The One With The Poo In the Tupperware

So Preslie has had the runs for almost a month. Really it's sad, her but has gotten so raw that it literally bleeds every time I have to wipe her. The only reason why I even know it has been so long is because I KNOW for a fact that she had the runs when she went to her first day of primary on August 21st. Well then on the 25th we went to the doctor's office for just the normal shots and well check and were told that there was a virus running around little kids and she had probably gotten it, we shouldn't be too worried. 

I think from now on I'm just going to look at the doctor and say, "Okay, what the worst case scenario? K, let's treat for that." Cause it seems like no matter what it is, with Preslie it is always worse case scenario. 

So last Friday I called and talked to the nurse who said, "Really, it's been 3 weeks?" Yup it sure has, three weeks of going through a case of diapers a week, more wipes than should be humanly possible, the worst smells ever, diaper cream, screaming shaking little girl . . . . really it has been sad. So she says well don't feed her juice (okay we'll stop that), get this calmoseptine cream for her bum (got it and it works WONDERS) and if the diarrhea hasn't stopped by Monday give us a call. I always love that, it's been going on for three weeks and you think it will just magically stop in three more days? Really? REALLY! ha ha

So the weekend goes through and we give her nothing but Crystal Light instead of juice, and she won't drink milk anymore so we didn't need to switch to soy or anything, and give her a ton of rice which amazingly she actually loves! You know the BRAT diet - bananas, rice, apples, and toast. Well I didn't think she'd eat any of those, but apparently rice she will. Sunday I changed a dirty diaper 5 times - just during the three hours of church! Not to mention the ones at home.

Monday comes and, what's that? no dirty diaper? All day? NO WAY! I guess those crazy doctors were right. Well, med school will get you those smarts.

Then Tuesday rolls around and straight out of bed she has a dirty diaper, but it was a slightly more "formed" (sorry for the gross out) than what it had been, not full on or anything, but a little bit so I let it go. But then at work it just started getting yucky again, so I called the doctor, who of course is out on Tuesdays (hence why they said call Monday - HELLO!). Wednesday, first thing, the doctor calls and says, hmm do you want to do a stool sample? I think that's probably best now, okay let's do it. She says she'll call it in to St. Luke's Meridian, and I can just take it there.

But wait doctor? What the heck? How am I supposed to do this? It's not like I can really monitor an 18 month old and stick a cup under her when she poos. And I know you have to have particular containers, do I just use mine? She says get a sterile container and "spoon" some of the diaper into the container, then seal it up and deliver it to the hospital. So now the waiting game is on. When Preslie got up a little bit later she was dirty, but the diaper was extremely wet from the entire night of sleeping that there really was no saving it. So here's my fingers crossed for another dirty diaper . . . . .  wait really? I'm HOPING for that?

Well about 30 minutes later there was another one. In the process of trying to clean her up, with her bum bleeding of course, I'm sitting there trying to figure out where to put the dirty wipes. In the diaper? uh, no, cause I have to start spooning things out of that, on the wipe box? No, that seems gross. I end up settling on a hand towel that was sitting on the floor. I get her all cleaned up and send her on her way and arm myself with the spoon. I had purposely chosen a cheap, stupid spoon. Not one from our nice set of utensils, but one from a cheap set we got right after we were married so that we at least didnt' have to shovel things into our mouths. 

So here I am, dish-washer wilted some form of metal scraggle spoon in hand picking up a diaper with diarrhea in it and debating the best ways to spoon it out and into this tupperware. I decide there is no lady like way to do it and just dive in, scrapping and scrapping and then taking the spoon over the the tupperware, where of course, everything on the spoon is stuck and doesn't want to come off. Uhh . . . . . tap tap tap. I'm not swiping that off the spoon like you do with brownie mix. 

Well finally I get a bit in the bottom of this tupperware, and am seriously hoping it will be enough of a "sample" for them to test, because there isn't anything left in the diaper for me to get out. Seriously this is runny, it soaks up into the diaper - that's what I pay for these new aged diaper things for! And now I am under a 2 hour time limit, get myself ready, get the kids ready, and drive 45 minutes to the hospital before this sample "expires". By the grace of god I make it. 

The tech at the counter seemed super excited to be taking my brown paper sack filled with remnants of my daughter's intestines. He says, "you know we have containers here that you can use." Uh no I didn't know that, but thanks for telling me that AFTER the fact Junior. Then he says, "I'm assuming you don't want this tupperware back though?" "You would be correct. I also threw away the spoon that got it out, the rag that held the wipes, and the piece of carpet where her butt was sitting."

He tells me that the results will take 72 hours. So I go home where the kids go down for a nap and I do some minimal house cleaning before we leave for Activity Days at 4. At 5:30, three hours after the sample drop off, I get home from Activity Days and find that I have a message on my phone from guess who, the doctor's office! Well, there really is no bigger way to tell that they found SOMETHING than when they tell you the results will be 72 hours and they're calling you 3 hours later. 

Answering machine: "Wa wa wa, blah blah blah, Preslie has c-diff, advanced, treat now, wa wa wa call us immediately." Oh GOODIE!

So I call them, but of course they are closed, get transferred to the downtown office but they have to verify dosing with the doctor. What pharmacy do you want, well we're headed to WalMart send it there, oh but only a few pharmacies can make this (what is this a bomb? Geez!) so it takes the doctor's office two hours to track down what pharmacy in the area will do it - WALGREEN'S!. We go to pick it up, and the guy says, well it is going to take another two hours to finish being made. Seriously, what kind of ingredients and chemical reactions are going into this stuff? 

Finally we get the drugs, which by some miracle cost less than $20 (probably the first prescription she's ever gotten that was less than fifty bucks) and have started the process. Here's the good news:

 

*She has to have it 4 times a day, every six hours. But no you can't give it to her when she wakes up, lunch time, snack time and before bed. No it has to be at precise six hour intervals, so we get to wake her up in the middle of the night. 

*C-Diff is EXTREMELY contagious! But only fecal to oral - meaning don't eat her poop. Uh oh mom, you k now that incident the other night when you were bite tickling Preslie's leg after she apparently had an "episode" and you tasted not so great things? Ya, if you start running out the end, go see a doctor.

*C-diff is resistant to all alcohol-based cleaning products. So instead of just being able to lysol the entire house down to kill the bacteria so the rest of us don't get it, we get to wash the entire house down with soap and water. 

*C-diff is usually only found in adults in long term care facilities - kind of like the leukemia is found in old people - so apparently our daughter is an old soul. They think this was brought on by all the medication she was on, it killed all the good bacteria in her intestines and allowed bad bacteria to take over. 

*My OB/GYN said I shouldn't even be changing her diapers, Eric should be doing it. Uh my husband works all day, should I just let her sit in it till he gets home? No but wear rubber gloves. Oh. Good.