There Is No Spoon

DISCLAIMER: This post is not for the squeamish. You’ve been warned. 

I got over my ear and sinus infection and went right into some weird stomach/intestinal thing. It’s been rough since the election. I have not felt good a single day since November the 8th.

I gave it a week. When I started running a fever and getting flu like symptoms, I broke down and went back to the doctor.

I didn’t joke with my doctor the way I usually do. I felt like complete ass. It was all I could do to keep from crying. He first tested me for flu (negative) then told me he was concerned, given the timing, that I might have contracted C diff. C diff is a potentially deadly intestinal infection and sometimes happens when you’ve taken a broad spectrum antibiotic. Which I did.

You guys, you have to do something so disgusting when they test for C diff.

I had to take a specimen back in to the doctor’s office.

Randy has been playing the Gorillaz song Clint Eastwood every night for weeks. That song is constantly in my head. When I had my “sample” secured in a paper bag, I held it in front of me and sang to Randy “I’ve got sunshine in a bag”.

I called my friend, Mountain girl, to whine about the humiliation that I had to endure. There were two reasons for my call to her. One, because I wanted someone to complain to that wasn’t Randy because he’s heard enough and two, because one of the treatments for C diff is horrifying and is actually something that she is familiar with. Not because she had the treatment, but because someone she is not fond of had to get the treatment. The treatment, in simple terms, is they put someone else’s poo in your butt.

Mountain girl is a sweet woman. She is kind. She is extraordinarily giving. She is humble. She also relished in the schadenfreude she felt over a relative having to have someone else’s poo put in their butt. I don’t blame her. This person mistreated her for years.

Anyway, I called her this afternoon while waiting for the results to my test.

Me: I am fucking sick again.

MG: Oh no, sweetie. What is it?

Me: Some intestinal thing. I had to get a test.

MG: Did you pass?

Me: It was horrible.

Me: I had to take a specimen to the doctor this morning.

MG: HAHAHAHAHA

Me: It was traumatic. They sent me home yesterday with this thing that looked like a pilgrim hat, rubber gloves and a specimen jar.

MG: You had to shit in a hat?

Me: Yes. Yes I did. And the instructions said there would be a spoon to transfer the, well, outcome from the pilgrim hat to thespoon-1586178_1920 specimen jar and there WAS NO SPOON.

MG: HAHAHAHAHAHA

Me: Funny thing, I actually just watched The Matrix last night.

MG: I’m still imagining the pilgrim hat.

Me: You really don’t want to imagine it.

Me: I thought I might have to store it in the fridge in a brown paper bag, but I ended up waiting until this morning.

MG: No. No, you never store poo with your food.

Me: It would have been in a specimen jar.

MG: Still. No.

Me: I was a little worried, because Joey gets home from work after I go to bed and he’s been in the habit of raiding my take home bags when Randy and I go out for dinner. I bring something home, think it is intact, take it to work for lunch and then find out it’s half eaten. I thought I should mark the bag so that Joey wouldn’t open it, but then thought that might cure him of stealing my leftovers.

MG: Hahahah. No. You can’t do that to Joey.

Me: It would work, though. I mean, he might need therapy, but who doesn’t?

Me: Anyway, I might have C diff. You know what one of the treatments for C diff is?

MG: What?

Me: Getting someone else’s poo in your butt.

MG: Nooooooooooooo! Oh no. NO! Not that. How can I laugh about that if you have to get it done?

Me: I know! I ruin everything.

As it turns out, I do not have C diff. I have a run of the mill intestinal bug that I probably could have let run its course without collecting specimens of anything.

I texted Mountain girl to let her know.

Me: I don’t have C diff!

MG: Yay!

Me: I’m glad I didn’t ruin fecal transplants for you.

MG: Yeah, that would have been inconsiderate.

*****

This week with Dude, he torments the cat, gets shamed for commenting on RSIH, and steals my sunglasses.

In case you missed Dude’s first Thanksgiving

 

31 Thoughts.

  1. Ummm… probiotics.
    The ones in the fridge.
    Which you should do, anyway, after taking antibiotics.
    And.
    The fecal transplant saved the life of MG’s ‘less than desirable’ acquaintance.
    I know a person who had to have that done and for 6 weeks her boyfriend pooped in a bag for her so she could put that shit in a blender.
    Saved her life.
    They have a shitty relationship saver.
    The play on shit words never runs out of possibilities when someone’s boyfriend has to provide for shit-s(h)akes.
    😀
    While the temptation to ‘fix’ Joey’s brown bag rummaging came with the perfect set up, and the look on his face (and probably the sound that would be emitted) would have been worth the humiliation, you were right to leave him in his somewhat protected state of mind. Sometimes, there IS NO therapy.
    I am glad you are on the mend!
    Dude was the first thing I looked at last night when I got in from Salem.
    I took my Grandbabies to have Thanksgiving with their Uncle Dustin and his awesome girlfriend.
    I DON’T do big cities and I ended up making a U-Turn when there was no left turn for 17th, like my son instructed over the phone.
    Nothing like screaming double-fuck when there is nowhere to go, cars are coming and your grandbabies are wide-eyed in the back seat.
    To be fair, it was pouring rain, everybody and their dog was coming to Salem for Thanksgiving and it gets dark too fucking early.
    We lived, proving once again that I am an EXCELLENT evasive driver.
    And when I got home last night, Dude was the ‘comfy’ ‘feel-good’ that I NEEDED! Those whipped cream paw prints are soul-soothing…
    So glad we all made it through the last few weeks.
    So glad I got a couple extra Klonepin for the trip…
    So glad Randy doesn’t have to poop in a bag for you… or worse, Joey.

