Soiling In Children

Narrator

'Poo Hoo' written by Jacqueline Brown, illustrated by Scott Irvine.

Tim Thompson had a problem. His tummy had been sore for a while...actually since he was sick a while back, but he figured it would go away - eventually.

It wasn't until he was in the warm pool at Mr Paterson's swimming lessons that he knew he had a real problem...a big problem.

And that was just the beginning.

Soon the poo became really sneaky, and sometimes leaked out without him even knowing.

Not knowing what to do about it was the worst bit, so Tim just ignored it and hoped it would go away.

It happened in class...

It happened on the school bus...

Things got pretty lonely...especially when mean Max and his friends called him names and made fun of him.

Getting rid of dirty underpants was beginning to become a problem...

For one thing he didn't have many left, and sooner or later his mum was going to notice. Then he'd be in trouble.

The more it happened the more things seemed to spin out of control, the poos even sneaking into his dreams.

He fought them off as best he could but most of the time he was just plain outnumbered.

[Music]

Then what Tim feared most, happened...

"Tim, we need to talk..."

"I think we need to make an appointment with the school nurse."

[Music]

The nurse explained that she looked after lots of other kids that had problems with their poos too.

"What happens is that the last part of your bowel stays full of poo for too long, then you stop getting the feeling that you need to do poos. Sometimes a little bit of poo sneaks around the side of the harder poo and catches you by surprise."

"Oh" said Tim's dad, "so Tim can't help it?"

Tim held his breath.

"That's right" said the nurse, "until we get the poo cleared out, Tim can't tell it's coming."

Tim let himself breathe again.

The nurse wrote out a routine for Tim.

Then the nurse said "If Tim could have a few days off school while the medicine does its work, that would really help."

"Yes!" thought Tim, crossing his fingers.

Actually, it didn't quite work out that way...

After a few days of following the routine the nurse had given him, Tim finally got rid of all the poo.

[Applause]

[Music]

Back at school things were better, much much better...

...but then in the middle of swimming class, Tim felt his tummy squirm, then churn a little, and he knew he had to go right now.

When Tim got back to the pool, Mr Pringle announced that the school swimming sports would be on next week.

Every night Tim worried.

On the day of the swimming sports Tim's class filed into their seats around the pool. Tim's heart beat fast.

This time it would be OK he told himself, he'd been taking his medicine and following the routine.

Soon it was Tim's turn to race.

His tummy fluttered and wriggled, but this time he recognised it was just nerves.

Tim lined up with the other boys and waited for the starter's gun to fire. Bang! He was first into the water. Max was close behind.

Tim and Max raced stroke for stroke down the pool. Tim knew if he could beat the sneaky poos, he could beat Max.

Just as they reached the end of the pool, Tim gave an enormous kick, stretched out his arms and touched the wall. When he had wiped the water from his face, he could see everyone had finished.

He knew he'd got there before Max, but the others?

After the races had finished, it was time for prize giving. 

Tim's name was called out first. He had done it! He had won!

[Music]

The end.

[Music]