I need a break from the internets...

Because if I see one more effing headline about J0n & K@te I am going to throw my laptop and myself off the roof of my house. Okay, maybe just the laptop. See, the roof isn't that high up and I'd probably just break an arm or a leg and that would be unfortunate. But, seriously, I can't take it anymore. Even my beloved Salon has featured stupid headlines about these people. So, if you don't see me on the internets you'll know it's because I boxed up my laptop and buried it in a closet. Someone please call me when it's over and it's safe to surf once more.

Picture time...

We finally got a new camera and we finally uploaded the photos taken thus far. Not that we take very many. That's bad. And we really do need to branch out beyond pics of the dog. Just how many photos of the dog do we need anyway?



Isn't she cute?



Cherries! In my backyard! Now, how am I going to reach those?



Crazy-looking plant from the backyard. Anyone know what this thing is?



Tree? (Come on, I had to. Even if I didn't want to, you all would make me do this for the rest of my life. Also, I don't know what the hell that baby head thing is--there are 2 at the front entrance of Boston's MFA.)

No babies!

There were no babies to be born on Saturday night and I'll admit to being disappointed. There was one mom in L&D but she wasn't in labor; she was being treated for a kidney stone. There was one baby in the nursery and only one post-partum mom would allow a student to provide her care. Durr. A wasted evening at clinical.

That being said, there is no schedule for babies and it's either feast or famine, as they say. Unfortunately the famine seems to occur during our clinical hours and the feasts occur at 3 am after we're gone. Also, it's unusual for a patient to refuse student care so there we were doing a big group study session in the family waiting room because there was nothing to do. Maybe this coming weekend?

That's all that's exciting in my life. Hoping to see a birth, studying for exams and the usual life maintenance. And tennis. Lots of tennis. Did I mention that I beat Michael twice?

You know what's funny...?

Being asked to address "sexual activity of the pregnant woman and her partner" (male in this case) on an exam and having to list sexual activities on the test. Yes, that's right, I had to write down sex positions on an exam. How many people can say they've done that?

The other funny thing is that our maternity book provides little pink and blue figurines in sex positions to provide a visualization of the position. Hi-larious. Even better than that is in our geriatrics book there are color illustrations of the elderly getting it on (this is in the coping with the aftereffects of cardiac events chapter). It's like it's straight out of the J0y of Sex. Full on nudity, I tell you. They're really funny, too, b/c the man always has his hand on the woman's breast no matter what position they are in and both their eyes are always closed; they look like they're asleep. Older people have active sex lives, as do pregnant women and their partners, but it's just so amusing to have it laid out there so explicitly in a text book. It's like the kama sutra issue from C0sm0 but for pregnant women.

Springtime explosion...

It's very much springtime here and headed quickly toward summer. The trees are green, roses are blooming and grasses are starting to turn "golden" as the state motto goes.

The produce at the market is once again bountiful and delicious but my daily allotment of time to spend in the kitchen has been overtaken by school as usual. Still, I'm finding time to try new recipes per my "try 3 new recipes a month" goal. So far this month I made caramel chocolate matzah crackle and mock spanish rice. Next up will be this yummy quiche. What's not to love about hashbrowns and a cheesy quiche all in one dish?

As for gardening, I have purchased a bit of everything in the herb department and will be transplanting everything later this week into a large pot. I also have some tomatoes and a pepper plant to transplant. Unfortunately I already killed the cilantro. Don't even ask me how I managed to do that. Unlike Alissa, we don't have bunnies around here to eat our veg but we do have a rotten brat of a dog who likes to tear around the yard like a maniac and I swear to Ogg if she touches my potted plants I'm going to sell her to the monkey house.

I'm excited to note that our cherry tree has actual cherries on it and I can't wait to pick them. Most of them are out of reach so I'll have to enlist Michael to do the picking. Our landlord told us that peach trees only bear fruit every other year so we should get peaches this year. I'm not so sure about that since the tree looks a bit sickly but who knows? I'm no expert on fruit trees so we'll see what happens. I'm been thinking about buying a citrus sapling but haven't decided which would be best. They're not cheap and I don't want to buy more than one at this time. What do you think: lemon or lime? Lemon is good for fish, garnishes, lemonade, yummy desserts like these lemon bars, hummus and well, almost anything but limes are good too. Limes for guac or spritzing over mexican dishes or limeade. Maybe the lemons would be better?

First day on the maternity ward...

