Toilet humor: How to survive the hemoccult experience

I have always hated poop. My mother told me I started complaining about stinky diapers when I was six months old. Before my first birthday, I’d had enough of sitting in my own filth. I got undressed, grabbed a newspaper, climbed up on that porcelain throne, and became a “big girl.”

Fast forward thirty years, when I was blessed with baby boys. Double the pleasure, double the stink. Thankfully, for the first year or so, I was able to change diapers without feeling anxiety or the urge to vomit.

Then my sons discovered raisins, squash, and cheese.

When one of those hard, brown nuggets first fell out of their diapers on my nice, clean floor, you’d have thought a serial killer just fought his way into my house and came after me with a meat cleaver.

My neighbors still talk about their 911 calls that night with a hint of exasperation and humor.

Then there was bath time, a few weeks later, when one of my little princes strained, grunted, and added a new toy to the tub.

I reacted as if he had just announced plans to vote Republican. I immediately removed them from the situation and disinfected everything.

Later that night, after the meds kicked in and the boys were asleep, I explained the episode to my mother.

“Catherine, relax,” she said. “It’s just poop.”

I took a deep breath.

“You know how you feel about the F word?” I asked.

My mother gasped.

“Cursing is rude and improper behavior. It should only occur on the toilet with the shower running so no one can hear,” she said.

“That’s exactly how I feel about bowel movements.”

This attitude is why I was so traumatized after a recent check-up with my Hematologist . He asked me to give him a stool sample.

“We hardly know each other,” I said.

“It’s really very simple,” he said, using the same tone my husband uses when he tries to get me to clean the pool. “You can do this in the privacy of your own home, in your own bathroom. Do you have regular bowel movements?”

“I’m a Type A personality with twin sons,” I snapped. “Everything is on a schedule, including my mood swings and digestive system.”

“Well, then, tomorrow when you use the facilities…”

“Doc,” I said, “this is a huge inconvenience. My bathroom breaks are the only five minutes of peace I get all day, where I don’t have to answer geometry questions and can finally read that Matt Taibbi article in Rolling Stone. It’s almost enjoyable, my daily time-outs, and this testing for blood thing will ruin the mood.”

“You won’t have to take your iron supplements for a few days.”

“Go on,” I said.

He explained the importance of patients with low platelets being safe, rather than sorry. I begrudgingly took the kit home and then proceeded to ignore it for five months.

Finally, I ran out of excuses and succumbed to my physician’s demands. Most of my friends had experience with these tests and I felt like a big baby avoiding it for so long.

Besides ingesting iron supplements and broccoli, there are other habits that must stop during test-taking time as well.

Remember how your parents taught you the importance of a courtesy flush? As soon as you hear the first “kerplunk,” you are supposed to jiggle the handle and make all the nastiness disappear?

This also helps avoid the need for a plunger, but that’s a whole other post.

When you are testing for signs of cancer, you can’t flush right away. I had to put the magazine down and take out a Popsicle stick from the kit, without the Popsicle of course. I then inserted it into the fecal matter and wiped the stick on a slide.

I almost threw up five times. At one point, I shut my eyes and accidentally dropped the stick in the toilet along with my dignity.

Kerplunk.

I grabbed another stick from the kit and soldiered on. After finishing a job I wish I had enough money to outsource, I accidentally flushed the lost stick down the toilet.

And by “accidentally,” I mean “on purpose.” There was no other option.

At the end of this ordeal, I opened the bathroom door and, while washing my hands for four solid minutes, heard the berating taunts of two ten year-old boys asking me to “hit the fan.” Husband wondered aloud if I had any “pets or livestock” in there with me.

Talk about humiliating. I’d rather answer geometry questions.