You Want Me to... WHAT... In This Box?

 WARNING – This post talks about poop. A lot. If you don’t like poop, feel free to skip this one.

At my recent wellness exam, my doctor set me up with a Cologuard colon cancer screening (instead of a colonoscopy), and I made the mistake of thinking this was going to be a breeze!

It sat on the table for a few days before I opened it up on Saturday (the 21^st) so that I could read the directions and get ready. I actually got the giggles about the whole “shitting in a box” situation, so I decided to read the instructions later, when I could take it more seriously, and went about my day. Sunday morning, after the gym, I put on my big girl pants and sat down to really read the instructions. Okay, I feel like I understand the whole process now… Poop in the bucket, tickle the poop with a stick, put some chemicals on the pile, seal it up, and ship it away. {Spoiler alert… I didn’t read all the instructions!}

(Hint: Alice in Chains)

Around 11:30, I was feeling like it could be time, but because Circle K often gives me… suboptimal poopage… I chose not to try to capture it in the bucket. Only to pass the most perfect poo ever! The instructions say that runny poo or diarrhea isn’t an acceptable specimen). No worries, I’m a pretty “regular” person, I’ll try again later. But no matter how many times I tried, or felt like it was happening, there was no poo to be had. Okay, now I’m kind of stressing. When can I poo? I’m supposed to return the box the day of, or the following day after, the pooping. What happens if I poo at night? I honestly thought that this was a “get it done right now!” kind of thing, especially because Cologuard kept emailing me and texting me every day, reminding me to shit in the box. I also thought that I needed to have it done and have the results back by the time I did my follow up with my doc next week.

I work from home on Mondays, so that gave me another day to try to poo. But what happens if I don’t do it today? Should I bring the bucket with me? What if I can’t poo at work tomorrow? Well, I never ended up pooping on Monday, so I decided to put everything back in the box and take it with me to work, hidden in one of my reusable grocery bags. I even tried to pre-game all day Monday, by eating a large lunch and a dinner full of protein, to kind of fill the chute.

On Tuesday, I walked into work laden with my work bag, gym bag, lunch bag, and shitbox bag, looking like a crazy person. My hope was that I could poo today and take the box to UPS on my lunch break, or right after work. But my body had other ideas! I had my telehealth follow-up with my doctor, and she thought me a bit wacky for stressing about it so much. She told me to chill out, that it will happen when it happens. After talking to her, I did relax a bit, but not much. Mostly, I just wanted to be DONE with this! It’s such a weirdly stressful thing to pay so much attention to your bowels and trying to time when you poo and making sure you have the bucket to catch it. I’ve not been fully relaxed since I opened that box! I tried once more around lunch – I was sure this was the time – but no luck. I gave up, packed up the box, and brought it back home in shame.

Me imagining my coworkers knocking on the door

I was really optimistic that I could do it on Wednesday, since I was off work (to take Hubby for his labwork); if I could poo, I could take it to UPS and be done! But no… just farting. And let me say… Have you ever farted into a bucket? I have. It’s weird. The bucket is small, like a small popcorn bucket. My ass is big and effectively seals the entire rim of the bucket. Now imagine that you introduce air pressure, via your butthole, to this situation. It felt like the fart wanted to slip back up my butthole because there was nowhere else to go. And then when I leaned forward, there was this tiny little draft of air all around my butt cheeks, from the escaping air pressure.

At this point, I feel like my body is actively fighting me and this whole process. I mean, come on! It’s not normal to shit in a bucket, so subconsciously, my body is just refusing to do it. I’m not doing anything differently than I usually do. I haven’t changed my diet. I haven’t eaten more fiber than I typically do. I just can’t freakin’ poo.

So Thursday (the 26^th) comes around and I am thoroughly hating this entire thing. I haven’t pooped since Sunday morning (4+ days ago), but now I don’t want to poop! I’m back at work, and I have this fear of taking a humongous dookie after lunch and having to start the entire process over again. I only went to the bathroom once at work before lunch, and I was truly hoping that I could hold on until I got home.

…aaaaaaaand I pooped.

The only consolation is that it was kind of runny, so not a good specimen anyway, so I shouldn’t feel bad that I pooped without the bucket, but I still do. At this point, I decided to, well, let that shit go. As in, stop stressing. I’ll poo when I poo. And if I can’t “catch” it, I’ll just have to poo again. I felt a little weight lift off my shoulders when I made that decision and the rest of my day was much calmer. I didn’t even stress about it at all on Friday.

On Saturday, I did parkrun, took a friend home, picked up a bagel, went grocery shopping, picked up a soda, and finally – FINALLY – my body was ready to go! Oh yeah, let’s get that bucket!!!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m proud to announce -

I pooped in the bucket!

