TMI & 21st Century Technology

Warning: This post contains much discussion of dirty diapers and is quite disgusting. If you can't handle it, move along. I am not kidding.

I had to send a stool sample off to be tested for rotavirus yesterday. The doctor I was working with brought two diapers out of the exam room and set them in the lab sink. He then brought me the patient's chart and asked me to send off standard stool cultures and rotavirus but the rotavirus was the most important since the stool was especially foul-smelling. Wonderful.

I called the lab to ask how much stool is required for rotavirus testing. The only thing worse than digging through a diaper for stool and sending it off for culture is getting a call 24 hours later because there was not enough stool in the culture tube. The lab rep said they needed 0.1 ml. This surprised me because most stool cultures require 2 grams but the rep assured me 0.1 ml was sufficient. Okay, that should make things a little easier.

I pulled my hair back with a rubberband, applied Vicks to my upper lip and gloved up. I readied my specimen container and opened the first diaper to collect what I could. As it turns out, I couldn't collect much. Disposable diapers, with their multiple layers of paper/plastic/gel, are doing their jobs these days. I scraped the diaper lining with a tongue blade and came up with a miniscule amount of yellow liquid. I scraped a little harder. Still not much. So I went to the next diaper. It wasn't any better. A co-worker suggested squeezing the diaper since the stool was obviously more liquid than solid. Nothing. Not a drop.

By this time I was frustrated. When the lab rep said 0.1 ml, I didn't expect volume to be my problem. Plus, the smell was getting to me. So I began looking in the elastic bands for bits of stool that weren't absorbed by the space age gel beads. I got a little more fluid/solid mixture but not enough. There was only one thing left to do: tear open the first layers of absorbent material. But you know what that gets you? Space age gel beads full of diarrhea. Probably not what the lab technicians want and probably not worth counting in the 0.1 ml.

Well, tough noogies. That's what they got. And Dr. Standard Stool Cultures can forget about it. Unless we attach a bag directly to this child's rear end, we're not getting stool from him. Twenty-first century diapers are not cooperative enough for that.