Donor Poop

Good news? I'm done riding in the elevator.

Bad news? My body is wreaking the havoc of riding in the elevator for 64 hours. Current body temperature = 100.2 toasty degrees. These aren't glamorous elevators. They're service elevators that house biohazard bins, trash bins, and chemicals on an hourly basis. With no fresh/clean air circulation.

You better believe I took my vitamin B, C, and zinc supplement tonight. I'm not getting sick. Not now. Not before one of my favorite holidays where I'm going to want to stuff my face. And I'm going to be around family and friends who I want to socialize with and not make them sick. 

Definitely sleeping in tomorrow. What's sleeping in? 6am. That's A-MAZING compared to the 4:30am I've been getting up at lately. Tomorrow is basically like a "project day." 

Today we had our weekly intern meeting which usually is like a small 1.5 hour long class session. Today it was on prebiotics and probiotics. SUPER interesting. We focused more on probiotics and their mechanisms in the body and how they can help our clinical patients. I also learned about fecal bacteriotherapy. SO COOL, but so gross to think about.

Basically, C. diff is a big bacteria problem in hospitals lately, causing uncontrollable diarrhea (5-10 times a day!) and all sorts of problems. Well, nothing is working, antibiotics make it worse, and of course all other medications are just in and out. So what they do is take donor poop from a healthy individual and give it via enema, colonoscopy, or sometimes even through a nasogastric tube (a tube that runs through the nose and down into the stomach) to someone with C. diff or other GI issues. YEA. This way, someone elses healthy microflora and probiotics (healthy bacteria) can help someone else heal. Think of it as a temporary transplant. Haha...ew.

Some studies show almost instant results in 95% of participants. Plus no adverse effects have been found. It not only works for C. diff patients, but also people with ulcerative colitis and small GI problems such as constipation, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. 


Seriously. Google it! Apparently it was even on Grey's Anatomy once. Think of how many would volunteer, possibly getting paid, for donating their poop.


Just a little fun fact for the day.






Now for bed. At 8:15pm. True story. Yayyyy "grown-up" life.