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Getting My Shit Together.
Apr. 14th, 2014 10:30 amIt was my recently my birthday. I received several cards and a couple of parcels.
Not all were so welcome. NHS Scotland decided to celebrate by sending me a bowel cancer test kit.
Lovely.
Apparently they are sending them to everyone over 50.
It comes complete with instructions, of course, and various suggestions how to collect a sample. Well, six samples from three different "bowel movements".
One of the curious things was the strange language the leaflets used. Either medical - "bowel movements" and "stools" - or infantile - "poo". No real words - no shit or crap. No words real adults use, except perhaps when talking to their children.
They suggested three methods for harvesting the crap. It was tempting to try each one, one for each sample, and see which worked best. But since one seemed to require blocking the toilet with loo paper and another wearing a plastic bag over my hand and catching it, neither seemed attractive, and I came up with my own, also involving plastic bags, but not my hand to catch it. (I can't remember what their last method was, but it didn't convince, either.)
The other thing was how squeamish the process of collecting the crap made me. I've never had children, so I haven't had to deal with soiled nappies. Indeed, I can't remember dealing with others' bodily fluids, aside, rarely, cleaning up after vomiting friends. (More often though I think they had to clean up after me.)
This was my own shit. I knew its provenance. So I was surprised how - well - squeamish I felt. There is apparently a whole science of disgust. People don't cope with it well.
And that is presumably why the NHS Scotland think we can only cope with medical or infantile terms for shit.
Curiously, though, their video campaign is much more imaginative - and "poo" works much better in song than on paper...
Not all were so welcome. NHS Scotland decided to celebrate by sending me a bowel cancer test kit.
Lovely.
Apparently they are sending them to everyone over 50.
It comes complete with instructions, of course, and various suggestions how to collect a sample. Well, six samples from three different "bowel movements".
One of the curious things was the strange language the leaflets used. Either medical - "bowel movements" and "stools" - or infantile - "poo". No real words - no shit or crap. No words real adults use, except perhaps when talking to their children.
They suggested three methods for harvesting the crap. It was tempting to try each one, one for each sample, and see which worked best. But since one seemed to require blocking the toilet with loo paper and another wearing a plastic bag over my hand and catching it, neither seemed attractive, and I came up with my own, also involving plastic bags, but not my hand to catch it. (I can't remember what their last method was, but it didn't convince, either.)
The other thing was how squeamish the process of collecting the crap made me. I've never had children, so I haven't had to deal with soiled nappies. Indeed, I can't remember dealing with others' bodily fluids, aside, rarely, cleaning up after vomiting friends. (More often though I think they had to clean up after me.)
This was my own shit. I knew its provenance. So I was surprised how - well - squeamish I felt. There is apparently a whole science of disgust. People don't cope with it well.
And that is presumably why the NHS Scotland think we can only cope with medical or infantile terms for shit.
Curiously, though, their video campaign is much more imaginative - and "poo" works much better in song than on paper...