Editor's note: this was originally posted on the PoopReport forums [1].
Until this morning, I had been caring for a seventy-year-old male patient who, three days ago, had a sigmoid resection to remove a cancerous portion of his bowel. In short, what the surgeons did was chop out the bad chunk of bowel ("resect") and connect the two good ends together (known as anastomosis).
Because of the location of the procedure in the body, people sometimes have a bit of bleeding from their butt after the operation. This guy had quite a bit more than I had ever seen coming out of someone who had this done, but the doctors assured me that the patient was okay -- although, honestly, I think they were somewhat concerned. I think they hoped it would stop on its own instead of having to reopen him up, but they didn't want to let on.
That's besides the point of my story, though. Last night, when I went to help get him sorted for bed, he told me he had put a sanitary pad on with the mesh panties that the hospital supplies. He asked me if he was supposed to put the sticky part up towards him or down toward the undies. (Take note, all: it's toward the underwear.) He looked mildly embarrassed and admitted he'd put it on the wrong way. We both giggled.
Then he asked if I'd give him a hand putting on an Attends [2], as it would give him and the bed a bit more protection overnight. Makes sense. Putting Attends on by one's self is quite awkward, for even the most experience Attends wearer. Thus I obliged and we went into the bathroom.
He took off the mesh drawers and I saw what he had done. He didn't use a sanitary pad at all -- he'd taken an eight-inch-by-three-inch waterproof dressing with a strip of gauze padding down the centre and stuck it all the way from his hairy butt crack up his scrotum.
Because it's waterproof, this bandage is comparable to duct tape.
I cringed and let out a muffled chuckle in disbelief. "Oh, dear," I said. "That is going to hurt."
He looked a bit panicked as he nervously giggled himself. And then he told me to take it off in one shot and get it over with. I tried, but it was really quite awkward giving this guy a hospital Brazilian wax. I did it in two rips.
"Jesus!" was the response from the first.
"Mother have mercy!" was the second.
"Oh my God! Are you okay?" I asked as I let out a big, uncontrollable laugh. He was. We were both laughing pretty hard after it was over. Teaching a seventy-year-old man how to use a Maxi Pad was definitely a first for me!
