Code Brown

code brown

“Code Brown”: the one code in the hospital that you won’t find typed within the code list on a hospital badge or in a training manual. It is a code that you learn by experience unfortunately. It doesn’t denote just any sort of poop either, only the biggest, wettest and messiest ones. It’s a poop deserving of a code.

I have wiped many butts in my years of service, but one particular instance comes to mind. I had a bariatric patient who hadn’t pooped in 5 days. The nurse was practically pleading with me to help her transfer to a commode. She was a big lady, 400+ lbs but moved pretty well and we got her seated.

That poor commode. It was just a little old standard commode, a hard working little guy that had rusted slightly over the years from being sanitized a million times. We weren’t able to find a bariatric one in time. It took the fury of 5 days worth of poop that was by now seeping out the edge. The smell was like napalm stinging our eyes but we endured.

Next was the wiping. I stood in silence, my gloved hand with a singular wipe stood like David before Goliath. In short, my entire hand completely disappeared between two cavernous butt cheeks and I earned a new hardiness badge as a health professional: poop up to my forearm.