    • Oh hell..THAT is how it works? I assumed it was sanitized and then you would be hooked up to all the good drugs while a doctor took care of the application. I am so very glad I don’t have C diff. haha.

      • Yeah… you can go all high-tech, but it’s expensive and limited.
        She just made enemas after they tested her boyfriend’s shit for ‘potency’ because, at that time, it was still pretty new and ‘controversial?’ (for lack of a better definition) so that was how she did it.
        Helluva learning curve…

      • Haha!!! I’m not disbelieving that the pill form would be more… umm… palatable?
        But!
        Do you know how much pre-packaged, sanitized poop in pill form costs??
        Much cheaper to make your own…
        Maybe they have come a long way since four years ago, but the theory still revolves around the ‘good bacteria’ – and – just like pasteurized milk, you lose a lot of the goodness when you process that shit.
        But I’m super duper pooper happy you don’t have to decide how much you are willing to pay for shit.
        Pill form or other!
        Some decisions are best left undecided 😀

  2. Hey, thank goodness you don’t have C Diff and are on the mend.
    How medieval the treatment sounds.
    Might as well go and see the local Wise Woman, who could no doubt brew you up a far more palatable concoction.

  3. Geez! I just last week had to do the poop in a hat trick! Three had to go into the FREEZER! Haven’t gotten the results back yet, but the doctor took me off Metformin (diabetes) and so far that seems to be the reason for my “trots”. That’s after 5 months and a loss of 15 pounds. So, at this point I don’t want to know the results – I’m good with what I have so far. Don’t think I have to go onto another diabetes medication (pleasepleaseplease) yet, and I ESPECIALLY don’t want anything as complicated as C Diff!
    Glad you’re better. And Dude. Seriously. Can’t you do something about him?

  4. Funny thing about the world of medicine – seems the more it advances, the more it goes backwards. Leeches, for example. Just saying. A fecal transplant, as humiliating and primitive as it sounds, has got to be better than leeches. Eeeww. Anyway, glad you don’t have C Diff, and wishing you a complete and speedy recovery from whatever it was that got a hold of you. You deserve to feel well.

  5. I’ve had to give stool samples twice. They were an easier alternative to having a colonoscopy, according to my doctor. They were a little tiny plastic specimen vial with a grooved stick on the inside of the cap that gathered the specimen. It did feel sort of weird handing the bag to the nurse at Highland and watching her tear the bag in half and pull the vial out of the little ziplock bag with the biohazard symbol on it and toss it in the little plastic bin already half full of similar vials.
    Have you ever read “Gulp” by Mary Roach? I haven’t read the book, but I heard her interviewed about it on NPR, and she described a study on the process of fecal transplantation where they had to have a “donor” poop into a bag and deliver it to them periodically. She described one meeting with him where he handed the paper bag containing the sample (in a plastic bag) to them and told them “Not one of my better efforts.” For some reason this was hilarious to me when I heard it.
    I’m glad you’re feeling a little better; there’s no good time to be sick, but this feels like an even worse-than-usual one, somehow.

      • Doug in Oakland: If anybody could make a stool sample funny, Mary Roach is your gal! Her ‘Stiff’ book had me rolling… She’s the reason I’m going ‘casket-less.’

        • She’s an Oakland girl, and I think she’s hilarious. I first saw her on the Daily Show talking about her book “Packing For Mars”, still one of my all time favorite Jon Stewart interviews.

  6. Good Lord, woman! Can’t you experience one uneventful week???
    I’d heard of the “transplant” procedure and it is gag-worthy! I think they should replace the kit spoon with a fork. Like one of those wee seafood forks.
    Happy to know you got the all-clear. No pun intended. Tomorrow is the start of a fresh week, so here’s hoping…

  7. You’ll never ruin fecal transplants. Heck, there are plenty of people here who’d line up to be a donor, mainly to help you feel better but partly so we could all laugh about it together too.
    I’m just sorry you had to shit in a hat at home. I’d rather do that at the doctor’s office. I’d go in the bathroom, take care of things, then, as loudly as I could, I’d yell “GRYFFINDOR!”
    Seriously I hope you feel better soon.
    Also I’m pretty sure I’d be in Slytherin for shit like that.

  8. From earlier comments, it sounds like you’ve escaped C diff. Thank God for that. And you’re certainly getting some awesome feedback that people would be lining up to share their poo with you, so as to laugh along with you, while trying to help save your intestinal fortitude. If that’s not fan loyalty, I don’t know what is, Michelle. Now really. Only you could win that contest – “How many fans can you get to offer their poo to you?” Congrats!

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