Admit it. You're here to find out about the babies, aren't you? I must tell you: they are cute. Precious, in fact. Wee bitty things that you want to munch on and smell their little baby smell. It's true. Those tiny feet and that hair that reminds me of the baby ducks Judy used to hatch in her kindergarten classes. OMG, total cuteness.

But first, the hospital. It's a small facility in the Mission but has free parking in the garage on weekends (score) but the cafeteria is closed on weekends (which is either good or bad depending on how good their food is). The nice thing about weekend night clinicals is that the traffic is generally pretty good unless there's a Giants game. What's especially nice is that this hospital tries to avoid medical interventions during L&D as much as possible and has a 3% c-section rate (c/s). 3%. That's totally unheard of. They do c/s if they need to but they don't permit scheduled c/s which I think is great. They have mostly nurse-midwives on staff but there are OB-GYNs around, too.

It's a nice facility and the post-partum rooms are relatively roomy and have a pull out couch for family. They do "couplet" care so the baby rooms with mom and the nurses care for mom and baby simultaneously. The NICU is a level 2 so really premature babies and really sick babies get transported across town to the other facility which is a level 5. There were 2 babies in the NICU this weekend and they were tiny. The nurses are nice and our clinical instructor is great. Also, this part of the hospital feels less contaminated by MRSA and C. diff than med-surg floors which was nice. I came home Sat. night and didn't even take a shower before going to bed. Normally, I'm in the shower within 3 minutes of walking in the door. Still, I never wear my scrubs in the house.

So, my assignment for the evening was to do the well-baby assessments. I assessed every newborn on the ward and changed diapers and talked to moms about feeding. Newborns are funny little things. They really don't like to be messed with and absolutely hate having their temperature taken. All but one of the babies was eating well and I changed some very wet diapers. I got a rather full meconium one just 2 hours after birth. Good lord, that stuff is sticky. And I managed to avoid being sprayed in the face. Did you know that diapers come with little lines on them that change color when the baby wets in them? What a brilliant idea! Except when the pee just runs up their backs it's kind of useless but still. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that some of the adult diapers have the same thing. Which is nice for the same reason and allows you to preserve their dignity a little more.

This weekend I'm on post-partum duty so I'll be assessing moms for lochia and breast stuff. The week after I'll be doing a turn in L&D and NICU. I hope someone gives birth while I'm there but I have no control over that. Chances are I won't see a c/s birth but maybe. Either way, it's all really neat. They want us to do the teaching with the moms but for all the reading and classroom discussion on breast feeding, I still feel like I don't know what the hell to say. I know what I'm supposed to say but it seems so weird to teach someone how to do something I've never done before. Then again, I've had to teach someone how to clean his colostomy bag and I sure as hell don't ever plan to have one of those.

All in all, it was a good weekend and I'm looking forward to going back on Saturday. Stay tuned.

Back to the grind...

Spring break is officially over and it's back to school for me and my classmates. This session starts with 5 weeks of maternity followed by 5 weeks of peds and 10 weeks of research class concurrent with maternity and peds. My first clinical rotation starts this weekend (Sat and Sun 3-11pm - blarg, it's not the Sat night I care about, it's Sun. At least it's only 5 wks) so by Monday there will be an update on all those moms and babies I'll be seeing over the 2 days. At least the only diapers I'll be changing are those of the neonates.

I really am looking forward to a little change in curriculum. It'll be so nice to do a rotation where (almost) everyone is healthy and excited to be there. But seriously, this class is going to kick my butt. The amount of information we need is massive (I can hear the collective "duh" from all the moms already) and we are cramming a 15 wk course into 5 weeks. Jesus. Let's hope I can remember it all. Stay tuned.

Hefk, I'll be cognizant of where my badge is hanging at all times.

I've been tagged, too!



So, Gwen tagged me and she already tagged most of the people I would have tagged so I'm with Alissa and I won't bother tagging anyone.

"List 7 things that you love, and then pass the award on to 7 bloggers that you love! Be sure to tag them and let them know that they have won. You can copy the picture of the award and paste it on your sideboard letting the whole world know...you are Kreativ."

1. The way dogs look when they're asleep
2. Flannel sheets
3. The yummy way the house smells when I'm baking
4. Beating Michael at anything
5. Harry Potter
6. Reading a new cookbook
7. Fleece pants and fuzzy socks

Adventures in container gardening...

