Chicken Massacre

I don't know if 'chicken massacre' is a wide spread nursing term or if its just something they say at the hospital where I work. A chicken massacre involves a Foley catheter. If you don't know, a Foley catheter is a long rubber hose they shove up your urethra (that's your pee-hole) and into your bladder when some other malady prevents you from urinating. The hose has a little balloon on the end that they inflate so that it doesn't fall out.

A chicken massacre occurs when a patient yanks the catheter out while the little balloon is still inflated. The balloon is only about the size of a marble but that's still big enough to rip the wall of the urethra like tin foil when it comes out wrong. A chicken massacre is not a real serious injury, but it is a very ugly one. Usually there's a lot of blood involved. That's why we call it a chicken massacre.

I've been working at the hospital for about a year and a half. I've seen a lot of disturbing things. But the site of an elderly person whose underwear have overflowed with blood is a special kind of creepy. The only upside is that usually a patient who is confused enough to pull out their Foley is also so gorked from meds or brain damage that they don't even feel it.

One time this twenty-year-old got his foley ripped out when the hose got tangled in the spokes of his wheelchair. That guy felt it.

Naturally, we treated that guy with the same care and professionalism we show to every patient with bleeding genitals. We laughed at him.