Author Topic: Poo sticks  (Read 52911 times)

Wowbagger

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Poo sticks
« on: 11 August, 2014, 10:29:56 am »
This morning I received my bowel cancer testing kit through the post.

It arrived too late for me to use it this morning.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #1 on: 11 August, 2014, 11:55:10 am »
It is worth doing, despite the yuk! factor.
Being a little younger, I was treated to a flexible sigmoidoscopy last year.

Basil

  • Um....err......oh bugger!
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Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #2 on: 11 August, 2014, 11:56:31 am »
I had my third one last week.  Judging from our comparitve ages, and guessing that this is your first, I think that they must come every two years.

They're not the best fun first thing in the morning, are they?
Admission.  I'm actually not that fussed about cake.

Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #3 on: 11 August, 2014, 12:40:23 pm »
I'm just glad there is someone there to look at my shit

Kim

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Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #4 on: 11 August, 2014, 01:05:53 pm »
I've looked at shit through a microscope.  It's a lot less exciting that you might expect.

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
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Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #5 on: 11 August, 2014, 09:50:35 pm »
I have had a rather nice PM from a concerned forummer, whom I have assured that this is just a routine test that is sent to everyone who reaches 60.

I will probably give it a go in the morning. You will be relieved to hear that TT will remain WP.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #6 on: 11 August, 2014, 10:02:27 pm »
I knew about the telegram I didnt know about the Poo sticks.
Get a bicycle. You will never regret it, if you live- Mark Twain

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #7 on: 11 August, 2014, 10:21:39 pm »
There is very little publicity about Bowel Screening because Nice People don't Talk About Poo. Nobody else makes poo after all, do they?
So the NHS sends discreet little envelopes to all eligible subjects, some of whom get Shocked or Worried.
We're English and DON'T Talk About Poo.

Wowbagger

  • Former Sylph
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Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #8 on: 11 August, 2014, 10:47:43 pm »
I'm going to read the instructions again carefully before I go to bed. Mrs. Wow has also had a kit but hasn't done anything about it yet. We will probably have group therapy in the morning.

I don't mind talking about poo. It might be from my non-English side, or possibly because I was in Germany last week.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

caerau

  • SR x 3 - PBP fail but 1090 km - hey - not too bad
Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #9 on: 11 August, 2014, 10:52:30 pm »

We're English and DON'T Talk About Poo.


There seems to be plenty of it about on this forum these days.  I've not done a bowel cancer screen but I have had to provide a sample when I had food poisoning once.  Although a stool sample was a rather loose description at the time. Turned out to be campylobacter as I recall - that wasn't much fun either but a very effective way of losing 1 1/5 stone very quickly  ::-)
It's a reverse Elvis thing.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #10 on: 11 August, 2014, 10:54:13 pm »
I'm sure this would be easier with a 'Continental Shelf' type German bog...

Wowbagger

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Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #11 on: 11 August, 2014, 10:59:05 pm »
Blimey! I have to take two samples from each of three different craps. That's more onerous than I thought. I reckon that will be tomorrow, Thursday and Friday then.

I'm sure this would be easier with a 'Continental Shelf' type German bog...

The instructions state explicitly that you mustn't take the samples out of the bog because there is a risk that they could be contaminated with other people's shit. That would never do. The recommended method is to catch it in your hand, either in bog paper or a plastic bag, or in a clean ice cream tub*. Maybe the old-style German Krappenhaus might have been suitable, but certainly not the British WC.

*Do not put it back in the freezer.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #12 on: 11 August, 2014, 11:01:35 pm »
Crumbs! That sounds complicated.

I talk about poo regularly, but I'm a nanny and we see a lot of it. ;D
Quote from: Kim
^ This woman knows what she's talking about.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #13 on: 11 August, 2014, 11:02:19 pm »
Continental Shelf is self-cleansing and could be further decontaminated if needed.

Wowbagger

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Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #14 on: 12 August, 2014, 08:39:51 am »
One down, two to go.

That was physically - and psychologically - more difficult than I expected. My plan was to used our camping bog, temporarily lifting the "no solids" rule, but I firstly found that my enormous arse would not fit comfortably on its little seat in such a way that it would tidily collect everything that I might produce, simultaneously from both sources, as it were. Secondly, it is only a heavy duty plastic bucket and I had concerns that my elephantine mass might cause it to break.

