spare a thought for all the medical technologists out there, who suffer the brunt of the hospitals' 'dirty works' everyday. the process of obtaining urine, sputum, blood and, que horror, stool specimens is disgusting as is, but to slosh though other people's undesirable body samples at such close proximity with only a cm thin layer of latex serving as buffer, is nothing short of heroic.
as nursing students, it is required for us to undergo laboratory exams to ensure our serviceability, so to speak, to the hospital we are affiliated with (it's like, so that the patients don't get anythinng harmful from us. but the students' health? oh, fugghedaboutit...). urinalysis i can do. hepa and drug exams? no biggie. sputum? never done that, but 'tis to'lable. but come the damn stool exam, my stomach does major Olympic-standard backflips. This has got to be the yuckiest exam designed by man in white coats with a macabre sense of humor. It's an essential exam for us nurses, where a positive result can mean doomsday for case-deprived students. essential, but still disgusting. poking my own stool is not something i enjoy doing. egad. luckily for me, my stool sample was negative for any parasites. this means no stool-poking-in-the-early-morning-after-laxative-binge-at-night sessions for me, for at least six months.
stool exams are common conversation fare amongst nursing students come enrollment time. some snatches of conversations from people suffering from indigestion, constipation and diarrhea:
"hoy, doys! ya kaga ya bo? miyo de bo tai ha?" (hey, buddy? you defecated yet? i'll have your stool, ok?)
"tiene ya tu tai? dale daw..." (do you have a sample stool yet? c'mon, gimme some..)
"pwede tu ase di miyo stool exam para kumigo?" (can you do my stool exam for me?)
"shit, nukere gat yo kaga. panus de lata ya yo ta kome para pwede lang kaga!" (shit, i can't defecate. i ate spoiled canned goods just to be able to defecate!)
two points: these are disgusting conversation fare and second, food poisoning is a fate better than no duty.
stool exams are unpredictable. for some reasons (like, improper collection, inept technicians, faulty laboratory procedures), they come positive. or worse, the hospital misplaced your sample and they can't find it! either way, you have to undergo the process again..and again...depends on whether lady luck is by your side. this is the case of my brother. as of now, i am eating a plateful of oatmeal in hopes of stimulating my gastrointestinal system to move faster and churn out the blasted feces. thanks to psychological blocks and an irregular defecating schedule,.
in school, we are taught not to be disgusted with our own stool. it's not advisable to show disgust or reprimand young 'uns when they play with their stool, since it'll make them think that their bad and dirty. after all, at that age, children know that everything that comes out from them is theirs, and like, there is nothing wrong if they share it with you. if you do, they may become cleanliness freaks or OC people. it has something to do with Freud's psychosexual theory of development. technically, stool is nothing more but indigested food materials, and ceratin body waste and water. it's something that should be embrace as yours. but it's still disgusting. in this case, my psychosexual development was probably dysfunctional.
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