The day after Easter I had the surgery, the one I didn't want but really did need. I am now a person without a colon. Weird.
I did well after surgery. The surgeon went in through the old scar from January - although it goes further up this time. Surgery was on Monday and I was released on Friday. However, Friday night I started having some bad pains and by Saturday morning it was almost unbearable and my stomach was very bloated. My dad took me to the local hospital and after spending the whole day in the ER and a few staples taken out, they admitted me. Looked like I possibly had a slight infection but they were not sure. Luckily I was admitted because after a very miserable, painful Saturday night (I had a great nurse who came every 2 hours and gave me pain medicine and just took good care of me) the doctor came Sunday morning and took a few more staples out further down the scar. At this point nothing had come out of my ostomy bag in over 24 hours. I was now getting a fever, headache, nausea and horrible horrible pain. The second he took those staples out, that ostomy bag filled up FAST.
There had been so much fluid building up in my stomach that my intestine was so compressed it was blocked. So all night long I was backing up. It was lucky I was at the hospital because that could have gotten a lot worse very fast. I wish they had popped the lower staples sooner but it appeared that the fluid was higher up so they did what they thought was best. After a couple more days of monitoring, pain medication and antibiotics I was sent home on Tuesday. And I am doing better. I feel better than I did after surgery number one which is promising. The infection was unfortunate but with colorectal surgery it's actually fairly common (at least that is what I was told)
I had a follow up with my surgeon today. She did tell us that taking my colon out was the right move. Once she got it out and could see it - well… it was bad, real bad. There was so much active Crohn's Disease there - none of it was healthy. NONE. I was in pain because that organ was still in my body. She thinks my prognosis is great and she's excited to see how I do from here on out. She was almost giddy. Her excitement about it got me a bit excited too. How different will life be now? How much better am I going to feel now? I haven't been pain free in close to 30 years… I am so excited to see what that feels like. :)
For the foreseeable future, I have an ostomy bag so I am going to have to learn how to deal with it without being so self conscious about it. I am looking forward to the surgery pain easing off so I can see if I am really pain free now. I am looking at another 4-6 week recovery and no lifting the kiddos again but I know I'll have help.
I am going to continue to try going gluten free to see if it helps keep my inflammation at bay. The doctors don't think it'll do anything but I don't see any harm in trying. Keeping my inflammation at bay is a key component here. If I can keep it under control then in 6-12 months I could have another surgery…. one that could put me back together with NO external bag. That's a surgery I desperately want. I don't want this bag forever. I want to be "normal"
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