Katie's BMT Updates

This totally made me laugh! I wish all public restrooms came with face masks and yellow paper robes. Seriously, THAT's where we need the warning!

Hope you are doing well sweetie, I think of you all the time.

OMG. I am so in my genre with poop stories.

I totally feel for you, Katie. I had this horrendous thing called C Difficile right after Jessie was born.

It was a waterfall in my pants. I kid you not. Plus, I had a c-section, so I need help up every time I had to go! The whole experience culminated with a late-night visit to the clinic with a newborn that cried and cried and tried and tried to breast feed. (Turns out she had acid reflux).

I had no clue what I was doing, and when the doctor told us that I should go on a liquid diet for a few days, we all broke down into tears.

So, there's a diarrhea story for you. Also, once when camping in the rain, I stepped in my own poop. It was quite humiliating too whenever my campmates exclaimed, "That is sooo weird. I still smell poop!" I sorta had to look away and say something like, "What's that over there?"

Lisa

Dear Katie,
The stories that I could tell you about POOP!!!
But the yellow gowns and masks are really familiar to me. We have had a whole lot of C-Diff patients lately, a sign of not good handwashing between patients-NOT GOOD!!! I love the yellow gowns, they relly make me feel like a banana blimp-not flattering at all. I think I'll take some time to design a flattering isolation gown and become rich and famous and go on OPRAH.
Now reflecting on a POOP story- we have a lot of old and dememted patients that tend to "play in their poop". One night a couple of us had to clean up one such patient. Then later while we were eating lunch at the desk, actually it was right after the "CLEAN_UP", we kept smelling poop. One of the nurses looked down at her watch and she couldn't see the face becasue it was all brown!!1 Yuck!! Then a 450 pound lady fell to the floor and we had to get the lift to get her back in bed and during the whole process she, you guessed it, pooped all over the floor. So we were all sliding in it and the lift wouldn't stay stationary. What a mess!!! We all had to sanitize our shoes and the first thing I did when I got home was to put those hummers in the wash machine on HOT, HOT, HOT!!! Enough stories?
The short of it, is that no one minds your diarrhea at all except you. Becasue from a nurse's viewpoint is that you are not playing in it and you are hitting the toilet. You are a gift to the nurses's shift, thank you, Katie.
Keep your chin up through all this because this is just a regular day for the nurse, that's what we do.
Love you much,
Mom

Could be worse -- could be CONSTIPATION

(okay, that was a bit of a stretch, I know...)

As long as we are on the topic, let me share a tale from our Colorado cabin. The place is in the high country where we are regularly visited by all manner of wildlife, especially elk. The Rocky Mountain National Park rangers do a talk on "scat," the fecal droppings of animals, as a way to identify the critters that have crossed your path. Our dogs, of course, do their identifications by sniff test. Their noses go deep into the elk duds or deer doo. Ugh. Double ugh when these creatures are dropping giardia, too.

Giardia are the nasty bacteria that make drinking from a "clear mountain stream" a risky business. Giardia infected droppings get into streams and then into creatures who drink from them. The cycle is vicious. Giardia infected intestines produce terrible
diarrhea. Giardia ensure that doctors and veterinarians in mountain communities will retire in comfort.

And so it came to pass that our dogs got giardia. And Bob, who is keen on dog kisses, got diarrhea. First the dogs would take medicine and recover. Meanwhile,Bob would get diarrhea. Then the dogs would. Maybe Uncle Ed could explain the science of what was going on, but the cycle didn't end until the vets had both Bob and dogs treated at the same time. (Not to worry, they sent Bob to the people doctor; but I wouln't have been concerned if they had dispensed the pills. Bob and the dogs had the same medication in different doses.)

Be careful whom you kiss, Katie! And no drinking from mountain streams!

Blessings, Eva

Ok, You are starting to take all my good transplant stories! Same thing happened to me, twice... Your counts shot up though, and that is really good. It's frustrating to watch them go up and then go back down again. It's also a little scary! It sounds like you are doing well though and things are right on track. The hair thing is hard and I know there isn't much I can say to make it better, so I will tell you a little story... I refused to let my husband see me without a hat or bandana on when I lost my hair. One day about a month after transplant I came out of the bathroom and I was hot and frustrated and I whipped off the bandana and told him he would just have to deal with it. He kissed the top of my head and told me it was about time I took the darn thing off. I guess it seems worse to us because we are the one's losing it, but your beautiful with or without it. I have no words that make it better and I wish I did, through this journey that's the one thing I haven't come up with! I think of you often and am sending positive mojo your way. Stay strong.

You never met my mother, Ilene, but I know you've heard a lot about her. When she was about 50, she joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Kenya. One day she was on a bus, returning to Nairobi after a few days in a village outside of town. She had been on the bus for few hours and felt a surge of diarrhea. She begged the bus driver to stop, so he pulled along the side of the road and let her out. She was more afraid of shitting all over the bus than meeting up with any wildlife along the road. She ran into the bushes to relieve herself and when she came out everyone in the bus was looking at her. At that moment, she decided to stash her undies in the bush because she couldn't bear to bring them back on the bus with her. She never meant to litter in Kenya.

Dear Katie,
I just wrote to you and lost it. I hate that. It is 0300 and I woke up and can't got back to sleep which is unusual for me.
It seems everyone has some poop stories, Your diarrhea episode has generated a lot of good stories and memeories. So you see, it just goes to prove that everything has a purpose even your diarrhea.
I had the hardest time remembering how to spell diarrhea in my charting and am so thankful for check charting with narrative only by exception.
Well, back to bed. I have to get up early to take the dogs for a walk and then to the vet. Don suggested that we go to Wal-Mart to get some paint for the guest room-I told him that he really knows how to treat a girl. By the way he wanted me to say "HI". I read him the POSTs daily and he has been following your progress.
Hugs and kisses to you,
Mom

Oh, Katie, my sympathies! I am sure you of all people can rock a bright yellow gown like no other.

I am highly amused by all the poop stories your post generated. I guess it's true, Everyone Poops.

No hilarious pooping stories from Germany yet. Though one of the things I came upon in my quick research was the existence of toilets with poop shelves. Apparently, the purpose of having a little display shelf for your poop before it gets flushed away is so you can examine your poop for signs of poor health or nutrition. I was very much relieved to find that our cute apartment has a toilet sans poop shelf. Somehow it would have detracted from the romance of being reunited with my husband...

Thinking of you, missing you, wishing you all the best. You are always beautiful to me, with or without hair, whether in a yellow gown or a jacked up Webvan outfit. (I told that story to some friends the other day, and it didn't really make that much sense, even to me!)

love,
Charlene

You'll have to name the yellow outfit "the poop suit" - Used in a sentence: "Does this poop suit make me look fat?"
Hang in there! :)
Chris