Gastroenteritis. I was spilling out of both ends, couldn’t keep anything down. I was admitted to the hospital near death, and put on a liquid IV diet for a few days. I shit my pants in front of the nurse bc I was so high on medicine, and I trusted a fart.
Never trust a fart.
It was a week after surgery and I couldn’t hold anything down. Was in the hospital for a few days. I shit the bed, as you do, and decided to try and shower off.
Stripped naked and sat on the toilet. This guy comes in to fix the clock, sees me covered in shit with my IV bag, asks if I need a nurse. I said yes. She comes in, takes a look at me and calls someone else to clean it up. Ok, cool. Whatever. Two more people show up and ogle my naked, shit covered body. Finally, another CNA shows up and offers to get me soap and a towel. I could have kissed her.
Sigh. It was humiliating but also pretty hilarious. 0/10. Would not try again.
Having cleaned up more than one person that shit on the floor, then slipped in it and busted something important, I’m sure they were wondering the best way to get you back to bed safely.
Nurses find a lot of stuff funny that most people might not, but shit is so ordinary. 99% of us have the ‘better out than in’ mentality.
Plus, we catch all the gastric bugs and most of us have shit ourselves too. Some of us at work!
I had to rhabdo one time and was in the hospital on LOTS of fluids for five days. I had to pee in a bedside commode and the nurses had to periodically empty it so they could measure to make sure my kidneys were working (I guess?). One of my nurses was super pregnant and didn’t come as often as the others, and boy was I filling up that bucket! One time she came and it was SUPER close to overflowing, so it was obviously heavy. Halfway accross the room she dropped it 🫣. It was like a pee tsunami…pre everywhere! She let out the loudest fuuuuu**! I felt so bad for her but it was really hard not to laugh at the situation. Luckily I was extremely well hydrated and the pee was really diluted, and she didn’t have to be the one to clean it up. I could tell she was so done with everything at that point.
Having experienced Rhabdo about 10 times - you can unplug that IV machine and walk to the bathroom. They never tell the patient that for some reason, but luckily my experience kicks in.
The "for some reason" is because, like OP said, they need to be able to monitor how much, color, etc. of your urine. I have never heard of someone having had Rhabdo that many times, but if you have, I'm guessing you would know how important it is for them to monitor your urine rather than you just sneaking to the bathroom. 🤷🏽♀️
I get your point and hand hygiene is paramount but not a cure-all.
Especially for caretaking roles who are super high risk given their increased exposure (viral load).
When the body ‘dumps’ the fluid, germ particles become airborne. It becomes more difficult to wash these as they don’t just collect on your hands, you can inadvertently inhale them.
These particles fall within a radius but spread further with air pressure changes. Surfaces that shouldn’t be contaminated may be exposed.
Some bugs are so infectious, you only need a very small exposure (I swear noro is like 10 germ particles) to cause the individual to become symptomatic.
People also shed infections for a period of time after being unwell (some up to 10 days afterwards) which, again, creating the potential for unintended exposure (who’s wearing a full hazmat with face shield to handle what they consider a ‘standard’ bedpan)
TL:DR Apply the concept of germ spread from what you know about coughing / sneezing and applying it shitting and vomiting.
When I had noro as an adult I needed to vomit and realised that I could either throw up or shit in the toilet but not both.
As I still had my trousers on, they caught the shit. Having my then boyfriend, now husband clean me up and build me new pants out of sanitary towels told me he was the one.
One I can't remember but as a baby I had a viral infection and had a seizure. I was taken to hospital for observation when I then acquired C.Diff. my mother said I was the sickest baby she had ever seen and it was touch and go for a bit.
My wife had minor nasal surgery a couple of weeks ago. In pre-op, she said she had the urge to pass gas. I told her not to trust it and to tell them she needed to use the bathroom before the anesthesiologist got there. She came out and told me was glad she listened to me. 😂 Never trust a fart.
It’s been quite awhile since I shared this story. Buckle up, it’s a long one
TL;DR I fell down a flight of stairs while suffering from gastroenteritis.