This weekend the local community garden had a plant sale and I availed myself of the opportunity to do a little gardening. I always meant to do this while we lived in Ohio but we had a problem with raccoons and feral cats so I never got around to it. Now we've got a yard but it belongs to the landlord so I won't be digging up the grass for a real garden. That leaves me with container gardening.

I got 3 types of tomato (green zebra, cherry and regular), 2 types of basil (broad leaf and lemon), parsley, cilantro and an aloe plant. Everything has to stay put for another week or so to mature a bit more (well, not the aloe) and then I'll transplant it all to bigger pots. I'd post a picture of the teeny plants I brought home but our camera is broken but hopefully by transplantation day we'll have a new one. Here's hoping I don't kill everything.

Heartbreaking...

I just cannot focus on the enormous amount of studying I have to do because I can't stop thinking about the patient I had last night. I was a assigned a 17 y.o. HIV positive male who was admitted for cryptococcal meningitis. He was no longer under contact precautions so I was able to go in his room without a mask, etc. (hallelujah for that one--I always have a pt with contact precautions of some sort). He's been in the hospital for about 2 weeks now and is expected to go home sometime next week.

When I first introduced myself he ignored me and the other nurses; he just played videogames until I needed to put a BP cuff and a pulse oximeter on him. He has a history of refusing his medication. Today it was one of the antibiotics he needs to take by mouth--2 of the 4 doses he needs to take in a day. He's depressed (and taking bupropion), stuck in the hospital and bored. And both of his parents are HIV positive as well.

I spent almost and hour and a half with him while he ate some of his dinner and took his meds. He was scheduled to take 9 pills at dinner and an IV injection of an anti-nausea medication. He says that the pills make him nauseous and he doesn't like to take them. He takes a lot of pills. A lot. He's on about 5 anti-retroviral drugs plus the other meds he takes. He said his mom takes her pills 4 at a time. He takes his one at a time over a long period of time. I got him to take 6 of them over the course of an hour and was waiting for the nausea to pass to give him the last 3.

We hung out and watched Mythbusters and the stupid show with the guy who shouts about laundry detergent. You know who I'm talking about. Anyway, we talked about school and videogames and tv shows and why he doesn't like vegetables. He's a nice kid, a good kid, and sometimes he acts like a pissy teenager because...he's a teenager. And maybe, if I were him, I might refuse my meds, too. He tells me just looking at them sometimes makes him gag. But he also knows what happens if he doesn't take all of his ART meds. We talked about the importance of that. And the nurses on the ward have 4 other patients to take care of and can't spend 1.5 hours hanging out trying to cajole him into taking his meds the way a student nurse can.

I got him to take 2 more ARTs before I left last night. I tried to get him to take the last one, the biggest one, the one that can't be cut in half or crushed and put into applesauce, but he was sleepy and didn't want it. But he took the antibiotcs and most of his ARTs so I'm pleased with that. It's hard to do this job sometimes. You want your patients to get better and often times that means just taking all of their medications. And a lot of them take a lot of meds. They're like walking pharmacies, these patients. But they have every right to refuse even if they're minors. But if they don't take their meds, you can't keep the disease in check and/or cure them. In this case, as we know, there is no cure. And he's walking a very fine line between HIV and progression to AIDS by not following the prescribed regimen. He's only 17.

I think I'm ready for a break...

From med-surg nursing at least. This school was a total pain in the arse to get into (b/c nobody returns phone calls or emails) but once you're in they really do take our feedback under consideration. Previous cohorts have done 20 weeks of med-surg nursing, 10 of which are spent on an ICU step-down unit (we won't be doing any work on the ICU--there's too many of us and not enough space and, good lord, those people have tubes and wires coming out of them like crazy). 20 weeks is a lot without a break. So our cohort is doing 10 weeks of med-surg and then we move on to maternity for 5 wks and pediatrics for 5 wks before going back to med-surg. It'll be nice to have a little break.

We're starting week 9 of med-surg and we've learned a lot to date. There's still more to learn but it's very difficult to get exposed and/or try all the skills we learn in lab for many reasons. For example, foley catheters (the ones that go in your bladder and stay there) have to be changed every 3 days. There are 10 students and maybe a total of 25 patients, some of whom may have a foley but many may not. Of those who do, they may not need a new one. And in some cases, it's okay to do something that's just been done for the benefit of learning but many times it's not feasible. For one thing, the waste involved is enormous. For another, the patients are not guinea pigs. But I would love to put in a foley. Maybe in maternity.

