Category Archives: Advice from an Expert Patient

Get Rid of Old, Unused Drugs

As it says in my “About” page, I do drugs and get paid for it.  Drug safety that is.  As a general rule, I don’t write about it though.  Today is an exception.  Consider this a public service announcement.

In 2008, I had some minor surgery where I was given 60 — SIXTY — Oxycontin tablets for pain.  I didn’t need very many at all because I am tough.  Also because I don’t need to add drug addiction to the list of problems with this ‘temple’ of mine.  Plus I really don’t like that out of control feeling I get from serious painkillers.

Still, I ended up with about 55 highly addictive painkillers in a home where my the-15 year old son lived.  Jacob is a good kid, but hell, why tempt fate?  Ultimately, I managed to get rid of them safely and securely.  But not everybody is so lucky.  In some places, prescription drugs are what thieves look for when they burglarize homes.

As I said, while I don’t normally mix work with the blogging (except when I’m goofing off), I think this is something everybody should know about:

Ditch your unused drugs Saturday, April 30.

Tomorrow (April 30) is Drug Take-Back Day, the annual nationwide push to stop people from trashing or flushing their unused medications. The DEA has set up hundreds of drop-off centers all across the country to orchestrate safe disposal of drugs. That’s no small feat — in the past decade, the DEA says it has collected more than 5.5 million pounds of unused pills. It’s a continual concern, since drugs at home can cause accidental poisonings, and drugs in landfills can pollute water supplies. [From my Daily STAT Morning Rounds newsletter]

To find a location near you (sorry, it’s US only) click on this link and enter your zip code.

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This song has nothing to do with drug disposal, but it’s a great song.

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I Really Don’t Look for this Shit

Yeah, I know you don’t believe me. But I don’t go looking for this shit.  Really.

It’s just that, well, I spend a lot of time reading the news.  Because after all, you depend on me to let you know which way is up.  Or which way is down.  Or maybe just getting flush with it.

Because you see, a new museum has opened up, and we all need to get our asses over there.  — Mark, are you paying attention????

National Poo Museum opens doors on Isle of Wight

Just in time for you to plan your summer vacation! Can you imagine a better reward for your children, who suffered through the British Museum, the Tower of London and Madam Tussaud’s,  than the prize at the end of the tunnel than the National Poo Mueum?  The National Poo Museum, you will not be surprised to learn, is a museum dedicated to excrement, with examples from the animal and human world.

And it’s just opened up!

There are 20 kinds of poo captured in resin — who needs to bury or flush?

Poo Museum 1BBC Photo.  Because who else would claim this picture?

Because I couldn’t possibly make this up, I will just let you know exactly what they are producing at this museum:

The exhibition at the Isle of Wight Zoo features faeces from animals such as elks and lions as well as a human baby.

The National Poo Museum has been created by members of the artist collective Eccleston George.

“Poo is all around us and inside us, but we ignore it,” said co-curator Daniel Roberts.

Twenty illuminated resin spheres show off the different types of faeces with facts hidden behind toilet lids on the museum walls.

Poo Museum 2

They have handsome men offering fun activities.  Look!  Weigh your poo!  (But I promise you, this is a contest I would win.)

There is old poo and new poo.  Dino poo.  Seriously, if you have ever dreamed of dinosaur poo, this is your golden opportunity to see it.  Well, it’s probably more like black gold (Texas tea).

And I truly believe that what they say about poop is true:

“Small children naturally delight in it but later we learn to avoid this yucky, disease-carrying stuff, and that even talking about poo is bad,” he said.

“But for most of us, under the layers of disgust and taboo, we’re still fascinated by it.”

This is why I blog.

 

 

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What?? You Thought I Wouldn’t Post This?

 

Happy April Fool’s Day.

I loved this ad.  But it’s not a product I’d ever buy.  Me, I’m a Charmin Girl.

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Filed under ; Don't Make Me Feel Perky Tonigh, Adult Traumas, Advice from an Expert Patient, All The News You Need, Chronic Disease, Conspicuous consumption, Crohn's Disease, Health, Health and Medicine, Hey Doc?, Huh?, Humiliation, Humor, I Can't Get No, Illness, laughter, Oh shit, Poop, Satisfaction, Seriously funny, Seriously weird, Shit, Shit happens, Taking Care of Each Other, WTF?

I Don’t Usually Brag

But sometimes I just can’t hold it.

The Scoop on Poop

If you want to know if you know as much about shit as a fake medical professional/real expert shitter, here’s the link.

 

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Too Much Scoop

There are responsibilities that I take seriously.  And giving all of you the scoop on poop is one of them.

But this week there is just too much.  Too much scoop on poop, even for me.

Still, I can’t hold it all in.  I must let it go.  Besides, as I explained in Trifecta! all good comedy bits come in threes.  So I had to, ummm, unload.

Number One:  The first story is one that will, perhaps, ease your mind about all that  downtime you spend at work in the bathroom.  Because someone has invented a calculator to, well, calculate, how much money you make while on the pot.

Paid to poo

Please don’t anyone tell my boss about this calculator.  This image from the “Paid To Poo Calculator/Plumbworld”.  I did not make that up.

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Number Two:  This one is toilet-focused as well.  And really as suggested in this article, it could really save all of our asses, worldwide.  I’m not just shitting you!

The article says that a British University (too embarrassed to own up to its research and identify itself) has developed:

A toilet that does not need water, a sewage system or external power but instead uses nanotechnology to treat human waste, produce clean water and keep smells at bay.

You won’t need that Brita Filter for long!

Brita

No need for this!  Wikimedia Image

Seriously, though, a waterless toilet that could be developed and mass produced cheaply, and that would produce potable water, well, that would be truly wonderful for the world.

Science is pretty damn cool sometimes.

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Number Three:

As a kid, a “Number Three” meant a fart.  Usually an SBD — a “silent but deadly” one.  But this number three? Far less benign.

Now as a person with serious bowel disease, I will confess that I worry that some day I will “go” the way of many famous people.  That I will die literally on the loo.  Those people include Elvis (who did not leave the building),  Judy Garland (who did not make this list), and Catherine the Great of Russia (who may or may not have died on the toilet but her descendants have preferred the version to the one that says she died-while-having-sex-with-a-horse).

Still, if I die by poop, I’d always expected it would come from below the belt.  Not above.  And certainly not far above.

Shit!  Now I have something new to worry about.  Just what I need.  Death via blue ice falling from the sky.

Wanna guess what blue ice is?

Apparently, blue ice is frozen shit falling from the sky.  And pee too.  Raining down from airplanes.  And it is landing on and injuring unsuspecting people.

As the article states:

The Times of India reports that Rajrani Gaud from Madhya Pradesh suffered a severe shoulder injury when she was hit by a football-sized chunk of ice last month.

[…]

The newspaper claims that aviation scientists believe she may well have had the misfortune to become one of an incredibly rare group: people who have been hit by what the airline industry coyly calls “blue ice”.

That’s its euphemism for the frozen human waste that very occasionally forms around the overflow outlets for aeroplane toilets, and then falls to earth. “Blue” because of the chemicals added to the toilets in planes to reduce odour and break down the waste.

Oh shit (from above).  Hurting people.

Judy Garland.  Who was  happy before blue ice hit.

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