Quote Originally Posted by staceysue View Post

I'm a nurse on afternoon shift on a rehab unit. It's referred to as the "poop shift". The patients are ALL about bowel movements, and afternoon shift is responsible for making that happen. We have stimulant laxatives, fiber laxatives, enemas, stool softeners - you name it. It's at the center of everybody's mind. These are the people who are very happy if they go 3 times a week. They're old or very sick and don't move around much, not burning very many calories, with extremely small appetites. They eat as much in a week as most cyclists probably eat in a day.

What goes in must come out! The more you burn, the more you eat, the more you keep your bowels moving. I have taken care of constipated big eaters, though - young people. Talk about a mess!
LOL, I can relate!! I'm also a nurse, currently working in a nursing home (trying to change that part!). We have a bowel protocol that we initiate if somebody doesn't go for three days. I always joke about our job being the only one where we get excited about somebody pooping! Speaking of poop at the nursing home, I had to deal with a real mess one day last week. A resident who had a colostomy had been constipated and therefore gotten a laxative on the shift before mine. She then went down to bingo, and came back to the floor a few minutes after I had arrived and taken report. The CNA told me she needed a new colostomy bag because hers was leaking. What an understatement--more like it had exploded!!! The laxative had had its desired effect and the bag had gotten so full that it came unstuck from her abdomen, resulting not only in a mess on the resident's pants but also in a trail of liquid stool down the hall where she had been brought in her wheelchair. Needless to say, one heck of a cleanup was necessary. "Code Brown, third floor"!