She wrote the orders, checked his vitals—heart rate already slowing, blood pressure stabilizing. A blocked stoma could turn into a perforated bowel if ignored. Tonight, they’d caught it in time.
He groaned. “My wife brought me… nuts. A handful of almonds. I thought… healthy.” blocked stoma
Almonds, Emily thought. Classic culprit. Their fibrous, undigestible skins could clump together like cement in the narrow lumen of a stoma. She wrote the orders, checked his vitals—heart rate
Mr. Hendricks was a quiet man in his sixties, three days post-colectomy for colon cancer. When she entered, he was curled on his side, face pale and beaded with sweat. His colostomy bag, attached to the stoma on his lower right abdomen, was empty—bone dry. But his belly was distended, tight as a drum. She wrote the orders