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Episode 39 The Serious Business of Doing Number 2
Episode #39 The Serious Business of Doing #2

Episode 39 The Serious Business of Doing Number 2

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In this podcast episode, we get dirty and talk about the smelly but serious business of older folks needing to be regular and do number 2.

Links to resources/articles referenced in the episode:

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hello! Welcome to the SallyintheZen podcast. I’m your host, Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist caregiver taking care of my elderly folks and always in pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. If you’re not new, and you’re returning, welcome back.

Hope everyone is safe and sound and doing well wherever you are across the world. My family and I are doing well. As I’m taping this episode, it is Thursday, January 28th, and the United States is under new management under President Biden. Mom and Dad are on the waiting list to get the vaccine so stay tuned for that. So that does it for us at a very, very high level.

So, overall, things look and feel promising even though it’s all pretty crazy still out there, with new variants popping up here and there, and with other stuff popping up here and there.

So let’s close the door to the world now and focus in on today’s episode.

So I hope that you already gathered from the title of the episode of what the subject is for today. It is definitely a life lesson that needs to be discussed because caregiving, for all of its ups and downs, and the cleanliness and the not-so-clean stuff about taking care of your older folks. The thing that people don’t normally talk about – we’re going to talk about it in today’s episode because it’s a fact of life, right?  Right. And if you’re interested, let’s get down to the dirty business of talking about doing Number two.

Now before we begin, let me just start with my normal disclaimer and say that everything I say on today’s episode, nobody’s paying me to say any of these things. These are my opinions and my opinions alone. Just so we’re clear.

Now let’s get on with the show. Oh hey, you guys ready for a poop joke? No, it’s too stinky! You see how I incorporate a poop joke? Don’t mind me.

Going back to the time when Pop had his stroke. While we were in the hospital in the critical wing, I remember very, very distinctly something a nurse said that just stuck with me the whole entire time. And was a take away that I took away permanently burned in my head.

And she had said that… over here… she goes over: here, we’re really interested in pee and poop. And at the time I was going ewww. Why? But then, in the context of them in the hospital and their nurses and doctors, the body needs to take in as well as put out material in order for the body to be healthy and well balanced. Basically it. 

And the moment that Pop was able to actually poop, they celebrated. They were really, really happy and it showed that he was definitely on his way to getting back to normal.

Now if we take a step back for one second, what had inspired me for today’s episode was actually Mom. Mom has always had very good internal plumbing. She pooped regularly and on time every single day for as long as I’ve known her. Her insides were running pretty well until relatively recently, I’d say, maybe a month or so ago, where her patterns changed. 

And the minute it changed, it became a problem. And that gave me the idea of, okay, we need to take this seriously. We don’t talk about it, I mean, outside the family because Mom and Dad and I always talk about it, because that’s a question of the day, every day. Did you poop? How much did you poop? These are questions that sound really funny but they’re actually pretty serious because it will show me – their caregiver – if there’s an issue.

So why I say this is – if they’re not pooping regularly if they’re pooping – because a constipated or if they’re pooping because of diarrhea – those are all symptoms of, God forbid, a possible bigger problem than I need to be mindful of to help them. We may not as a whole talk about feces but the body needs to get rid of stuff that it takes in. That’s just a fact of life. What goes and needs to come out. And for older people, it’s actually even more critical that they poop and regularly. 

So this is definitely a life lesson, a dirty life lesson, a ripe smelling lesson. You see how I did that? But let’s just talk about this.

So for our listening pleasure, for our little family here, let’s take this as a life lesson of applying it to ourselves. Are we regular because I certainly want to be regular as much as I can because it all pertains, at the end of the day, to your overall health.

So, I did research and I found a few things that are very very interesting that should be pointed out. I’m learning this alongside with you guys. So. 

How many times a day should a person poop? Now according to Healthline.com – oh, and all the resources that I reference in today’s episode, of course I’ll include in the show notes for your reading pleasure. But let’s go.

How many times a day should you poop? There is no generally accepted number of times a person should poop. As a broad rule pooping anywhere from three times a day to three times a week is normal. Most people have a regular bowel pattern. They’ll poop around the same number of times a day and at a similar time of day. And that used to be Zen Mum until we switched up her supplements and then, oh yeah, it derails her pattern and she was not happy about that.

So continue on with the article from Healthline, according to a survey of more than 2,000 participants that Healthline conducted, respondents reported the following bowel patterns:

  • about 50% of people poop once a day 
  • another 28% report going twice a day 
  • only 5.6% reported going only once or twice weekly.

