Doody Duty

I knew it would happen sooner or later, but I don't think I was prepared for it to happen while I was wearing a new set of scrubs with crisp white pants and a brand new pair of shoes that I'd never put on before.... But alas, it did happen. I got shat on. Big time.

It was a patient who was up for a liver transplant and he was quite sick. When people's livers fail, one of the myriad problems that comes up is that their ammonia levels build up to dangerous levels in the blood. When that happens, mental status changes and someone can go from being clear as day to being extremely confused and combative to even slipping into a coma. I think the normal levels should be somewhere between 10-35 and but one guy's ammonia was up to 168. When that happens, the only way to fix it is with laxatives. Lots and lots of laxatives. Something about the ammonia binding to these laxatives in the gut and being transported out of the body via poop. I don't know what it is, but I've seen it time and time again-- people go from being nuts to almost normal with a good couple of episodes of explosive diarrhea.

So that's what the case was with this guy-- he needed to shit, bad. So, I pumped him full of lactulose, sodium benzoate and goLytely (all terrible products that would make *anybody* shit their pants). And lo and behold, before too long, there was a rumblin' in his tumblin' and he had to go. But he'd been confused, so I'd slapped a diaper on the guy previously, just to be sure. But taking off your underwear and sitting down on the toilet is kind of like a reflex when you've been doing it for 60 years or so, so when this guy had to go, he wouldn't just go in the diaper, he kept screaming about needing to sit on the toilet-- but that ended up taking too much time and while he was trying to tear off the diaper, a tsunami of feces came with it, fell to the floor with a mighty splash, and bounced right off the floor and onto my pants and shoes. Mmmmm. It was actually quite impressive... and if any villages of small insects or rodents had existed on the ground near where we were, I'm convinced we would have heard a loud chorus of high-pitched screams of terror.

Well, whatever. We got the guy cleaned up, and I got a new pair of scrubs to change into from the housekeeping department, I cleaned off my shoes as best I could, and I continued on with the day. The guy ended up getting a little better-- he still needs a liver transplant, but now his mental status is greatly improved, which is good. I hope he gets one soon... he had two near-transplants where the donor was opened up each time but both livers were rejected by the surgical team as not good enough to transplant.

So, that's that. I hope it doesn't happen again anytime soon, but if it does, I'll deal with it like I did this time. Just one thing I'm grateful (greatful maybe? I never can get that one right) about though-- normally I wear those foam clogs with all the ventilation holes in them. And granted I wear them with socks, but they still leave my feet open to spills, which until that point had not yet occurred. But Noodle fans, don't get too upset-- that day was the first day that I'd decided to wear my nice new pair of sturdy *closed* top shoes. See? There is a God!