Last week I had my first colostomy patient. For all the joking about colostomies they're not funny to the patient. The bags look like those little bags of air that are used to prevent breakage during shipment of the goodies you ordered from amaz0n.c0m. Except these fill up with poop and gas and you have to go in and empty them out and, whew, it does not smell pretty (did I not tell you it was always about poop?). Still, it was cool to see. And you have to be cool about it b/c the patient is not happy to have one. I know I wouldn't be happy about it.

I also had my first experience with a combative patient. The doctors were trying to figure out what was wrong with her and in the meantime she became very combative. For a pretty small 88-year-old, she was strong and fiesty. It took 4 nurses to hold her down so they could give her a sedative before going for an MRI. She was kicking, yelling, biting and hitting; talk about surreal. And this behavior can occur as a side effect of a number of disease processes but it can be hard to deal with while you're waiting for the docs figure out the underlying issue. The pts have no idea what they're doing and if they did, they would be so embarrassed.

Anyway, this patient grabbed some papers the nurse laid on the bed and flung them (yes, she really flung them) right in the nurse's face and then while I held her down so the nurse could flush her IV, she looked right at us and just yelled right in our faces. And then she took a deep breath and telled some more. And...it's not funny. At all. But I mean to tell you that I was about to start shaking with laughter b/c of the un-funniness of it all. It's sort of like laughing at a funeral. Michael will remember how, at my aunt's funeral last year, I started shaking from head to toe from repressed laughter. The cause? My cousin doing a less than stellar version of "In the Arms of an Angel." I thought I was going to die from lack of oxygen. But, see? Not really funny. Except that it is. In a very inappropriate way. Ah, trench humor. This is how we're able to do what we do without losing our sanity.

Another first...

Today I experienced my first earthquake. It wasn't a big one--4.3 to be exact--and the epicenter was in the south Bay. I was at school when it happened. I heard a loud noise and the building shook a little and I thought "geez, someone must have dropped something really heavy on the second floor to make the building shake." Duh. Actually, I did wonder if it might be a quake but then I assumed it wasn't.

Anyway, no harm done but it's kind of surreal. My mom has been worrying about earthquakes since Michael accepted the job offer out here. That and wildfires, bears, cougars and, get this, tsunamis. We had to reassure her (multiple times) that there are mountains between us and the ocean so there won't be any tsunamis. You just can't reason with a mother who is looking for any reason to worry. You can believe I'm not going to tell her about this. Thank goodness she doesn't read my blog.

A new first...

I successfully put in a new IV last night--on the first try! I realize this probably doesn't seem like a big deal (maybe it does if you've ever had an IV put in) but this a huge deal for the nursing students. And I did it on a little old lady with tiny little old lady veins that roll around. Yay me!

Some resolutions. Ish...

Yes, I know it's the end of March. Like, 3 months too late for some resolutions. But, hey, this is about the time everyone else abandons the ones they made 3 months ago so it's not such a bad thing to start now, right?

This is a big year. A challenging year, if you will. I wasn't planning on any resolutions per se and I never got around to my own 31 for 31 list (I didn't do a 30 for 30 either but then 30 kind of sucked) but there were a few things I wanted to do and the only way to hold myself accountable was to publish them in a public-type place. Like the internets. Not the refrigerator door, not the bathroom mirror--the internets. So, here they are, in no particular order.

1. Make bread from scratch (no cheating with a bread machine)
2. Donate blood at least 4 times this year (can't do more it more than every 8 wks)
3. Try 3 new recipes every month
4. Do some container gardening...maybe some tomatoes, a pepper plant and some herbs?
5. Meet more of our neighbors besides just the couple next door
6. Do some sort of exercise (besides walking the dog) a minimum of 3 times a week
7. Try at least 3 new restaurants on Murphy Street (there's at least 12 and we eat at the same one every time)
8. Work on being more consistent with my tennis game
9. Hang pictures on the walls that do not feature any member of our families
10. Spend Christmas in Hawaii
11. Make this blog more aesthetically appealing (gotta have a stretch goal)

So far, I've given blood once (this morning, in fact) and I tried one of the Thai places on Murphy St. last week for Michael's birthday. Also, I met 2 other neighbors on Friday (Rick who lives across the street and 3 doors down) and Saturday (Paz who lives across the street). Next weekend I hope to buy some plants and begin my container garden. Any recommendations from the gardener extraordinaire? Also, suggestions for recipes and breads are always welcome as are travel tips re: Hawaii.