Plan B. A double layer of paper handkerchief (man-size, naturally - much less flimsy, and of course a considerably greater area than a few sheets of bog roll) over your hand and wait for the first instalment. It's actually quite hard to steel yourself to catch your own turds, so conditioned are we from an early age not to do so. However, I collected a walnut-sized piece, used cardboard stick number one to smear a little in Window 1 of the test kit, disposed of the unwanted debris down the bog, waited for the second turd and repeated. Each test kit allows for three different craps and you have to take two samples from each, at different stages of the bowel motion, I suppose to check that different bits of the rectum are free from cancer cells.

The necessary deposits are now safely stored in my bedside cabinet, with the little flap tucked into its tab, waiting for the next two instalments. The cardboard sticks have been disposed of in a dog-shit bag to be exported to the park when we go later this morning.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

Snakehips

  • Twixt London and leafy Surrey
Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #15 on: 12 August, 2014, 08:44:56 am »
Presumably in-bowl contamination could come from contact with the bowl or the water. If one managed to suspend one's output above the waterline and away from the sides of the bowl , that material kept 'high and dry' would remain contamination free.
A sheet of loosely crumpled newspaper placed appropriately would do the trick. It would also flush away obligingly when the sampling was completed.
An nescis, mi fili, quantilla prudentia mundus regatur?

Wowbagger

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Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #16 on: 12 August, 2014, 08:50:48 am »
I think newspaper would be liable to cause a blockage downstream. The loose fibres of bog paper and paper handkerchieves are designed to disintegrate rapidly in water, but I think newspaper, especially the higher-quality stuff produced these days, would take much too long.
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

frankly frankie

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Too much information!
« Reply #17 on: 12 August, 2014, 09:06:44 am »
Mine always sticks to the side of the bowl anyway** so it's simple to scrape off a sample that hasn't contacted any water or porcelain.  Hand-catching is impossible anyway - I can't reach.

** or in France, to the back wall.
when you're dead you're done, so let the good times roll

Wowbagger

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Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #18 on: 12 August, 2014, 09:38:37 am »
How could you be sure that you are collecting samples from different turds?
Quote from: Dez
It doesn’t matter where you start. Just start.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #19 on: 12 August, 2014, 10:07:56 am »
Maybe a pulp cardboard bedpan/bedpan liner, placed 'twixt WC pan and seat could catch the products efficiently.

Something like this http://www.amazon.co.uk/VERNACARE-BEDPAN-LINER-CASE-101AA100/dp/B00CESSBMK/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1407843785&sr=8-7&keywords=bedpan+liner

A keen forumenger could buy 100 use a few, then pass the pack on to the next in need.

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #20 on: 12 August, 2014, 10:15:42 am »
Another 'line' of this bowel screening was to offer flexible sigmoidoscopy to everyone from some, but not all, General Practices in our area at 55.
I had this last year and needed a follow-up colonoscopy.
I have had the 'all-clear' after this and need nothing else till I get Wow's poo sticks in 4 years' time.
My friend, who is local and the same age, was not offered this.
Shame. Her first husband died of bowel cancer.
I suggested she request screening; she works in healthcare.

Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #21 on: 12 August, 2014, 10:26:06 am »
Been doing these tests for a number of years now.  A cousin and her husband ignored them; unfortunately he died of bowel cancer earlier this year  :(

Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #22 on: 12 August, 2014, 10:53:38 am »
Squat over a sheet of clingfilm on the floor?
"A woman on a bicycle has all the world before her where to choose; she can go where she will, no man hindering." The Type-Writer Girl, 1897

Eccentrica Gallumbits

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Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #23 on: 12 August, 2014, 12:32:25 pm »
Or a glass table?
My feminist marxist dialectic brings all the boys to the yard.


Re: Poo sticks
« Reply #24 on: 12 August, 2014, 12:36:13 pm »
I'm reliably told that kitchen roll or paper towels are the best being generally thicker and larger per sheet than bog roll making it easier to catch a log cleanly.