Further Adventures in Medical Land. Part 3: What is dignity?

 

What is the correct response to receiving a suppository as a 50 year old? Thank you? Do you turn to the nurse before saying it? Do you wait until she has removed the gloves? Or do you keep your head buried in the pillow and imagine she was wearing a normal glove and not the one vets use to deliver cows?

If this bit triggered a gag reflex, maybe give this post a skip.  It only gets worse.

In the beginning I got help showering by some young medical assistants. Undressing in front of a stranger now seems normal. For their sake I hope athletes come in some times.  Give them something good looking to wash.  The assistants were all very good.  Not once a remark about the vast expanse to be washed.  They were immune. My nakedness didn’t phase them. It shouldn’t phase me.  Relax, I am not going to become a nudist now.  It is just a lesson I needed.

It seems excretions after operations are important.  In ICU they measure every fluid in and out. Only after several times of using it, did I realise the blue pee bottle had ml markings on it.  Therefore, I could leave it in the toilet and just give them the number, not walk out into the ward with it so they can do a magic thing. At some stage they worried about my kidney output.  The wee was not enough and not light enough.  Burnt Sienna is what I described it as in a moment of pomposity. And so, I found out Nurse A paints.  I was referring to the book by David Morrell.  He of First Blood fame. Only reason I knew of the colour. Anyhow, our heroine solved the quantity issue by noting the significant amount of sweat I produced.

Going accompanied to the toilet was somewhat weird.  Arse hanging out of the too small gown (or too big body) and the staff trying to cover it.  Not that I cared.  But, one has to consider that some people might have eaten. Once inside they retreat.  Own sanity probably.  And then you don’t flush, cause how it looks is important.  And you are not trained in the stool scale so your descriptors are invalid.

In the general ward I had some trouble producing meaningful solid output.  Or any. Hence the suppository.  And then a slight misunderstanding.  A product was left, which I think was meant to be used in a very low dosage to help things along.  But the syrup was designed to clean out the entire system.  And I got two doses. 

At first I wanted to share the output quite proudly, like a two year old.  “Look nurse. Me made poopoo”.  But it continued.  And the warning I got each time, become less and less.  Until one time I was too late.  There I stood next to a toilet, my traveling path marked by my own poo that was also on myself.  This is when I had to ask for help to clean my own backside.  The upside of this was I could tell the Doc it wasn’t diarrhea, because it didn’t splatter and run away when it hit the floor.

Having shat myself and ask for help was probably the lowest point in my life. Yet the staff handled it professionally and made nothing of it.  Lesson learned. Your dignity or self-worth is not linked to having to ask for help even on bodily functions. And you can help others with theirs by just helping and not making a fuss.