Many years ago, I was a broke college dropout, working a dead end job. I had a one bedroom apartment in a not so great part of town. Good news, it was cheap enough that I was able to save some money, bad news, it was a tenement in every sense of the word. The building had a flea infestation, piss poor radiator heat, no a/c, and the shower didn’t drain effectively. I lived on the third floor, there was no elevator, and the stairs were most definitely not up to code. Wooden stairs, some were wider or narrower than others, some were slightly slanted, dangerous on a good day. Put a pin in that, it’s important later.
I was lucky enough to find a small two bedroom ranch that was in my price range, as I ended my lease. I purchased the house, and three days prior to moving I came down with a uniquely bad case of gastroenteritis. I could do nothing but drink Gatorade and I was pissing orange jet fuel out of my butt hole. I was febrile, puking or shitting every 30 minutes, sweating and near delirium. The day where I was supposed to move most of my stuff I was barely functional. I was tremendously lucky that I had a few friends who saw me in such a sorry state, and did most of the work, while I weakly helped where I could.
The next day was meant to get the smaller stuff. Bags of clothes, end tables, boxes of cutlery etc. One of my best friends Tim, came to help, and I was at least able to pitch in. I still felt bad, but my bowels only needed to be emptied every 2-3 hours, the fever had broken, I was at least on the mend.
I was carrying down a Walmart pressboard tv stand on my back like an African tribeswoman carrying water back from the river down the stairs. On any normal day this would not have been a challenge but due to recent circumstances this was tantamount to one of the labors of Hercules.
As I round the last set of stairs, I start to feel like I need to poop again. About six steps from the landing, I’m focused more on clenching my buttcheeks and less on the wibblybibbly stairs I’m going down. I catch my heel on one of the steps, slip, and fall backwards onto my ass.
Upon impact I poop a little bit. The problem starts here. I fell backwards but momentum was still carrying me forwards. So I bounce down to the next step and when I hit, I poop a little more. The tv stand hits the stairs and explodes in a shower of splinters and chunks. I proceed to bounce down the next 5 steps shitting myself a little more with each impact. Finally my feet hit the pavement and I’m pulled to a squatting position.
At this exact moment, the situation is salvageable. My underwear are spent, but everything is still contained. However, I had just been through three days of hell, and my poor tired rectum could not remain closed under the Sisyphean pressure. The entire contents of my bowels, as well as every ounce of pride and dignity I have as man, came streaming out of my asshole. It ran rivers down both my legs, pooled in my shoes, overflowed and created little puddles of liquid feces on the concrete.
Tim hears this chorus of destruction out at the truck, and comes running. He screams “ARE YOU ALRIGHT!?”
“Noooo!” I painfully moan.
“WHAT HAPPENED?!” I hear his feet slap the pavement as he gets closer.
“I shit my pants,” I meekly sob.
He comes barreling around the corner and recoils as he hits the wall of smell. I’m standing there in two fetid swamp water bogs, somewhere in the liminal space between between passing out, and curling into the fetal position and crying. I’m surrounded by pieces of the now destroyed tv stand, as though I’m the living embodiment of chaos, sorrow, pestilence and destruction all rolled up into one fat white boy package.
He looks at me, and says “don’t worry bout all this, go upstairs and clean yourself up.”
Got super bad food poisoning from the Chinese place down the street when I first moved to NYC. I was also leaking from both ends but what was worse was that I was alone in a new city across the country from my family. I didn’t even have the strength to get myself to the kitchen, let alone the grocery store or pharmacy. Basically spent 48 hours living on the bathroom floor and drinking from the tub lol. I remember when I was finally well enough to get to the living room and turned on Dead Space 2 which I had just gotten before getting sick but had to turn it off because I kept nearly shitting myself from the jump scares lol.
This was me 2 weeks ago! Augh! went 2 CVS minute clinic n the np prescribed Zofran. She told me keep what i dont use for the future. She said its a savior and uses it for her teenagers. Really works along with ginger ale and mint tea. Alka seltzer effervescent is good too.
