In and out again
This hospital has a very unnatural interest in bodily functions.
I refer of course to the old familiar question so beloved of nurses through the ages – “did your bowels move?”. Here, if the answer is in the affirmative they get all excited and start quizzing about consistency and texture! This hospital has gone the extra mile however and there is a little ritual on Mondays where a nurse comes around with packets of swabs which she proceeds to dole out. What are we supposed to do with the swab? Where are we supposed to stick it? Well, I’ll let the bowels question give you the only clue you need.
I’m not going to go into any great personal details but suffice it to say that my normal regimen is regular but grossly under par by hospital standards. Sadly they copped onto this. Without warning I suddenly found myself dashing for the Little Boy’s Room a few times a day. This was bad. It meant life was lived on tenterhooks as I only have two pairs of pyjamas.
I discovered the reason for my daily discomfort recently.
They are giving me a daily dose of some Senna extract.
Bastards!
I can sympathise. When I had vasculitis I was in hospital for two and a half weeks. They were inordinately interested in how much I urinated to the extent that I had to piss into a bottle and call a nurse to get it weighed.
Then, just before I was due to be released, the norovirus got me. That is a nasty virus. It seems to scour the body for any superfluous fluids and ejects them forcibly from any available orifice.
Vasculitis and norovirus, two very effective ways to lose weight. Not recommended, but nobody can deny they’re effective.
Keep your chin up. Or down. Or whatever’s most comfortable.
One big relief [use of word intentional] was that though I started with a catheter and was promoted to a bottle I was soon able to dispense with non-normal devices. That is possibly why I was able to amaze them with my remarkably quick use of feet and crutches.
You obviously refrained from informing them of the correlation of (dare I say) shite food with your disappointing output.
Not your blog posting obviously.
Yes there was that point though I was reluctant to enter into a debate on that particular topic.
While on the subject of poo, I have been reading back and the standard is dropping here. Lack of material. A constipated bLog?
I initially wrote more detail about the effects of norovirus but decided not to inflict that on the world. If you want the standard to drop even further I could reinstate it. 🙂
Standards have no place on this site.
I was recently treated to a week in hospital after a scary heart incident (now home on a shedload of tablets waiting for further treatment, likely a heart bypass). But while there, and without warning, at about 10pm on day 1 they started me on heavy duty diuretics. I estimate, based on fitbit step counter data as I was able to walk the short distance to the facility, that in the initial 24 hours I went for a wee some 30+ times. I got almost no sleep for 2 nights and lost a stone in weight. Fun isn’t it (not).
That sounds very like me in my youth after a (large) feed of pints. They just love messing around with toiletry functions. Strange.
Many years ago my father had a quintuple heart bypass (he was pleased with the number). In those days you had to be fit enough to be released. However when he got home he was on strong painkillers which had a constipation side effect. He had to go back into hospital after a week of no ‘progress’ for laxatives and an enema. So probably better to go a bit too much than not at all.
What baffles me is that my “no progress” lasted at least two weeks with no side effects that I noticed. I suppose being on a sort of hunger strike helped. Nowt in, nowt out, as it were…..
I’m realising that I’ve been v. lucky in my dealings with the medicos – since GPs have become glorified pill-pushers and box-tickers, often incapable of correct diagnosis or relucant to spend money on correct treatment, I’ve kept away as much as possible. They keep chasing me re statins/jabs/type 2 diabetes etc with dire warnings about drinking too much (as if I’d told them the truth) for no result.
The few minor ops I’ve been subjected to in the past few years have been in private clinics (luckily I could just about afford it), which have been quick and outstanding, and one ongoing procedure with a specialist I played rugby with in my youth (and who is looked up to in this area).
I realise you’re in a unique situation which I can’t imagine, but once they get their hooks into you, it can be a real battle to regain independence – some think they know everything and don’t recognise the wisdom(?) that comes with age, so think you’re just being bloody-minded (I hope) rather than knowing your own body.
I wish you luck in getting to the next stage in treatment, You must be itching to see your surgeon again, I hope he breezes in soon and at least gives you a timescale – that would be something at least.
Also hope you keep ahead in the toilet stakes, by the way, when you wake up in the middle of the night, don’t think about farting!
They certainly have their hooks in me. They told me a couple of days ago that I would be out by the weekend. Hah! I was told this morning that I would be here for a while yet.
At least the toilet thing seems to have settled
..
Nurses as a profession are unhealthily bowel obsessed. Having worked in hospitals I know this because it was drilled into me during first year training that going for ‘number two’s’ twice, or even thrice a day was the highest good. Even though it’s unnecessary. Did try the high fibre route once. The resultant bowel cramps were horrendous.
Personally, I’d lie like a rug about my bowel habit, fake it by visibly wandering off to the loo, wait sixty seconds and watch a Youtube short, then flush noisily before walking out to the staff nurses unwitting approval…three times a day. No extra laxatives for me.
Work the system.
I am indeed working the system. I just tell them what they want to hear. They would freak out if I told them my normal healthy regime. They are beginning to realise though that I wasn’t mistaken when I told them my normals are a little different. Lower temperature, lower blood pressure and the like.