Today's Poop

The story has to be told...

Mom had a rough night. I was up with her for over an hour after I came home from work.  She had not pooped in 5 days.  I knew her belly was hurting, and she let me rub it a bit and during her change she let me keep her on her side and rub her back. I gave her some Tylenol and after awhile it seemed to help some, either that or exhaustion forced her back to sleep.

I have genuine concern about this and send Willie to the store for prune juice first thing.  In the meantime, Monica shows up and scours my kitchen for some Smooth Move Tea with success.  Mom has some juice, some meds, some water while the tea steeps.  Nurse Lyn is due at 12:30-1, so poop is my highest priority with her. 

Poop and a spot on Mom's back I am keeping an eye on.  Mom will not remain in a pillowed position, she moves and squirms around till she gets the pillows to the floor and achieves some version of her favorite on her back position 24 hours a day. This is not good.  However, Mom does move a lot and that is a good thing, the poop has kept her in bed.  But, Mom is wanting to get in her chair these days, so I am not super worried about the spot, but a bedsore would be sooo bad.  We've got enough to deal with as it is, so I want to head off trouble anyway I can.

I did not feed Mom any food because I did not want to make things worse.  I kept a regular dose of juice and water going hoping to flush her out.

In the meantime, She had PT at 9, OT at 11, and Nurse Lyn came at 1:30.  Big Day.

The plan with PT Marty was to get Mom up and dressed, so Marty could see how Mom did with these activities.  But Mom was so uncomfortable, I did not want to force her out of bed.  Marty understood and worked with Mom in the bed, moving her limbs and working on getting to know her better.  Marty laid out things we could do as far as exercise goes, but none of this was anything we are not already doing.  We are veterans now.  Marty will be coming Monday and Thursday next week and we will just keep moving forward.  Overall I really like how Marty interacts with Mom and Mom seemed to respond well to her despite her poop problem.

OT Lauren came in at about 11:30.  This was her first visit, so we went  through the intake process and she gave Mom the once over.  Lauren is going to come once a week for now, and will increase this as necessary.  The reason being that Mom is new to the home routine and she does not want her to be overwhelmed with all the folks coming and going.  Mom is already doing basic tasks like brushing her teeth , so Lauren felt that PT was the primary work at this point and we will take things a week at a time.  Fine by me, I am pretty much on the day to day plan myself, lol.

By the time Nurse Lyn got here, Mom was in considerable discomfort, but actually dealing with it rather well.  A scrunched up facial expression, but no moaning or crying.  I told Lyn my concerns and she was equally concerned.  Mom's heart, lungs, BP, and skin check were all good.  Lyn agreed that we should keep an eye on the spot, but said it still looked good.  She praised me for Mom's hydration and overall good health.  Lyn told me she would help with the poop by manually helping the process start.  Mom's eyes flew open wide as she put on her gloves and began to explain what she was going to do.  before we could even roll Mom over, the avalanche of poop began. 

As I have said in the past, who knew I would ever be this intimate with my mothers bowel functions, but here we are.  Lyn and I almost danced a jig for the poop.  Lyn laughed and told Mom that just the threat of manual stimulation loosened her right up.  We opened Mom's briefs and began the clean up process.  It was too late to save the sheets, poop was everywhere and more was coming.  Lyn said just let her go and as we prepared for the sheet change, we just kept the mess contained as best we could.

The first thing that came to my mind was how much better her poop smelled that when she was in the hospital.  I know this sounds gross, lol, but the hospital poo was absolutely rank, and it took awhile to air out the room afterwards.

Mom pooped for 20 minutes. Visible relief showing on her face.  I know she felt better for the release, but I think some of the relief was over avoiding a finger up her butt, lol.  I was so grateful that Lyn was there for this, as I would have been rather overwhelmed by the messy clean up.  The next thing I was grateful for was that this did not happen while my friend Danielle was sitting with Mom. We dodged a bullet there.

Lyn and I got Mom cleaned up and settled in her bed before Danielle showed up.  Lyn told me she wanted to see some excrement that was more solid and told me to watch for that.  Yeah, ok.

I gave Danielle they lay of the land, and in showing her how to give Mom water, I just administered her evening meds early.  One bit of water ignited more poop and it was a perfect opportunity to show Danielle how to change Mom.  The stool was still very loose except for one golf ball sized hard ball of poop that appeared.  I believe that was the last of the hospital cement food coming out, I recognized the smell.

After Mom was finished, clean and settled again I asked her if she was hungry, she practically screamed YES!  Danielle and I laughed and fed her a big bowl of her new favorite food, stew. She consumed nearly half a cup and I was just thrilled.

I had to go to work, so I left Mom in Danielle's capable hands, crossed my fingers, said a prayer and went to earn a couple of bucks.  Danielle came down to see me at work after she left at 9p with a good report.  Mom did poop again, she was not interested in eating, she took some water orally and was sleeping soundly when she left.  All good news.  Poopageadon was over.  Now we can get down to some serious regular food and poop schedule.

Have a great day, my people.