‘Twas the night before surgery 

And all through my mind.

We’re thoughts of no bag and a working behind.

I was nervous, of course- but mostly relieved,

thoughts of McDonald’s…. Rum…. Pizza with grease!

The journey began on a morning in March,

Now 2 surgeries later I’ve got a bag full of farts.

The blogs and the forums and stories I read,

Couldn’t prepare me for this, wearing diapers to bed.

Hey doc you did good, but just so I know.

What’s the policy on taking my colon to go?

I try to look at the pros whenever I can,

My Netflix queue finally reads zero again.

No more steroids, or pills, or injections each week.

No more flare ups or enemas every night for two weeks.

I was never in charge, colitis was always my boss.

I can’t even imagine how much toilet paper money I lost.

I’ve got so many to thank, you all know who you are.

I’ve got JP and Osty and a house full of cards.

I’ve really got everything I guy like me needs.

but it’s the one thing I don’t have, that’s still hard to believe.

After 10 years of torture and all of this grief.

I finally don’t have a stomach disease.

Its been a while. Things have been good. No problems. Last night was the first night in almost two weeks I leaked a little out of my bottom. It was during the night and in the morning more came when i sat down on the bowl. I was relieved because I thought maybe going too long was a bad thing. Anyway, everything has been relatively quiet. Wednesday I go to chapel hill for a pouchogram. They shoot stuff into the pouch to make sure everything is ready for surgery, the following Thursday! Dr also requested I get another CT scan.. Which is proving to be a bit inconvenient. I can’t do it Wednesday because the contrasts would interfere, so I have to try and do it Tuesday around here. It’s hard for me to miss anymore work, but hopefully I can figure something out. Hopefully the next two weeks fly by. Crossing my fingers that the next two weeks I continue to feel healthy! Thanks for stopping by.

HEY

Real quick post before bed… I’ve been feeling a little better each day. I haven’t leaked out of my bottom in almost a full week. I certainly am happy about that but now am concerned it may be too long since I have. There’s no winning. My bag leaked twice in one night two nights ago. That was very frustrating. Tomorrow I head back to work for the first time in almost a month. Yikes. We’ll see how that goes, I’m sure I’ll be real tired. 18 days until surgery, can’t come soon enough.

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.