Pooped!

Yesterday, we had a staff meeting and one of the things we do is our required in-services since everyone is attending. Some of the required in-services have nothing to do with anyone but the clinical staff but us non-clinical people are “forced” to sit in.  Not a lot different from our Interdisciplinary meetings where it would be easy for a stranger to spot the non-clinical staff by the gag responses when we are discussing body fluids and such.  Why these always take place at lunch time and the invitation to bring your lunch…it’s a lunch and learn, baffles me. Why would I want to eat and discuss gross things at the same time? 

 

I’m sure out Director of Nurses would like to strangle me sometimes at these meetings because it is nearly impossible for me to get through any kind of group meeting without making a funny comment.  I’m sure the rest of the staff (other than the trainer) enjoys the laughter break but not so sure about the trainer.

 

So the topic of the discussion was symptom management and I did fine through the discussion of coughing, of anxiety, and of  dyspnea which is a fancy word for shortness of breath…but when we got to Constipation I couldn’t resist when the topic was introduced “now staff, lets talk about constipation” remarking “also known as taking care of the rectal vault”.  Which of course brought spasms of laughter.

I had never heard that term until a few months ago when one of our nurses remarked that the patient’s rectal vault was clear.  I always think of Seinfeld when I hear the word vault. Whenever something was top secret the secret keeper would say “it’s in the vault”. 

A vault in my mind is a container that contains something really important, for safekeeping…somehow poop doesn’t seem to fit that criteria. Now when I walk Quincy I say to Joe, taking Quincy out to empty his rectal vault.  I don’t know why that term is so funny to me.

It’s like when you are a kid and call everyone a poophead. “what an RV”  is now my secret code for a person that makes me mad.  and they have no idea what I am talking about

Working in Hospice over the past 10 years I have noticed that an awful lot of attention is paid to bowel movements.  One of our nurses had me make a chart for recording bowel movements.  I had a difficult time trying to decide what to call it.  I toyed with Poop Chart,  Rectal Vault release chart, Record of Poo.  Finally, I called it the BM record.  I know from being around older people that other than the weather and talking about who has died recently, bowel movements seem to be right up there on the list of what’s important.   When I was little, no matter what my complaint was, headache, toothache, skinned knee my dad’s standard question was always, when did you poop last?  As if going to the bathroom would solve every ache, pain and owie that happened.  Well, unless you got a cut and were bleeding.  Then he would say “I’ve had bigger cuts than that on my eyeball”.  LOL

 

When the handout got passed around entitled Important Points for Constipation, I had a hard time keeping a straight face and refraining from launching into a comedy routine. I now know more than I ever wanted to know about laxatives and colicky bowels.  Finally, the director of nurses cut off the bathroom jokes that got started by saying “constipation is no laughing matter” in such a serious tone that we cracked up all over again. 

 

 I was super relieved when we moved on to nausea and vomiting.   I noticed on the schedule for next staff meeting the topic is Wound Care.  Now that should be pleasant for a lunch and learn.