The butt. Ass. Buttocks. Bottom. Cheeks. Rump. Behind. Booty. Arse. Caboose. Tushy. Can. Keister. Whatever you call it. Mine is sore. Well, was sore. Yesterday doctor wanted to drain fluid from the pouch. Simply put, he put a tube up my butt into the pouch. First he squirted saline in, which went right up my intestine and it came out into my bag. Gross? Yes. Painful? Very. Then I had to keep the tube in for 15 minutes while I walked around and let all the gross stuff vacate the premises. All this stuff is getting old. A real pain in my cheeks…if you will. Good news was doctor said I could stop the flagyl if it was making me feel gross. So now I’m only taking one antibiotic every night. I woke up and had a bit more life today. Not much, but a little more. It’s also been three straight days of zero leaking. Not even at night. I hope that didn’t jinx it. Going back to work Monday if all stays well. I know people say don’t wish away your future, but if I could close my eyes and wake up a month from now, I’d do it. I think I may just call 2015 a loss and move on to 2016. I literally have no more movies to watch. 

Ive been taking antibiotics to reduce the fever and inflammation they found. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to shake the fever for good. The past five days I really haven’t been feeling a whole lot better like I was hoping I would. The antibiotic Flagyl I take three times a day. It’s gross. It’s hard to go down, makes me nauseous, and it ruins my appetite. I spoke with my surgeon again today who unfortunately would like to see me again to try and straighten this out. That means another 3.5 hour drive to Chapel Hill tomorrow. Blah. Not happy. Especially because whatever he is thinking he needs to do to take care of it I can imagine will either A. Hurt. Or B. Be very uncomfortable. We’ll see. It’s been hard to sleep at night too, though I haven’t been leaking out of bottom as much. In fact, the past two days there have been no leaks. That’s the only pro. It’s not that in deathly ill. I’m up and moving, it’s just I don’t feel myself. I feel “off” and can’t really explain it better than that. Can it be August 20th please?

on the way home. I had a CT scan at about 1:45, right after an hour of drinking some awful contrast for the “procedure.” No fever (at that point in the day) and little pain except for the skin around my stoma. It was hurting worse if not the worst I’ve felt. Definitely not changing until tomorrow morning though to avoid watery output while I’m changing. The CT Scan was quick. Headed to the clinic afterwards for the results. Drum roll….

Seriously, do a drum roll, I’ll wait. 
Okay, Dr. Wasn’t in so nurse and surgeon on call talked to me. They emailed the results to my surgeon though who was speaking to nurse whole time. They found some inflammation and possibly a micro abscess. If so, nothing too serious. There is a small amount of fluid, but not enough to have to drainer anything. What that means… Antibiotics. Two. For 14 Days. One is flaggyl. If you know anything about flaggyl it is awful. It makes you feel gross with no appetite. So the decent news of course wasn’t ideal. Certainly better than having to go under the knife to get this fixed. They don’t believe this will delay next surgery but it all depends on how the antibiotics do and how fast I can get back on track. I took my temp and it was 100.4 about 20 minutes ago. Still about an hour out from home and then I’ll start right away on medicine. Blah. Another long day, and it’s not even over yet.

Took medicine every 4 hours throughout the night. Fever has been down since about 11 last night. Unfortunately, heading back to CHAPEL HILL AGAIN. Second time in a week. It’s honestly torture. Getting a CT SCAN and taking it from there. I could go somewhere else but it’d take longer for them to get the results so it makes sense to just get it done there. Let’s see what comes of this.

doctor was happy. I took my bag off and changed it there so that they could get a look at the stuff coming out of the stoma. Guess what? Nothing came. Of course! They didn’t seem too concerned. He suggested it could be the same mucous coming from my bottom. He also had to do a check on the bag and make sure everything was healing nicely inside. That was one of the worst things I’ve experienced. It’s posts like these I sometimes wish I didn’t agree to divulge all the ins and outs of this mess of a surgery. He had to “feel around” in my rectum to make sure everything was in the right place. It was not pleasant. At all. I told him about my occasional stomach pains and he seemed a bit concerned but because it hasn’t even been 2 weeks since surgery he was sure time was all I needed. It was a long ride back and forth to chapel hill. We scheduled an appointment for my surgery for August 20th, the day before my buddies bachelor party in AC. I’ll be missing that. There is also a small procedure they need to do a week before, a “pouchagram.” Everything needs to be healed before surgery. Last night was bad. I got a fever for the first time. As high as 101.5. I took Tylenol and oxy for the stomach pains a bit more intense and frequent than usual. I woke up with no temperature. It came back early afternoon. As high as 101.6. I called the Doctor. We’re still waiting to hear back, it may not be until tomorrow. I’m hoping he just gives me antibiotics without asking for a CT Scan, the last thing I want to do is drive back to Chapel Hill for a short procedure. What a mess. This is awful. I’ve been in bed all day. Ill keep you posted. Thanks again for coming by.

Temporary Ileostomy’s suck. They are the worst. This has been worse than all three months combined last surgery. It’s much higher up in the intestine so it leaks more. My skin is terrible. I noticed a leak this morning so I went to change it. It took an hour to get the bag on. There is a problem where something is leaking out of my stoma. I have no idea what it is, and apparently neither to the nurses, so I have to go back to chapel hill tomorrow. Because it just oozes out of the stoma the whole time I have no time to clean the site. So I rush, and I don’t clean good enough and my skin inevitably gets irritated. I often get the feeling of urgency every few minutes but when I sit on the toilet it is hard for stuff to come out. It’s still taking time to get used to that. I can’t wait for these weeks to be over. I’ll let you know what the doctors say.

