of this (it turned out to be fruit roll ups), I plucked my iphone out of my pocket and told her I had Important Work To Do before flipping on my Facebook app.
This is why I didn’t hear the ruckus at first, in my desperate attempt to appear engaged in busy adult work. There was finally enough of a dull roar for me to turn around and see the kid behind me, crawling up onto his seat.
“What are you doing-” I started to ask, before seeing his hand over his mouth. Uh oh. The kid next to him, green and pale, with vomit pooled in his cupped hands, sloshing on the bus floor. It’s one of the first graders. The kids seated behind him start to shriek as the puddle starts oozing south, and the bus erupts into mass chaos.
The bus driver screeches to a halt, and the chaperones from the first grade class kick into gear while I completely unhelpfully try to wrench the rusty bus windows open. SuperMom comes back with a trashbag and gloves, surveying the mess with a practiced eye while the teacher rushes the sick kid outside for some air.
“Maybe he’s motion sick,” I offer.
“No,” says the other mom. “He rides the bus every day. I bet it’s H1N1.”
SuperMom pauses at this, hand full of gross paper towels and yuck. She pauses. “I don’t know if I can finish,” she says.
I kind of scoff. I mean, I’m a vet. *I deal in gross stuff on a day to day basis- diarrhea, blood, bloody diarrhea, and abscesses. Cat bite abscesses, the Grandaddy of Nastiness. A little bit of kid puke? Child’s play. “I’ll finish!” I offer cheerily.
SuperMom nods gratefully and hands me the roll of paper towels. And gloves. I step over my seat mate and look behind me at the congealed mass of this kid’s breakfast: Cheerios, milk….some raisins…oh, this kind of smells…..man, dogs don’t usually barf up this kind of volume…
Be strong, I tell myself. I scoop up one handful of the stuff.
And promptly start to gag. Me, drainer of festering wounds, person who pulled maggots by the handful out of a chow chow’s infected rear, brought to my knees by a kid with motion sickness (“H1N1,” the other mom whispers in my ear.)
Why are people effluvia so much grosser than that of animals? I’ve cleaned up just about everything an animal can put out, dealt with getting sprayed on by various types of infected fluids, and none of it brought me closer to losing my own cookies than this Cap’n Kid Chunks. So. gross.
I cannot explain this phenomenon, any more than I can explain why my OB thinks my job is so much grosser than hers. Not that either of us are the Immaculate Profession here.
That field trip ended up being way more excitement than I signed up for. The pile of vomit, having passively and demonically conquered every chaperone on the bus like a Technicolor Blob, was finally vanquished by the aggravated bus driver and a hose. And my daughter didn’t sit next to me on the way home, either.
As a veteran Classroom and Field Trip Mom, I love your school posts as much as Pet Doctor Barbie. You always create a mental picture all of the “characters” perfectly. Great writing! Thankfully, I dodged the field trip vomit bullet. I did feel queasy once though on an hour-long bus ride. Note to self: don’t sit in the back of the bus ever again.
The veterans- teachers- all up front. Lesson learned.
So true! I was a greenie. I thought I would help ‘maintain order’ in the back of the bus. Teachers, other moms wisely sat up front. Lesson learned for sure.
So wonderfully descriptive…almost hurled myself.
I’m starting to feel bad for all the people so grossed out by this. LOL.
Love it! I am the same way, anything to do with animals – I’m all there, but if one of my nieces spits up or needs a diaper change, I start to gag and run. My best girlfriend is a Nurse’s Asst., and I work as a Vet Tech, and we constantly swap gross stories and argue over who’s job is more gross ( I’m convinced it’s her ). Thanks for this story – I laughed out loud!
Oh yes, her job is worse. 😉
When it comes to stuff coming out of the rear end of my fur babies, I’m totally okay with it. Be it explosive diarrhea or our really testy cat getting extremely stinky poo stuck to her fluffy tail. But when it comes to stuff coming up the front end, for some reason I cannot handle it and always have to have someone else clean it up. I get all nauseous and faint.. it’s sad really.
I think human vomit is so much worse because of all the stuff we eat. Compare my diet to my pooches, hers is rather simple and composed of basic foods, mine’s crazy all over the place. Ew.. I’m getting that faint feeling again. 🙂
That’s a good point. Kibble is kibble is kibble… people food not so much.
holey moley. you are one strong cookie, much stronger than me. i don’t know how helpful i would have been in that situation… and i agree. i’ll take dog/cat vomit over kid vomit anyday!
