Of course the only proper answer to, “How are you pooping?” is, “Mostly indoors. Mostly.”
I have a STORE that I would like for you to purchase something from. I also have a Patreon and all of the trappings that come with such a thing.
Sometimes I think doctors are trying too hard to be cool with whatever macabre body horror you’re admitting to them. You’re all, “So I just empty out the blood bucket two or three times a day, and it’s been like that for a couple of weeks,” and the doctor replies, “Uh huh, [emphasis on the huh]” or a casual, “Yeah. It’ll do that.” Every once in awhile, it might be more comforting if they let out the occasional, “HOLY SHIT WHAT?!” or “It’s DEFINITELY NOT supposed to do that!” or even “WHAT EVEN PART OF THE BODY IS THAT OH MY JESUS OH MY GOD WHAT IS IT AND WHY ARE YOU SHOWING IT TO ME WHYYYYYYY?!?!?!?”
Sorry Joel, but I’m afraid that no matter how horrifying your body is, your doctor will have seen atleast a dozen thats worse. Imagine being a doctor who finds a parasitic twin in your brain like in The Dark Half, just a lump of flesh, teeth and a single blinking eyeball. No amount of bloody discharge will ever top that
THOSE THINGS ARE REAL?!
Of course they’re real, they’re just usually not as gruesome as in that book. Usually they’re just a tumor that was supposed to be a person.
google “embryonic cyst”
I mustn’t.
More excellent answers to “How are you pooping?”
“Using my new Apple iPoop,”
“With my dog following me with a little plastic bag.”
“Like a C.E.O.”
“In 3/4 time.”
“With all the logic of a Vulcan, the honor of a Klingon and the respect of Wesley Crusher.”
“Like Lauren Bacall said, I just put my lips together and blow…”
I have a friend who is an infectious diseases specialist. I have learned that no matter how horrible you think the thing you’re showing your doctor is, he has seen worse. He probably saw worse yesterday. Before lunch. And then he ate lunch.
The moral of the story is, doctors are cold unfeeling robo-humans.
“How are you pooping?”
“Well, I’m not doing it now! I suppose what you are asking asking it how I have pooped in the recent past, and how I expect to poop in the future. The answer to those questions would be: With my butt.”
I did get a horrified look out of my doctor once when I came in with an inexplicable rash all over my body. And my face. Especially my face.
I read this comic right before I went to see my doc this morning. Had to laugh after doc asked me pretty much this same question. thanks for all the laughs you bring Joel. 🙂
In a recent (just got home) hospital visit for surgery I was asked about my stol and urine output no less than ten times each by nurses. Remember, if there has ever been something awful a doctor has seen it was probably rinsed, scraped or scooped up by a nurse.
“Why? What have you heard?”
A doctor freaked out once when she saw the moles on my back. The look basically said “How are you even alive?? I can literally see the cancer!”
This in turn freaked me out… and that is why doctors remain casual
Love the gross-out anatomy posters in the background! It’s like doctors want to point out exactly what awfulness they had to endure in med school dissections; and make you stare at it whilst you wonder how this fragile machine still keeps ticking …
Eyes! Are! Organisms!!!
The only time I ever saw a doctor break calm was after I’d wiped out on rollerblades at 2am, got horrible roadrash, and being 17 and living alone, the only thing I had to put on it was Cherry Chloroseptic throat spray. I thought “Anesthetic, kills germs… perfect!”
For the record the first 3 seconds was agony, followed by perfect total numbness. The trick is to keep applying before the prior dose wears off.
I went to see the Doctor later to make sure it didn’t need anything worse, and cleaned up as best I could before I went in there.
He took a look at my leg and his eyes nearly jumped out of his head. I had to explain what I did, because the upshot of medicating road rash with cherry chloroseptic and then wiping off the residue, is that you have wonderful bright red lines everywhere there’s broken skin.
His next question “Did it work?”
And, now, your doctor is living comfortably off the millions he got after publishing the new medicine “HE” discovered.
I once went to a walk-in clinic with what ended up being something called “geographic tongue” (because it causes bare patches on your tongue, making it look kind of like a map; I like to call it “map mouth,” heh; ends up it’s harmless). The lady at the counter got my info and then asked what I needed to see the doctor about. In reply, I simply stuck out my tongue.
“Ew! I didn’t need to see that!” she said.
I just laughed.
I have that too. It’s a form of eczema. I ignored it since I was a teen. Finally saw a dermatologist for an unrelated issue and she was all, “Oh yeah, no big. Nothing you can do about it.”
Thats a medical condition? I dont have it but I’ve seen other people with it, I just thought it was some kind of weird birth mark
I love how, uh, ACTIVE she is in panel two. Particularly with the curlicue under her ass. Like, I really FEEL her shitting out that cursive.
*Very* relevant: http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/06/this-is-what-instagram-for-doctors-looks-like/276792/
“More than you know.”
“What?”
“I poop. . .more than you know.”