It's not quite the goose that laid the golden egg or the Midas touch, but pretty close.
A 69-year-old US woman showed up to an emergency department in Washington DC with a very strange complaint - she'd been doing silver-coloured poos for two weeks, as well as being dizzy. Her wees were fine.
The patient, who'd been battling colon cancer, was examined - as was her poo. Doctors found her poo contained 'occult blood' - blood in the faeces that can't be seen with the naked eye.
It turned out the silver colour was a mix of white poo, caused by jaundice, and black poo, the result of gastrointestinal bleeding.
Jaundice, when it's caused by an obstruction of the bile duct, can result in pale white faeces. Gastrointestinal bleeding can put blood into the digestive tract, coming out in poo as black after it reacts with bacteria in the intestines and digestive enzymes.
Mixing the two caused the strange silver colour in the woman's faeces according to the case report, published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"After a discussion of treatment options with the patient, a decision was made to focus on her comfort. She was discharged home with hospice care."
