Pressure In The Bowels

Who knew a fart could cause so much trouble?

The patient had just had his knee replaced a few hours earlier and was still groggy when he announced that he had to go number two. When his nurse brought him a bedpan, he became angry. He was not going to go in a bedpan, he expected to be helped to the bathroom.

She tried to reason with him to no avail, so she got me to add my two cents. I listened sympathetically and explained that no one likes to go in a bedpan, but there was no choice. I gave him all of the reasons why it was too dangerous for us to try and walk him, but he didn't care. His roommate was eating dinner at the time and he was not about to go poop in the same room as his roommate and he expected his roommate to show him the same courtesy.

At one point, he called me sweetheart in a patronizing voice and talked about carrying his buddies across fields in Vietnam and if he could do that, he could certainly walk to the bathroom. Being called sweetheart by someone who is not my sweetheart is one of my buttons. I could feel a flush of anger, but tried not to let it show, although I may have mentioned something about putting him in restraints.

The patient changed tactics and said that he was going to call his wife to come and get him. Good. I knew she would not come get him, they never do, and she might be able to talk some sense into him. I handed him the phone.

I had to leave to attend to another patient and when I came back, his nurse asked for my help getting him back to bed. His wife had not been home, which left him even more upset, so his nurse decided to just walk him to a commode chair by herself. The chair was lower than the bed and she couldn't get him up off the chair. Apparently, he decided it was okay to poop in a commode in the room while his roommate ate.

I wasn't happy, but said nothing. I'm tall and strong, so I lifted him up and swung him back to bed. Once tucked into bed, the patient was contrite. He apologized repeatedly while I told him it was okay. I'm not angry anymore, but I'm wondering what his nurse was thinking. If he had started to fall, she wasn't big enough to catch him. They both would have both gone down and she could have been fired for breaking protocol.

And for all of that trouble, all the patient did was pass some gas. It was a false alarm.