bowel movements

i have been threatening this post since i came to sideroom 2, and now here it is, with a warning that you really need to read the two previous posts about privacy + modesty first.
for some reason there is a fascination around your bodily discharges and when i arrived here i was dehydrated, but a saline drip soon sorted that. i have been spared the indignity of a 24hr fluid balance (ie measuring what goes in and what comes out), however there is also a concern about not being constipated, and even though they have different ways of asking, i get asked every day if i've 'been'.
i don't know about you but when i go somewhere new, it takes my body a day or two to feel comfortable and in addition when i arrived here i hadn't eaten much in the previous 2 days, was confined to bed and aware of the limitations of the curtain ie you could be heard and not seen.
initially it was a case of using the bedpan. for a woman this means raising oneself enough to allow a nurse to place a moulded cardboard tray, in a plastic tray underneath you. you then gently lower yourself onto the pan, convinced you will fall off or break it, and then try and relax your muscles. you then have to lift yourself up again in order for the pan to removed, all the time convinced that you will slip and the contents of the pan will spill over the bed.
next stage is the commode! this is wheeled down the ward to your bedside, the curtains swished and on you get. now you are sitting, in your backless gown, very aware of the limitations of the curtain and again you have to will your muscles to relax.
now i am happily installed in sideroom 2, with it's ensuite wc, all i will say is that things are a lot more relaxed!