Sorry about the big gap between posts. I find it’s harder to post in real time when you’re dealing with all this crap right in the heart of recovery. Go figure. A lot has happened since Tuesday. Earlier in the weeks cramps were keeping me up all through the night. Similar to what I felt after last surgery right before I had to pass “stuff” from my butt. The problem was nothing would pass this time. The morning after the first tough night with cramps I woke up and changed my bag. There was a heavy amount of bleeding oozing from my stoma. So bad that I called the doctor mid bag change to see if this was normal. It made changing it very tough because it just wouldn’t stop. She said that they were very sensitive and that there was nothing to worry about. Looking back I must have hit it or maybe brushed against it too hard when I removed the bag, I don’t know. It was an awful morning because of that. I laid down and when I woke up the problem seemed to heal itself and I haven’t seen any blood since. As for everything else. Incisions are getting less painful and I’m moving around a little better. Unfortunately, the cramps are only worse. Now, I do pass mucous from my bottom. I’d go and sit when I felt the urge and eventually stuff actually came out. It was a bit unnerving but I was relieved afterwords and thought that’d be the start of the cramps getting better. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Basically what the nurse said, on my second call with her, was that the jpouch is waking up. That this is the first time all the stuff from my intestines is falling into it and it needs to expand and will with time. Until then it more or less just leaks out whenever it pleases. It’s constant. And it is very uncomfortable. At first I couldn’t get anything to come out. Now it won’t stop. The reason they put the temporary ileostomy was to divert Poo into the bag so the pouch wouldn’t have to work full time right away. The intestines below where my intestine is poking out of my stomach do continue to make mucous and blood on the regular which normally comes out with a normal poo, but as you all know by now, there is nothing normal about my Poo. Because of this, as my jpouch expands and learns its roll down there, it continues to leak out this mucous whenever it feels. It’s a nightmare. Try being 27 and having to wear diaper pads when you go to sleep every night so you don’t ruin the sheets and your boxers. I couldn’t possibly get up and relieve myself everytime I needed to go and half the time I did get up and sat down on the bowl it never came. I feel constant cramping. They assure me soon things will settle down but as you can imagine, im getting impatient. Because of the cramping I don’t have the best appetite either. This second surgery has certainly been worse to deal with. Because I was weaker it took much longer to get on my feet but the incisions this time are much larger and hurt much more. Also, internal pains are much harder to deal with. At least for me they are. 

A group of my friends came over last night to hang out and distract me. That helped. By the end of the night (11:30) I was wiped. Today I’m dealing with the same old sh*t. I’ll keep you posted and hope the next post is full of better news. Until then…

I have been back home since yesterday. I am certainly moving around much better than I was the first surgery. I do have a much bigger scar this time around because of the construction of the pouch. I am in much more pain at the site of the incision. I thought coughing was bad last time, well this time it’s 10x worse. I’m walking much quicker and moving around better, but the pain is a tad worse. I have to keep up on the pain medicine. Sleeping last night was super tough.  I’m eating, but not as much as normal. Still a bit out of it from all the pain medicine. I changed the bag yesterday when I got home and the adhesive part of the bottom of the bag sits right on the incision. That sucks. I’m scared it may hurt trying to take that off when the time comes. Also, the doctor said the output would be more watery this time because it is a higher up part of the intestine. There’s nothing I can do. I’ll have to just get through the next 6 weeks until surgery. Not looking forward to dealing with this bag. Thought that was behind me. I’ll keep you updated with progress. I’m looking forward to the pain from the incision getting a little bit better. It’ll be much easier to deal with all of this once getting up and out of bed is easier.

i can’t sleep. I have bad cramping in my stomach. It sucks. I haven’t spoken to you since before surgery so I have some updates. Although the surgery was technically a success, it’s not complete. I still have an ostomy bag. Can you believe it? The Jpouch was created and hooked up but surgeon thought it best to let it heal nice before I started using it. Of course I understand, just very upsetting. Another 6 weeks with the bag, and then another surgery. This time around I wasn’t as bad. I was moving around much more day one than I was last surgery. They took my catheter out already too. I think that may be the worst part, having to pee once that’s out. I went just in the knick of time and have continued to go consistently all day. I was getting up to do it in the beginning now I’m just using the urinal in bed.. It’s just easier then pulling myself out of bed. I now have wha looks like a C section incision and let me tell you it is painful. It hurts. Tomorrow they are trying to take me off pain button and start me with oxy. I’ll also try and eat some stuff tomorrow because I didn’t eat anything all day. The pain medicine slows down the time it takes the ostomy bag to wake up and I can’t leave until that starts working. I fell asleep at 8 and woke up at 11 and then 12. Now I can’t get back to sleep. I dread doing this again, though the next surgery shouldn’t be so bad. It’s just another 6 weeks with a bag was unexpected. We’ll talk tomorrow.

Today I posted a new page. Read that. Next blog post will be after surgery. I’ll leave you with two pictures. See you on the other side!