Delicately wondering

[Jolt]

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"!

[BikingNurse]

Code Brown! Those are the days that I really think I was a smart cookie for going to the clinic. Don't miss that mess at all!

[staceysue]

LOL Gotta love nursing!

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

When my mother was in a very nice nursing home for 3 years, it was little wonder to me that most of the residents had constipation as the norm. The meals had almost no roughage or whole grains or fiber in them....white rice, white bread, white cream of wheat, pale iceburg lettuce, rice crispies, white flour pasta....
i kept thinking how odd it was to systematically cause constipation with a cheap over-processed institutional diet, only to have to give stool softeners/laxatives every few days.

[Jolt]

When my mother was in a very nice nursing home for 3 years, it was little wonder to me that most of the residents had constipation as the norm. The meals had almost no roughage or whole grains or fiber in them....white rice, white bread, white cream of wheat, pale iceburg lettuce, rice crispies, white flour pasta....
i kept thinking how odd it was to systematically cause constipation with a cheap over-processed institutional diet, only to have to give stool softeners/laxatives every few days.

Very good point...the inactivity plus that diet is a recipe for constipation! Hospital food can be pretty bad too; I have a hard time understanding how places that are intended to help people get healthy can serve such garbage sometimes.

[grey]

I'm mostly vegan, so I go sometimes 3x a day - especially if my intake is nearly all fruits and veggies. Supposedly this is healthy.

However, even trying to stay vegetarian while caring for my sister in the hospital for a week at a time twice in the past year stopped me right up. It was wildly uncomfortable after all of 2 days. Travel does the same thing. No clue why... but ugh. What a horrid feeling. I can't understand how it can be considered normal to go only 3 times in a week! Oy!

[indysteel]

The Regularity Gods must be angry with me or something. In the course of the last two months, I've gone from being pretty regular to all kinds of messed up. In that time, I moved, which was stressful and messed up my routine. I also had oral surgery to remove some teeth as part of my orthodontics treatment. That led to some dehydration and also required me to eat mostly soft foods (meaning little fiber) for a couple of weeks. That's when I started to get a little worried because I just couldn't seem to right myself. Then my cats both got sick, and I got even more stressed out. In the middle of that, I started to have some eye problems and was told by my doctor to not run or jump for the time being. So, between shorter days, busier weekends and my eye problems, my exercise routine nearly ground to a halt. As did my bowels, apparently.

I've had minor "'roid" issues here and there over the years, but nothing a little bit of witch hazel couldn't fix. Now, I've got a full blown problem and my constipation seems to be getting worse, not better, no matter what I try. I'm trying to get into my doctor, but apparently, if you don't have the flu, it's hard to get an appointment.

Ugh. Something better give soon.