I read the instructions again and did all the gross stuff. First, I got the tiny test tube thing and scraped my poop so they could have a tiny sample (why, I don’t know). Then I poured some magical chemical solution into the bucket itself to keep my poo nice and fresh. I sealed up the bucket and tube and put them back into the bag that was supposed to self-seal… and did not self-seal. I ended up taping it closed with packing tape! I looked up the hours of my local UPS store and saw that they were open until 4pm. I entertained the idea of going right then and picking up some lunch afterward (you know, as a reward), but I didn’t want to waste gas or time on a single errand, when instead, I could go later, on my way to picking Hubby up from work. I decided to leave the house about 3:15ish, drop off the box, then go get him. Any other time I’ve dropped something off, it’s been a simple process, and I didn’t expect this time to be any different.

I was so stress-free once I sealed up the box! No more thinking about poo! It was a lovely afternoon. I even took the time to make a silly video of the box in the passenger seat of the car, wearing a seatbelt to keep it safe as we drove to UPS. 

I walked in to the store and waited in line for a moment, when one of the employees came over to me to tell me that UPS had already picked up for the day and no pick-ups are made on Sundays! Oh shit.

She suggested that I use the Self-Serve machine to print a label then run outside to where the UPS truck was idling (seriously, she just did the pick-up) and give it to her. No sooner had I scanned the package and the label printed, did I see the truck slide on by, oblivious of the woman inside who had shit in a bucket for her…

Okay, so now what?

I asked a second employee what options I had – did they know of any UPS stores that were open later, maybe I could take it there? He suggested that I take it directly to the UPS warehouse; he said it was closed, but “there should be a bunch of employees around” that I could give my box to.

So me and my box got back in the car and I hauled ass a few miles north of town, hoping that I’d get lucky, because I was pissed now, like can NOTHING go right with this process?

When I got to the warehouse, it wasn’t just closed, it was closed closed. As in not open for walk-in business any more. Judging by the look of the signs on the door, there’s not been any time of customer entrance open for years! I drove around the entire property and there was not a single human being outside to whom I could give this box. I’m sure there were probably people inside, watching me drive by with a pissed off look on my face, but no one acknowledged me at all. All the trucks were tucked away tight for the night and all the roller doors were shut and locked. So I took my shit box home with me, like the worst consolation prize ever. Hubby asked me how my day was as we drove home (with my shit box in his lap) and I told him I was so damn frustrated I was ready to cry!  

When I got home, I pulled up Cologuard’s website to see if I could schedule a pick-up through them, but no luck. UPS doesn’t do any pick-ups on Sunday, either from stores or from personal locations. So… here is where I am… I have a bucket full of poo that needs to be shipped no later than tomorrow, but UPS doesn’t pick up tomorrow. Great. My plan, at this point, is to bring it back to the UPS store in the morning and drop it off. Yes, I know that it will sit there all day since there isn’t a pick-up on Sunday. No, I don’t care. I’m assuming at this point, by the time my dookie arrives at the lab, it will be too degraded to test, and I’ll have to do this all over again… I’ve resigned myself to this possibility. I’m happy to report that my special package was picked up on Monday, June 30^th.

I went way back for this one

As I sit here, defeated by a bucket and cute little mascot shaped like a bucket, I’m really wondering if doing a Pooper View (colonoscopy) would have been easier in the long run! At least with that, I knew that on Day 3, I did this. On Day 2, I did that. Day 1 was The Great Cleanse, and then I had the Pooper View. This whole bucket situation has just been a horrible waiting game with the worst prize ever.

I got an email from Cologuard on July 6^th, and to my surprise, it was my test results! They got my bucket and my poop was safe, yippee! I don’t have to do this again! Well, not for another 3 years anyway. I’m happy to announce that (as expected) my poo was negative for colon cancer.

Pooper View - A Wife's Experience with her Husband's First Colonoscopy

I want to preface this by saying that I love my husband very much,
and the mean things I say about him in this post are meant in jest...
He simply tested some nerves!   

If you read my last post, you saw that Hubby has been dealing with some mysterious abdominal pain, and we've seen all sorts of doctors for this issue. One of the things that his primary doc suggested was that he go ahead and do a Colonoscopy, now that he's 50 (though, the age to start that has dropped to 45, so yay, I should be having one soon as well). It didn't have anything to do with his pain issues (or newly discovered kidney issues), but just a general preventative test. 

The weekend before his Prep days, I did a quick google search of what he couldn't and couldn't eat/drink, and many websites only said to avoid red and purple foods or beverages. So I picked up some Blue Powerade, Orange Jell-O, some vanilla pudding... all things that his actual Prep Packet said that we should also avoid (nothing orange or blue). I also picked up Apple Juice, White Grape Juice, and the Mag Citrate drinks. I put all the drinks (plus some organic Lemonade from Trader Joe's) in the fridge to chill before the Prep began. 