Nah, I wasn’t really helpful at all! lol
I can handle my kid’s (or animal’s) vomit but other people’s …oh heck no! This is almost as funny as your art project/poo pickup story.
And I wonder why the PTA ladies don’t talk to me. 😉
I know several people in the veterinary/animal health fields who are like this, including me! Back in my wildlife days, I would be sipping soup form my thermos with one hand and pulling maggots from wounds with the other… But anything having to do with humans, be it bodily fluids or even medical shows (my mom loves these, but I duck and run when they come on), makes me gag. I can’t give blood because drawing enough for even a chem panel makes me so dizzy that I no longer drive alone to those appointments if I can help it. And reading this story about cleaning kid vomit makes me shudder, I’d never be able to do it. The hose sounds about right.
I know a LOT of vets who can’t give blood! It’s so funny to me!
It’s all about conditioning, I think. I bet you were grossed out by the first cat bite abscess you ever drained.
I think human vomit has especially nasty qualities because we are hard-wired to find it loathesome. If a dog barfs? It means the dog barfed. If a human barfs? It could mean contaminated food or infectious disease! There’s survival value in losing your appetite when someone else loses their chunks.
I personally admire you and all the chaperones who tried to help. I’m a recovering emetophobe* (seriously) and I would have been off that bus in a flash.
*Emetophobia: pathological fear of vomiting. It’s a sign of my “recovering” status that I could even read this post and make this comment. At my worst, I’d have been shaky for hours and lost my appetite for at least a day after getting to the part about the kid with a handful of vomit. And closed the tab immediately. And unsubscribed to the blog. That’s why they call such a fear “pathological.”
You make some excellent points. And I still get grossed out by cat bite abscesses, though the fascination wins out. 😉
Oh, and lest anyone get the wrong idea… other than vomit, I’m pretty non-squeamish. Nasty diapers, blood and gore, needles, surgery shows, and even cat/dog vomit, I can handle without a blink. Not real fond of dead things, but as long as I breathe through my mouth I’m fine. Spiders? I love them. Snakes? Had one as a pet. Carsick kids? AAAUUUGHGGHHH *runs away screaming*
Oooh….and I am so not a spider person. You’ve found my Achilles heel!
Oh, ew! Dr. V, you are a brave, brave soul. I’m an emetophobe myself and this post has ensured that I won’t sleep tonight (yeah, I had a feeling this was gonna happen when I clicked). Woke up in the middle of cat puke once…just yelled at the cat and took a shower. No problem. People? Nope. Someone says the word “nauseous” and I’m gone.
Oh no! Now I feel terrible!
Quick, think of puppies and kittens and nice clean shower stalls!
Much better =)
Things like this are why I became a vet and not an MD. I can totally handle animal grossness (I picked like 2 tons of earwax out of a lop eared bunny’s ears tonight), but when it comes to people grossness, I can’t handle a lot. Good on you for helping, Dr. V!
Owner BO. Kills me every time.
i just watched a surgery video of a cat bite abscess because i was curious. why did i just do that?
I agree with your OB, your job is SO MUCH GROSSER than ours! I’ve never had to pull out handful of maggots from, well, anybody’s ear, for example. An infected ear simply requires me a nice look with my otoscope and handing out a script, no touching involved. See? You win the Guts of Steel contest!
Although puke is really the one thing that gets to me. Kid puke, no problem. But gross old man puke? Yeah, that takes me some bit of steel resolve before I walk into the room.
Mmm, I was awakened last night to the sounds of my cat throwing up. The oscillating fan blowing on me very helpfully wafted the scent in my direction. Yummy. It’s not necessarily a human versus animal thing — vomit is contagious, like a yawn, and it can cross species barriers. Me, I just have a really hair trigger gag reflex and the hint of vomit or vomiting makes me feel like doing it myself.
i had the unfortunate fortune of being sprayed with vomit on a recent flight. The person between hurler and me got it worst (one more reason why i avoid middle seats) but it was gross. And I was also worried that the Sandlot effect would take place: remember in that movie when the kid started throwing up and EVERYONE started doing the same?? Ick…
Wow , Dr V you told that story so well and with such detail I got a little lump in my throat while reading it ..you know it reminded me a bit of that scene in the movie “Stand By ME” during the pie eating contest when everyone was hurling . I had the same reaction then as well . I though t maybe your story was going to take that turn. Glad you didnt hurl . 🙂