Stool Sample

This is the most disgusting thing I've ever had to do. And here's the thing: it's not Lily's poop I have to collect. If it was, I wouldn't blink. It would be fine. But it's mine! And that grosses me out in a way that would never gross me out if it was Lily's. And that has really made me think. I mean, what the heck? Shouldn't it be easier to do mine? No, it isn't. I am intimate with my child's bodily machinations and products in a way that I'm really not with my own. Do I know her body better than my own? Is that strange?

I have some kind of something going on in my gastro thingies. Every time I eat I get horrible stomach cramps and then gas. It's awful. It started over the weekend of July 4th and I had diarrhea and I thought I was gonna die from the cramping. Then the nausea. I ended up going into the ER on the 4th, after not eating for 2 days and getting no sleep for that time either. It was crazy! They couldn't figure it out. I had to have morphine to calm me down from the pain so I could finally rest.

Lily and John went up on the roof of the parking structure at the hospital to see the fireworks while Mommy got her morphine. Hey, we know how to make the best of a bad situation. And she was so good.

So this stool sample thing. I went to the doctor today because after two weeks, I'm still having these cramps and gas, and they wanted all my bodily fluids. I had to take Lily in the bathroom with me to do the pee sample, and I swear, I wouldn't be surprised if she becomes a doctor. She's getting very comfortable with how bodies work. She doesn't flinch when they take her blood at the doctor's, and she was fascinated watching me get my blood taken. She doesn't want to poop in her potty yet (just pee), but she'll tell you she's hiding now (really she's just standing in one spot) because she's making a poop.

The nurse gave me the stool sample pack, and explained how to use the little hat that you put in the toilet to catch your poop. Oh, but there's more. I think it used to be that you just put your poop in a jar or something and brought it in. Not anymore! Now, to save costs, you get to be a lab tech at home! There's two vials of chemicals for each poop you collect, and you gotta scoop it in up to a line on the bottle, then MIX it with the built-in spoon on the lid (kind of like the bubbles you buy at the store, with the bubble wand built in to the lid!), and finally, shake it like some obscene cocktail.

Eeeech!! I am not sharing this process with Lily, lest you worry. Why the hell am I sharing it with you? Well, it's just so gross I had to tell somebody. I mean, I have to mix my poop?? If I wasn't nauseated already, I would be from doing this. It just feels wrong, somehow. Like I should be hiding it. If it was my job to mix poop, that would be different.

Anyway, I just couldn't help but notice how different it was for me to deal with my own poop in contrast to Lily's poop. Mine felt dirtier. Why?

Okay, hopefully you aren't all thinking I'm a crazy person. I am sick right now, so that should count for something. When you're sick with some mystery crap (in this case, literally), you get tired of having to do all these weird tests.