It's time to poop.

I’m going to talk about excrement here for a while, so if you don’t like this topic, “X” out of here now.  This is a very important topic to all our lives, so I felt I should touch on it.

While in the hospital a lot of things are going on all at once.  One of the most important things that a nurse must always keep tucked in her back pocket is when each patient had their last bowel movement.  Yes, I’m concerned that your pain is a 10/10 or that your blood pressure is sky high, but I’m also wondering when you last pooped. 

It is very easy to get constipated in these situations.  Not moving around like normal, taking high doses of constipating-inducing narcotics, eating hospital food, or not eating any hospital food(that’s the smart people) can all contribute to getting really stopped up.

So it’s my job to get things going again.  If it’s been too long I can give you something to make it easier, but if it’s been too long and I have to resort to drastic measures.  For example: A patient of mine had not pooped in over a week.  I had passed it off to the day shift to ask doc when he came in if we could give him something for that, which they forgot, so when I came on the next night it was up to me to do something.  So I begged the patient’s cardiologist to order something, when he doesn’t normally manage that kind of thing.  Lucky for me, he asked me what I wanted, and then he gave me an order for it!  Problem solved.   Poor patient was up and down all night using the restroom, but hey…mission accomplished.

When resorting to these drastic measures you may here some things like:

Patient Brown : Rings the call bell

Me: “Can I help you?”

Patient Brown: “Yeah, I gotta crap, again.”

Me: “Okay, let me help ya get up,” all while trying to keep a straight face

Another patient,

Patient Nopoopforaweek: “I can’t tell if it’s just air, or juice.”

Me: “I’m sorry?”

Patient Nopoopforaweek: “You know, just gas or juice.”

Me: “Ah, I see, don’t worry this is normal.”

I really feel bad for people because not only is this an uncomfortable situation, but it’s embarrassing too.  But I want to clear the air, no pun intended, if you ever find yourself in this situation, don’t worry, whatever happens to you and your bowel pattern, just let it go.  Every nurse will always have something worse that she’s seen or dealt with so just let it go.

Everyone poops.