I had a patient come in to the ICU where I worked. They so so so bad. Has anyone ever smelled rotting blood or meat? That bad. Deal with smelly stuff all the time, I can handle it. I suggested that we get him cleaned up, as it was standard in the ICU to stay very clean to avoid infections. He agreed to having a bed bath- I basically get a bunch of wipes and towels and a wet and dry bucket and go to town. As soon as the covers were off, it got really bad. Had him turn to expose his back and it got absolutely RANK. I mean this is the worst thing I have ever smelled in my life. I literally had to step away from the bed to take a breath or I wasn’t going to trust myself not to vomit. Held my breath, helped him open his legs, and witnessed one of the craziest things I’d ever seen. He had what appeared to be a hamburger sized mass of what looked like genital warts around his anal area and taint. It was absolutely weeping pus, blood, and had some parts that were genuinely decaying. I was absolutely determined to get this man to not smell- so I carefully tried to clean up as much as I could while making sure I wasn’t making him uncomfortable. I was going to have to deal with this smell my whole shift so not cleaning wasnt an option. I got him cleaned up (had to take several breaths away from the bed, spent half the time holding my breath) but I got him clean. Did he smell good? Absolutely not. But was it now somewhat tolerable? Yes. I can’t imagine how he felt, it would be so awful. Turns out the poor guy did not know that he had HIV, which had turned into AIDS. It suppressed him immune system so much that it didn’t stand a chance against HPV (genital warts). If you want to see what this looks like, google condyloma acuminata. It is not for the faint of heart so you are warned. Here is a link, it looked like this except completely weeping fluid.