And in all transparency, I used to be like that in my way, way, way younger years – it’d be once or twice a week. But when you really think about that – that’s not normal. It should be once a day or once every other day to be normal, but that’s just my opinion. That’s up to you to figure that out.

So here’s some more interesting details. 

  • Most respondents 61.3% reported their average bowel movement was in the morning. Mine certainly is! 
  • Another 22% reported going in the afternoon while 2.6% poop very late at night
  • Nearly 31% of respondents reported that their poop consistency was similar to that of a sausage or snake of a smooth and soft consistency.  

Um, ewww but, yes it’s true. that shows that your body is actually healthy when it’s that kind of consistency and that kind of smell… and I will move on from there.

Down the article, it says, what can affect how frequently you poop. Several factors can influence how much and how often you poop. These can include diet, age and that’s ***ding ding*** number one for our case here, with Zen Mum and Zen Master. Because, according to this article, the older you get, the more likely you ought to be constipated. This is due to a number of factors including reduced gastric movement that encourages digestion, reduced mobility, and taking more medication that may slow down bowel health. Totally believe that because Mom and Dad – they are walking pharmacy. They take so many drugs every single day and yeah, if you don’t take water with it, or you don’t eat fiber along with that stuff, yeah, the shit will not come out. 

And that’s kind of where we are in, all transparency. Part of their supplements that they’re taking on a regular basis are stool softeners. Just being real. At this point, I think all of us get the very good idea that to have regular bowel movements throughout our life is a good thing.

So let’s lighten up the rest of this episode and clean up house. Yeah, see what I did there – clean up, clean up? 

Anyway, here we go.

I actually had a lot of fun Googling about Number two and pooping. So according to our second resource Odyssey Online.com, their article is “Why is Pooh Named Number Two?” 

Oh hey, what did the poop say to the fart? You blow me away.

Okay, why is it called number two? 

Now according to the author of this article from Odyssey, starting on this paragraph – The first theory I came across was one of more of a historical background in the ’60s. Supposedly children in classrooms had to raise one finger if they had to pee, two fingers if they had to do the do. I feel like this would be insanely embarrassing to essentially have to announce but apparently, it was to inform the teacher of how long the child was going to be out of the class for the bathroom. If you ask me, the reason this wasn’t kept a classroom tradition for long was likely due to the fact that students probably learned they could do more time out of class if they unabashedly raise two fingers.

So why did the terms number one and number two stick around if this classroom tradition was so short-lived, according to the article. So a simple theory I came across a few times, according to the author, was that parents just wanted a euphemism for the bodily functions when they spoke to their kids in public. Most parents aren’t going to openly ask their young child – do you have to take a dump? in public. However it’s acceptable to ask the child if they have to go number two. As much as I agree with this theory, I feel that it’s severely lacking in origin? Does this just mean a parent randomly assigned the functions numbers and they became nationally known euphemisms? 

On a blunt note some people have speculated that pee is number one because the source of it is first on your body. And the source of number two is farther back. A similar theory states that when you use the restroom, typically you pee before you go colon bowling. This makes it a matter of numbering the functions chronologically.

Okay. So at this point, let me ask you guys a question? Why did the toilet paper roll down the hill? To get to the bottom. Yes!

That’s enough. 

But before I let you guys go, let’s, of course, talk about what can we do now to make sure that we are pooping on a regular basis? Drink water. Drink lots of water. Eat your vegetables. Eat fiber-rich foods like prunes, grains, veggies, spinach. We’ve actually incorporated spinach and kale – eating more of those in our day-to-day. 

And besides the food, the fiber-rich food, and the water, you need to move. You need to exercise for a few minutes because just the actual movement moves your stuff through the body, ultimately down to the toilet. 

So, there you go.

These are things that all of us are well aware of but if you just take little baby steps every day to change your diet, to make sure that whatever you take in, goes out on a regular frequent basis, then with the modern technology of today, and the modern science of today, maybe you’ll live even beyond 100 years old. And that what we Chinese consider an extremely long life. But what’s the point of a long life if it’s not healthy. You know what I mean?

Okay, I’m going to stop right here because I don’t want to get philosophical about that kind of thing. Maybe in the future episode but not today.

So, we’ve reached the end of today’s episode. Hope you had a little fun. Hope you learned a little bit. And I think we came out of this episode pretty cleanly. What do you think? Ha ha ha.

Anyways, if you have any questions or comments, email me at Sally@Sallyinthezen.com or you can drop by my blog and contact me there. Depending on the question or comment, maybe I’ll feature it on a future episode. We’ll see.

I hope that all of you, you and your family are doing well. Stay safe, stay sane. Eat your vegetables. Drink more water, okay? And I will talk to you again next time. Take care.

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