Treatment
Because I work third shift, I only took two nights off. Jim would either be sleeping or watching TV while I was at work. The first two days were very long getting used to the catheter and the pain. Now Jim is the kind of guy who likes to do things on his own and not depend on anyone. He has learned how to depend on me, sometimes more than he would like. Because of the pain and the catheter, getting up was quite difficult at times, so I would get him something to drink, his meds, whatever he needed. Taking care of him was my mission.
The third day of being home, Jim hadn't had a bowel movement so he took a small dose of Milk of Magnesia. Well, that is when all hell broke loose. Within about eight hours, he was using the bathroom! But then it never stopped. For three days, Jim had severe diarrhea. He was going every ten minutes, even through the night. I called the doctor and they thought it was because of the Milk of Magnesia, but because of the threat of C-diff (infection from the hospital) they wanted us to go to the ER and get a stool sample. Now this whole time all Jim could really do was drink everything we had, water, Gatorade, juice, whatever to keep him hydrated. We were in the ER for six hours where they gave him an IV and he gave them a stool sample. His stools were never solid and were colorless & odorless. I kept thinking to myself how odd it was that he was not eating anything only drinking, and what he was drinking was going right through him, but not into the catheter bag?? How odd? So we went back home. Jim felt better, but the diarrhea never went away.
The lab work on the stool came back that he had no bacteria or viruses, but he still had severe diarrhea. One week after the first ER episode Jim came to me and said that he thought something was wrong because he had chunks in his catheter bag. He thought that he had an infection and it had clogged the cath. After we cleaned the catheter bag, which somehow smelled like feces, we waited to see if it was clogged or not. After an hour of nothing emptying into the bag, we once again were in the ER to have the catheter irrigated. At that time, the nurse said that she thought he had an infection because there was quite a bit of matter in the urine and had it tested. He had a urinary track infection (UTI) and was put on antibiotics. Then we went back home.
The third day of being home, Jim hadn't had a bowel movement so he took a small dose of Milk of Magnesia. Well, that is when all hell broke loose. Within about eight hours, he was using the bathroom! But then it never stopped. For three days, Jim had severe diarrhea. He was going every ten minutes, even through the night. I called the doctor and they thought it was because of the Milk of Magnesia, but because of the threat of C-diff (infection from the hospital) they wanted us to go to the ER and get a stool sample. Now this whole time all Jim could really do was drink everything we had, water, Gatorade, juice, whatever to keep him hydrated. We were in the ER for six hours where they gave him an IV and he gave them a stool sample. His stools were never solid and were colorless & odorless. I kept thinking to myself how odd it was that he was not eating anything only drinking, and what he was drinking was going right through him, but not into the catheter bag?? How odd? So we went back home. Jim felt better, but the diarrhea never went away.
The lab work on the stool came back that he had no bacteria or viruses, but he still had severe diarrhea. One week after the first ER episode Jim came to me and said that he thought something was wrong because he had chunks in his catheter bag. He thought that he had an infection and it had clogged the cath. After we cleaned the catheter bag, which somehow smelled like feces, we waited to see if it was clogged or not. After an hour of nothing emptying into the bag, we once again were in the ER to have the catheter irrigated. At that time, the nurse said that she thought he had an infection because there was quite a bit of matter in the urine and had it tested. He had a urinary track infection (UTI) and was put on antibiotics. Then we went back home.