My worst was the same. I had food poisoning and was so sick that every time I puked, I shit myself. Ended up in the ER with dehydration. It lasted almost a week. I seriously thought I was going to die.
Same, holy shit, but mine was a stomach virus. Within 1-2 (?) hours I became so dehydrated and fatigued that I literally would pass out mid-vomit and my partner and his mom couldn't wake me at all.
When I came to, they were carrying my delirious, shitty-vomity body to the car and sped to the nearest town (~25km) while I faded in and out of consciousness.
Luckily, this town is the biggest (only) "mega-capital" in a ~150(?) km extremely rural radius, so it had a hospital, and it was open.
However, this "mega-capital" rural town is still so small that it only has 2 traffic lights (only recently got the 2nd one), so while the hospital is the most funded in ~70km radius, it was so underfunded that they didn't even have enough blankets (middle of winter, 2-3 am, so definitely needed).
But, they had an excellent nurse: the only nurse thus far who could find my dehydrated-to-absence veins on the first try.
After I was finally discharged, the rest of the family caught it as well, but luckily it got less bad every time it was passed on.
I had that once and it was miserable. Shitting on the shitter while barfing into a tiny trash can. I also had a very high fever; the kind that makes you dissociate from reality and have wacky dreams.
Norovirus... For the uninitiated, it's similar to food poisoning, only you crank up the intensity and frequency of expelling and voiding to like 13/10 on the misery factor.
You're body will actually surprise you with how violent and involuntarily or out of control the actions are that it is able to weaponize against you.
Same nearly week of being hospitalized on a liquid IV diet. I was just so in and out of it the whole time to know if I shit myself in front of a nurse... god I hope not though.
Mine was also Norovirus. I literally have PTSD from that. The vomiting started during the night and as my husband does, he slept through most of it. I was trying to just get through the night to let him sleep but I finally had to get him up. I was still throwing up and my heart felt...weird. I couldn't stand up without practically passing out. I couldn't even sign in at the hospital. I had to immediately halfway lay on the closest chair. I went through two bags of IV's and my heart rate didn't budge. It was way too high. My potassium and magnesium were low. Something wasn't right with the QT intervals of my heart (whatever that means). They said if I had waited any longer they couldn't have done much. I still don't know exactly what that meant, but it didn't sound good. I got admitted for several days. Not long after I got to a room, the non-stop diarrhea started. They gave me a bedside commode and I still wasn't making it from the bed to the commode. My husband had brought me several pairs of underwear and pants but I went through all of them. The nurses had to give me disposable underwear. I was so embarrassed but I had literally no control over it. And the nausea was awful. No medication touched it. And the diarrhea smelled so bad. A nurse brought in a big thing of coffee grounds to help with the smell. I apologized profusely because they had to keep coming in to empty the pan and the smell was horrendous. I had a biohazard sign on my door. Everyone that came in was gowned up. Somehow my husband didn't get it but I don't know how. I was nauseous and weak and sick for three months. It hit me right before Christmas so now every winter I get really nervous about getting it again. It was not short lived for me at all. I had Emetephobia before that but now it is really bad. I also can't drink red Powerade zero anymore because that's what I was throwing up. It was...alarming, to say the least. This was also less than two months after being in hospice with my aunt who died of pancreatic cancer... something else that haunts me.
I got this when I was like 8, my mom said I was fine and just wanting to skip school and ignored me. Like 2 days later I was still sick, couldnt even walk because I was throwing up and dry heaving so much. My dad finally got her to agree that I should go to urgent care to get checked out. Turns out I had gastroenteritis that went septic, went straight to the hospital in an ambulance and was at the hospital for 2 weeks. I remember they didnt even let me walk for 10 days i was completely bedridden. The absolute sickest I have EVER been in my entire life.
Dry heaving was the worst part for me, I was throwing up so much before I went to the hospital I couldnt even eat to get something in my stomach so I'd just get stuck for hours dry heaving and bringing up bits of blood, trying to eat ice cream in-between heaves so there would at least be something to bring up so it hurt less. Its like 18 years later and I still have emetophonia because of how scared I am of dry heaving like that if I get sick again
If it’s any consolation, I remember one memorable pre-shift huddle at work where all of us—nurses, paramedics, techs, secretary, PAs, doctors—went around the circle, confessing when we’d last shat ourselves.
