7.
“I’m an ICU Nurse. If the patient or family member can answer, one of the questions we ask at admission is ‘When was your last bowel movement?’ Because you should be having a minimum of three per week, preferably one good ‘number two’ a day. I had a patient who came in for a distended abdomen, nausea, couldn’t keep food down, and wayward blood pressure with altered mental status. On his way up from the ER, he started vomiting fecal matter out of his mouth.”
“I was tasked with starting a tube into his stomach to suction off the fecal matter, but he was just vomiting so much we were worried he might aspirate poo into his lungs — which is exactly what happened when he was taken to the Operating Room to work on his bowel obstruction. At some point in the OR, during or after the intubation, liquid poop that had festered in his GI system entered his lungs. They brought him back mid-code, and he died soon after. He hadn’t had a true bowel movement in over two weeks. He knew, family knew. But he tried to tough it out and kept eating full meals without pooing. He was 45 years old, now departed.”
—Anonymous, 44, Kentucky
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