Constantly washing hands after touching the excretions of a comatose body?

2 Comments

Context: Just an hour ago my parent's friend had a medical emergency and went into a coma of sorts, and her pulse/breathing had stopped at some point. My mom and her friend's husband don't speak English at all, so she called me and my sister to help her call 911 and translate to them to let them know what was going on.

My sister and I rushed to the house and my sister performed CPR on her. The 911 operators said it would be better for the comatose friend to lie with her back to the floor. Me and my sister tried lifting her off of the bed to no avail. In the process, while I was trying to lift her by the legs, some of her poop smeared across my hand. (Because you know, people do that sometimes in a stroke or seizure, I think)

It feels really self-absorbed for me to have that linger in part of my mind while someone was on their death door. Washed my hands before touching anything else to help with handing insurance cards or touching the phone, of course, but I can still remember the stench. I've washed my hands multiple times already but it still feels like there's some smears on there.

IIN? I don't have obsessive compulsive disorder, or at least I've never been diagnosed.

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Comments ( 2 )
  • olderdude-xx
    2 years ago

    This will pass.

    In actuality, 1 good washing does enough, or 2-3 short washes typical of what some people do.

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  • CountessDouche
    2 years ago

    No, that's totally normal, dude. I'm so sorry you went through something so traumatic. That sounds awful. But yes, it's extremely normal to be paranoid about having feces on your hands and washing multiple times.

    I (non traumatically) accidentally touched my cats poop with my bare hands by accident once and washed like 30 times because I was worried it got under my fingernails.

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