Poop

I’m 5 weeks in surgery rotation. It’s been amazing. I wake up some time around 4 am. Hit snooze, repeat. I stumble into the hospital and run up the stairs to the 8th floor. Then I race to the staff lounge in search of coffee. (I don’t know who it is, but some angel makes fresh coffee just before I get there at 5am. Whoever you are, I love you.) But just before I make it to the coffee maker my nostrils fill with the now all-too-familiar smell of shit. Not any old shit, but hospital shit.

Hospital poop is extra special because it is bursting with especially malevolent multi-drug resistant bugs. Superpoop, I think, and stick my nose in my coffee cup.

“Miss Jenkins, did you fart today?” I begin my pre-rounds on a 70-year old lady who had some pretty invasive abdominal surgery.

Miss Jenkins rolls her elderly eyes at me. “What? YOUNG LADY what in God’s name are you doing up at this hour?”

“Did you fart.” I don’t have the energy to explain. Might as well get to the point.

We stare at each other, determinedly. I will know about her bowel function. Then I will make my report to my intern at 6 am. Who’s going to report to the chief resident. Who will tell the attending. Who was going to ask her anyway. But in some insane world, knowing if Miss Jenkins farts before anyone else knows makes me a good medical student. I might even get a recommendation for Honors.

“Doc, have you lost your mind?” She peers at me.

I love Miss Jenkins. While she’s the one who just had some internal organs surgically removed, it’s my state of mind she’s worried about. She might have a point. I've been chronically exhausted. It's so bad I've been thinking about sleeping with all my patients. Literally. I think about crawling under the covers with them, the only place I might be able to hide from the rest of the surgery team and actually get some sleep.

“How ‘bout poop?” I scream, partly because she’s hard of hearing. Mostly because I'm trying to drown out my inner voice, which is mocking me. Either way, it doesn't help my case.

Yes she pooped and farted for chrissake. Good, I say, and I change the dressing on her wound, knowing that with every pee, poop, and fart she is that much closer to getting out of this stinky, super-bug infested place, the center of my world. I’m not very eloquent at 5am, so I don’t explain this very well. But it matters tremendously.

I used to imagine that the rest of our organs pretty much existed for the sake of the reproductive ones. To breed human life! Now I’m pretty sure that reproductive organs exist so we will never run out of poop factories.

Basically it required two and half years of medical school to truly appreciate crapping. I won’t bore you with all the details, but bottom line is: Want to know how well your body is working? Want to see the end result of a complex yet perfectly orchestrated effort between brainesophagusstomachpancreasgallbladdersmallnlargebowelsbloodmuscle, etc?

Just look in the toilet. And there it is, the final movement to a perfect symphony. What once was breakfast is now a poop. Maybe it’s obvious, but I bet you’ve never really thought about it: no matter what you put in, poop always comes out. Even computers can't do that. So next time, before you flush – take a moment. Congratulate your body on what it has created. Well done! Now you’re at least partly ready to attempt breeding.