On Wednesday morning (Prep Day), I set up the bathroom with a little TV tray that had air freshener, washcloths, baby wipes, butt cream, a USB cord for his phone, a space heater (the room gets cold), and an extra bottle of water. He set reminders on his phone for when he was supposed to start drinking his first Mag Citrate, and I put the timeline on the whiteboard on the fridge. He was supposed to drink a Mag Citrate at noon, take two Dulcolax at 2pm, then a second Mag at 6pm, in addition to 64oz of plain water. Hubby (to my irritation) doesn't ever drink a lot of any type of liquid, so there was no way he was going to be able to drink a half-gallon of water in a day! 

He opened the first Mag at noon, and immediately made a face. It was super-salty and tasted terrible and he wasn't able to drink a lot of it quickly. While he sipped, I made ramen for lunch (hey, I'm not on a liquid diet!) I think it took him about an hour to make it through the first bottle of Mag, and it was sitting loudly in his stomach. He followed it with the Dulcolax at 2pm, and it was fine... until about 3pm or so...

And the pooping began. 

At first, there wasn't too much of an issue; he went in, he pooped, he came back out, he went back in. But around 5pm, he started getting really nauseated and there was no way he would be able to start the next bottle at 6pm. He called the nurse-on-call and they said that it was totally normal; he should try to relax, breathe, blah blah blah. 

He started the second bottle of Mag at 7pm (about an hour behind schedule), but he was having a terrible time, only able to take tiny sips. I suggested that he mix it with any of the juices (he poo-pooed, heh, that idea) instead choosing to dilute it 4-to-1 with room temperature tap water. Sigh... all this did was stretch out how much water/mix he had to drink! Oh, and he decided to just camp out in the bathroom to drink this, instead of sitting on the couch during the non-poopage times. 

Throughout the day, I just randomly munched on snax, spending time working on the blog. I had a bagel with melted cheese for dinner around 9pm then just zoned out to YouTube videos and Reddit. Once in a while, he'd come out of his cave to check in with me and tell me to go to bed, but I told him that I was staying up however long it took him to finish the Mag, to make sure he was okay and didn't need any help. Around midnight, he was nauseated again, having a hard time drinking so much liquid (well, duh, you're drinking 4x as much liquid as you really need!). I had to put on my Nagging Wife hat and try to force him to finish the second Mag. 

He still had about a quarter-bottle of Mag left to drink at 2:15am, and he attempted to chug it which, unfortunately, ended up with vomiting (while pooping, bless his heart). Thankfully, most of the Mag had done what needed to be done, so we called it a night around 2:45am and went to bed (and damn, that bed felt so good! When I woke up on Thursday, I don't think I'd moved at all during the night). 

On Thursday morning, he was feeing a little better, and started his third bottle of Mag at 9am. I again suggested he mix it with any of the juices, and he again turned his nose up at the idea, choosing to go with plain, room temp water (okay buddy, sucks for you). 

I left at 10am for a previously scheduled hair appointment across town, picked up Chick-fil-A and a drink on the way home for lunch. While I was gone, he got all the Mag down, but a little came back up at the very end. He said that his output was the color and consistency that it should be, so I had to hope that he would be okay for the actual procedure (if the exit's not clean, they'll make you do it all again). 

Later in the afternoon, we got to the facility, checked him in, and only had to wait about 10 minutes before they called him back for his procedure. I wasn't allowed to go back with him, so I went on a field trip to find the hospital cafeteria. I didn't need any food, so of course, I ordered a plate of Bacon Cheese Fries! They weren't the best, but certainly not the worst I've ever had. The fries were hot and fresh, with tons of cheese sauce, and hand-chopped bacon (not 'bits') for about five bucks. 

I found a nice table outside in the shade, and ended up only eating about half of the fries (again, I didn't need fries...this was self-soothing with food). I walked back to the facility and sat in the main lobby near the elevators (quieter than the lobby where we checked in). I was there for about 45 minutes, and then the office called me to tell me that Hubby was coming around and that I should meet them at the front door, and they'd bring him down for me. 

On the drive home, we reviewed the After-Visit summary - they removed three polyps (one of which was a Tubular Adenoma, could become cancerous, but not cancerous right now), with no other issues found (including any reason for his mysterious LLQ pain). 

At home, he relaxed on the nice, soft couch, though he didn't feel a lot of pain or violation from the actual procedure. He had a little blood in his poo later (we were told that was to be expected), and over the following few days he had a painful butthole. All in all, this was an uneventful successful procedure, that he gets to do again in 3 years. 

Maybe then he'll listen to my suggestions more, do it my way, and have an easier Prep!