To my husband on his 37th birthday...


Happy birthday to my:

• biggest supporter

• honey do-er of everything that even remotely involves engineering or any other science or the use of his leatherman

• walker of the dog while I sleep in after a late night studying

• fetch-er of Chipotle when I just can't bear to cook dinner

• giver of awesome foot rubs

• total geek hotness husband

I love you. You're the best.

p.s. you smell like a monkey and you look like one too:>

Try not to lose...

That's commonly heard at my weekly tennis clinic when Mark has us doing drills. He'll put half the class on one side of the net and the other half on the other side and he'll tell us to play competitively and then he'll tell us try not to lose. Which is a different way of saying try to win. And while "try not to lose" and "try to win" are essentially the same thing, you want to win and not losing means winning, it's still a different mindset.

It's actually pretty easy to beat yourself by trying to overpower your opponent and then missing the final shot and giving away the win. Trying not to lose is something I need to work on.

Not really a big deal...

School, school, school. Blah, blah, blah. All the time, right? Yeah, boring. So I won't bore you with the latest and greatest in the land of incontinent older adults, many of whom have dementia and tell you they need to "go bim" even when they're already on the commode and have already gone "bim."

It's about grades and performance this time. This is a highly competitive program and none of us who are in it are "paying customers." You had to have seriously good grades to get in and you have to get better than a C in every class to stay in the program. And the curriculum is difficult not the least of which is due to the fact that this is an accelerated program not an abbreviated one. Yet, I find the work ethic of many of the students appalling.

Every week we have an exam or a quiz or some such thing do and a lot of the students whine about not wanting to study (hey, it's not like I live for studying or anything myself) and then they don't do as well on the exams as they would have liked. And then they commiserate about their grades and inevitably they ask what your grade was and my grade? Almost always an A. Which is good, I know. But, man, have I come to dread the day after the scores are posted and they look at me and my grade is only one of 3 A's in the class and they all got B's and C's. See? Not a big deal but it gets on my nerves after a while.

And on top of that we're doing med administration during our clinicals and that includes everything by mouth, nasogastric tube, topical application and injection (no IV meds until after we graduate) and all the people at my clinical site seem to want to do is jab people with needles. Yes, it's exciting and a little scary especially when you are administering something like heparin or insulin and it requires the signature of 2 RNs before you can give it but, sheesh, there's more to it than that.

There is just so much information to learn and so many things to be on the look out for and I always worry that I'll miss something. Sometimes I worry that my classmates aren't worried enough. Maybe it'll be different in another couple of months after we've all given loads of injections and it starts to become routine. It's like that saying about: what do you call the guy(or gal) who graduates at the bottom of his (or her) medical school class? Doctor. It's the same for us. And I don't know about you, but I want the goddamned valedictorian taking care of me when I'm the hospital.

Why my dog is an asshole...

Most of you have had the distinct pleasure of knowing me when I adopted Shana (maysherestinpeace - that, by the way, is on purpose and anyone up to date on the Terry Pratchett witch series will know that, right?) and will remember that she did horrible, unspeakable things like eat shoes and underwear; steal Thanksgiving turkeys; eat birth control pills; get in the trash (a lot); eat a tube of citrus face wash; eat fireworks and she got sprayed right in the face by a skunk. Oh, and she puked on a boyfriend once. Hee hee!

Normally Esme doesn't give us this kind of trouble but she seems to be channeling Shana's spirit these days and I'm seriously about to ship her off to the monkey house. She's been counter surfing and has pulled down a big loaf of irish bread, eaten half a bag of pizza cheese and one half of a ball of raw pizza dough (that one there cost us $325 in emergency vet bills, god) and on Friday we came home to discover she had managed to open the cabinets where the trash is kept and pulled out the trash can and all of it's contents and spread it throughout the kitchen and living room. She had gone after some chicken fat leftover from cooking off chicken for her behavioral training (might I add that this dog gets to eat organic chicken. Little rotter) that I wrapped in paper towels, wrapped in a plastic bag and placed in the bottom of the trash can. Not only did she eat the chicken fat-covered paper towels but she ate that little absorbent pad thingy from the bottom of the chicken packaging. That thing is wrapped in plastic and I'm pretty sure she ate some of it in the process.

I can't even begin to describe how pissed I was at this dog. Instead of having a date night with my dear husband, we spent the evening mopping the kitchen floor and steam cleaning our living room rug. Then we locked the little bugger in her crate and went out for Indian food and a trip to T@rget. So far she's passed the paper towels and we're keeping a close eye on her for any obstruction but I have to say: it's a good thing she's so cute or I swear I'd have FedEx-ed her back to Sarah, her foster person in Ohio.

