I must say the part of my job that I hate the most are the dictations that involve fecal disimpaction. Now, if you can't decipher from that what that exactly entails, allow me to further elaborate. It's having someone pick your butt for poop. It's poop scooping from its original source. It's a finger up where the sun don't shine, scraping away the poop plug. Ugh. I don't know who this is worse for, the patient or the practitioner. I mean, can you imagine? "I went through 12 years of schooling to pick shit from someone's ass." Actually, I asked my nurse sister-in-law about this one time, thinking how noble of doctors to actually perform this distasteful task themselves, but she told me usually the nurses do it. Yet another reason I did not become a nurse. Nurses are the janitors of the health profession. Really. They do all the "menial" jobs doctors don't want to tackle. However, listening to the doctors dictations, one would think they did it. I think they should actually have to do it so they can give a real first-hand account, so to speak, of the situation. Really get in there and get their hands dirty. *snicker* (Can you imagine the smell?)
On the other hand, we have the patient. Now, just how bad does it have to get that you go to the ER to get someone's finger up your butt? I did one report where the woman had not had a bowel movement for 17 days. Yeah, I guess I'd be lookin' for someone's finger, maybe hand, up my butt at that point, too. But, really, wouldn't you rather handle this kind of situation early and
yourself? I think I'd go mining around day 2 or 3. Hey, just a thought for the next time you're not so "regular."