Most of us do not leave this world without shitting ourselves at some point. Just part of the human experience.
I shit myself after my colonoscopy coming back too. Right there on the bed. I was in an intense colitis flare up plus the prep.. it was a nightmare lol
Can agree. Even compared to dofferent strains of the Covid - Gastroenteritis is the sickness that made me think I was done for.
First on holiday in Spain at 7 yrs old - spend days in a fetal position on a couch sipping orange rehydration fluid.
Second at 8/9 yrs old - got so bad I woke up in an ambulance, and was kept for days in hospital on an IV drip. Due to what I ate prior to hospitalisation (candy hearts & regular coke), my brain immediately associates the taste of plain energy drinks with that hospital stay.
I peed myself in front of several nurses last week. Full on dick and balls out, urine flying everywhere. They had to help diaper me. Shit beyond your control happens all the time, and nurses have seen it all, there's no use worrying about it. In my defense, I'd just gotten out of surgery, and a slightly misplaced stent created an unobstructed pipeline from my kidney to my pants, floor, chair, etc...
Office ordered chipotle bowls (early 2010s), took one bite of mine and realized it wasn't mine and they messed up this other girl and my bowl so we swapped. She and I both ended up getting food poisoning and was out of work for two weeks. Could barely eat. Everything was coming out of both ends. Sleeping was a risk. Like you learned, you never full send a fart again in your life.
Last time I had gastroenteritis I looked up at the blood pressure monitor as I was getting an IV placed and saw my BP was 70/40. All I could think was "that's not good." I had bruising on both arms from collapsed veins and attempts to get needles in them. Good times!
Damn, it sounds like when I hade acute pancreatitis. Admitted to the hospital a few days with IV nutrition. Only difference is I didn’t have diarrhea. But I threw up sooo much! I was happy to have 5 minutes breaks from throwing up before they gave me IV meds for nausea/vomiting.
Also had gastroenteritis years back and had to be hospitalized. I'd eaten mozzarella sticks the night before. Couldn't eat them again for many years. 😩
This but also had a UTI at the same time. Couldn't keep the antibiotics down. I had a misspent youth where I did some hallcinating due to the sampling of party drugs - but I swear that had nothing on the hallucinating that I did during the UTI-Gastrogeddan of 2024.
I should have had my husband do that when I had Norovirus but I was too sick to think about it. The nurses just brought me bags of disposable underwear.
Reading comments in this thread (and sadly losing my older brother to cancer which is emotionally much worse) I'm glad this is the worst I've felt in my life. Though it didn't get as bad as what you described, because I managed to stay out of the hospital. Luckily I also had help from my wonderful parents who looked after me and supplied me with ORT. I couldn't keep even droplets of water in for 3 days, but the ORT just about managed to stay in and helped to turn things around.
I lost so much weight in just a week. And it was around Christmas too (missing some glorious meals). When I returned to college I met another classmate in the bus ride to college. She looked at me in horror and said "Did you lose weight? Because I don't think you needed to!" I could quickly reassure her about my "wonderful Christmas break".
I got this at 2 weeks postpartum. I was nursing my baby while on the toilet and puking into a bucket next to me. If I ever have another baby I'm taking the older kids out of kindergarten for a while so they do not bring home norovirus again 🥲
gastroenteritis is absolutely terrible. i've had it couple times before too, ate too many brownies before that weren;t even nice so you can guess how irritating it was. then my mum made my favourite food and i couldnt even eat it. the bathroom was tiny too, so everything was everywhere. had to get a plastic shopping bag. both ends at the same time 💔
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u/Regular-Surprise-949 11h ago
Gastroenteritis. I was spilling out of both ends, couldn’t keep anything down. I was admitted to the hospital near death, and put on a liquid IV diet for a few days. I shit my pants in front of the nurse bc I was so high on medicine, and I trusted a fart.
Never trust a fart.