'Til death do us part...

A lot of us have said those words as part of our marriage vow and even if you didn't say the actual words, you probably said something like that. And if you haven't said anything resembling those words to another human being yet you're probably planning to at some point.

In the state of CA, it is mandatory that a healthy aging class be taught as part of the nursing school curriculum. One our assignments in this class is to conduct 3 interviews with a community-dwelling older adult, so, someone aged 65+ who still lives in the community (but not in a nursing home). I interviewed Michael's tennis partner who is 69 and let me just tell you that Bob regularly kicks Michael's butt on the court. Also, they're playing at the 3.5 level which is relatively advanced.

During the course of my interview I asked Bob about whether he was married, widowed, divorced, etc. I knew he was living with one of the lady's who is in my tennis clinic and that they reconnected at their 45th high school reunion a while back but that's all I knew. But during the interview I got the scoop and discovered that Bob decided to divorce his wife of 42 years because he felt that he still had too many good years on this earth and wanted to be happy. The details of what precipitated this decision are few but he did mention that they had changed too much and didn't share enough of the same interests anymore.

Just out of curiousity I asked him if, given how long our life expectancy is now, if he thinks it's feasible to be married to the same person for the rest of your life. And he said no. And if it does happen, great, but what a rarity it will be. Being married for more than 10-15 yrs to the same person seems like a rarity these days. But it got me thinking about things. I said those very vows to Michael 3 years ago and I meant them then and I mean them now. But will we feel differently in 40 years? 60 years? We could easily live to be in our 90s and beyond and that is a long, long time of being with the same person.

Do I think Bob is right? Kind of. Marriage takes work and commitment no matter how long you're married but the thought of being divorced in 40 years is mind boggling. Clearly, this is not an issue we need to concern ourselves with right now but it's been on my mind since Saturday. Frankly, the whole thing makes me feel sad. And it's a reminder that you have to take care of your marriage and not let it languish like some half-rotted plant in the yard. But what say you, dear internets? In this age of longevity, is it feasible to be married to the same person until death parts you?

You're just dying to find out...

about the crazy things people stick up their butts, aren't you? We won't be doing a rotation in the ER anytime soon, and that's where those stories originate, but here's another example of something you don't stick up your rear: a dowel rod.

One of today lectures (well, both actually) talked about bowels (yes, again) and disease, etc., and our professor shared a story from his days as an ER nurse. A man came walking into the ER looking as if he just got off a horse, you know, crab walking. That's your first sign that something is not right. So, they do an xray and discover that he put a wax-coated dowel rod up his bum and it got sucked up into his large intestine. When that happens it often requires surgical removal. This is very much like the guy many of you heard about who stuck a big vibrator (including the testicle part) up his bum and he used a fork (yes, a fork) up there to dislodge it. In case you were wondering, the distal end of your GI tract has 2 sphincters and once you get something past your internal anal sphincter, well, it's gone. It's called the point of no return, people, so you better be damned sure that you don't stick anything up there that you can't get out. This also goes back to my own personal theory that your rectum/anus is in "out" hole not an "in" hole but that's just me. If you don't subscribe to that theory, that's cool, just practice good hygiene and never, ever use analeeze. You can hurt yourself without realizing it due to it's anesthetic effects.

Anyway, both patients required surgery and a temporary colectomy while the bowel healed. That means that they close off part of your bowel and then create a new anus by connecting the bowel to a hole in your abdomen thus giving you a place for excrement to, um, excrete. You attach a colostomy bag to the stoma (that's what the artificial anus thing is called) to collect your excrement until your bowel is healed and is then surgically sewn back together. Often this is a temporary arrangement but sometimes it is permanent in cases like colon cancer, etc.

So, my other theory is that no one wants a colectomy and there are ways to prevent needing one unless you get cancer but, hey, that's what sigmoidoscopies are for, right? And lots of fiber, but I digress. I think it should be a requirement that there should be a brief lecture during high school health class on sticking things up your bum. If you do it and something gets "lost", you should just take yourself to the ER right away and not try dislodging the item with a fork and, really, if you're going to stick something up your bum, make sure you can get it back out. Then there needs to be a talk about thorough cleanliness and hand washing. Hee, you can bet that parents don't want me running for school board...