The One About the Toddler Poop

Warning: this entire post is about toddler poop.  Stories about blowout toddler poop are nowhere near as cute as stories about blowout newborn poops.  There are photos, but I promise that none of them are of the poop itself.  Except maybe one.  But you can't tell there's poop in it, I promise, it just happens to be there.  And if you stick this one out you will definitely appreciate however you spent your own evening, and you may just get a laugh or two out of it (or you may call your doctor immediately to schedule an appointment to get your tubes tied).

Well, if the title of this post and that disclaimer didn't turn you away, I guess nothing will.  Bravo!  Just remember, I had to live this, so the least you can do is read about it.

To dive right in - Joe has had some lovely and intense diarrhea for over a week. No fever, no sickness, nothing else.  Just liquid poo, multiple times a day and sometimes overnight.  And always when he wakes up in the morning.  Super fun, sexy, and glamorous.  Poor Joe.

So have you heard about the big cantaloupe/listeria problems that have been going on lately around these parts?  Since my mom listens to NPR religiously and may actually have a crush on Diane Rehm, I am always very up to date on newsworthy national issues like cantaloupe virus outbreaks.  Turns out that people are actually dying of this one, though, so it matters, and is scary.  One of the symptoms of cantaloupe-related listeria is frequent, eh hem, liquid poo -- and the symptoms can take up to 70 days to show themselves.  Of course, a few weeks ago, Joe had some cantaloupe at my mom's house.  Add NPR melodrama to paranoid grandma, sprinkle in a few drops of actual symptoms, and you have a kind of freaked out mama.

Since today marked the eighth straight day of liquidity, and in light of my aforementioned freaked-outedness (and since I could practically hear my mother wringing her hands through the phone every time we talked), I figured it was about time to get him into the doctor to get this output issue checked out.  Fortunately, the doctor found no obvious issues, and the lack of other side effects means it's safe to say that he doesn't have any of the really scary stuff (including listeria. phew.).

Unfortunately, because there are no obvious issues, they have to test for non-obvious issues.  And how, you ask, do they test for non-obvious poop-related issues?  Why, stool samples, of course!  The doctor sent me home with a whole goody bag full of stuff to collect the next burst of poo in.

Because timing on stuff like this is always perfect, John's got trial tomorrow morning and is working late tonight.  So I'm home alone with the kiddos.  Perfect night to have to collect poop, wouldn't you say?  Right around bathtime, the evening burst I'd been waiting for reared its ugly head.  It was time to gird my loins and go poop hunting. 

Here are the tools of my poop-hunting trade:

Six vials in which I am supposed to trap the poop.  Only three are pictured, but please be clear, there are six of these that I had to fill.  I guess Joe had some part in filling them too, but I intend to take as much credit here as I can.

Three tongue depressors with which to scoop the poop.  Seriously.  I had to scoop the poop into those tiny vials with these tongue depressors.  Let that one soak in.  So to speak.

Thank goodness for gloves.  But why do they make these medical gloves thin enough that you can feel everything you're touching and doing?  I would have preferred some seriously industrial construction worker gloves or something.  I mean come on, this wasn't exactly precision work.  But they got the job done.

So, I captured the poop.  I won't go into the details of that unforgettable 10 minutes of my life, but let's just say that it was, for lack of a better term, gut-wrenching.  Especially with a fussy 3 month old and a hyper 21 month old hanging about.  Unfortunately, despite my somewhat heroic efforts, the evening burst wasn't prolific enough to fill all six vials.  Still got four to go tomorrow.

Final question I will pose to you: What do you do with a poo sample that you capture in the evening, after the doctor's office has closed?  Poo is already mucho bacteria-laden, but it doesn't seem right to just leave it sitting on the bathroom counter overnight.  But does it seem more right to put it in the fridge with all the food the entire family eats every day?  A thinker, isn't it.  Kind of like a weird law school hypo, but for med students.  (Remember when I said this post would at least make you glad you weren't me?  This is that moment.  Enjoy.) 

John and I debated the merits of each approach and ultimately settled on putting the poo in the fridge and throwing out just about everything else in there tomorrow.  Because that's what parents do.  We make sure our kid's poo is safely maintained in the fridge overnight so that we don't screw up the sample.  If fridge-poo isn't love, I don't know what is.

(This is the picture with the poop in it.  But see, you can't see it, can you!)

Needless to say, I think I may be getting the Mom of the Week award for the second week in a row.  I can say with certainty that I definitely earned this beer.

And two cookies.  And a few bites of cookie dough.  And a massage.

*Update: I'm sure you're dying to know what happened with the three remaining vials, right?  Well, you'll be happy to know that all were successfully filled the day after I posted.  My saint of a husband filled two of them at 5:30 in the morning (after he got home from work after 1:00am and got up to start working again at 6:30am), and I filled the last one later that day.  Of course, since then, Joe's poop has been normal.  Why wouldn't it be??  Sigh.