Mine stuck out about 5 or six inches and the only time it seemed to want to retract was when I was laying on my back. I did not have the surgery to go back to laying on the couch again.
To begin with, a prolapsed stoma of 5 to 6 inches is a surgical issue, I had told my soon to be Ex GI Dr that I was having prolapse issues and he said nothing... yet when I showed my Surgeon, the first thing he said was that we were going to get it fixed ASAP.
A prolapsed stoma is very painful to walk, sit, or even lay at times. Driving home from Philly to AC was Painful to say the least.
Well ok, the surgery was postponed untill the 17th, (tues) I checked in, and was taken to the OR about 1:30 or so, in the afternoon. I woke up about 3 or so, and the Surgeon came over and told me everything went ok. Now I have stitches around the side of the stoma and underneath a wound that will just have to heal on it's own.
I will see if I can post a pic of what a Post "Revision of Colostomy" Stoma looks like.
I was on clear liquids all week long untill friday at lunch.
Thursday evening I started to have Gas in the stoma, but it was not the smelly kind. I woke up Friday morning and found a bag of liquid brown stuff and was so excited! Yes!! I can go home today. I had been on clear liquids so of course it was liquidy.
The surgeon came in to do his daily rounds and when I told him I had the gas he told me that as long as I could tollerate solid foods I could go home today,
So I started packing while he wrote me out a script for Percocet and for Ostomy Supplies.. (more on why my GI DR didnt write one in a moment)
as for stapleing it? the thing was an inch and a half wide. I am going to ask the Surgeon what he did to fix it but whatever he did, it seems to be working..
The question is, What caused it in the first place?
Answer: My carelessness. I was lifting things I knew I shouldn't have been lifting, bending, Stretching, squating, you name it...
and of course, abusing my dietary restrictions also caused it.
Anything that causes outward pressure can send the stoma into the prolapsed state.
For those of you who are lucky enough to have those one time occurances where sugar does the trick and you have no more issues, My heart goes out to you but unfortunately this was yet another lesson I needed to learn in propper care of the stoma.
So Tuesday night around 10Pm my room was ready, and back to 3 central I went where I saw many familiar faces of the nurses who were nice, and the ones I hoped were not on my hall. I was pleasant to them all, just to show them I hold no grudges.
The main focus right now is on my post op recovery with the stoma. Once that is good to go then I CAN go see my GI DR, who will schedule my colonostomy to check the status of the colon.
I ran into my original GI DR who had diagnosed me in 91 and we had a very pleasant conversation. I told him that I was thinking about switing GI Dr's and he said that they have options available to me that the one I have now doesn't.
First of all, there are some of the newer meds that even tho My Insurance will cover, the company will also pay me for being in the study group.
The other concern he brought up is that due to the psych meds I take, I am limited as to what I can and can not take, but this is new Jersey so previous options were brought up and he supports it.
I was able to get a few pics of the stoma post op... and will post them in another thread . I think we have one about pics of stomas.
The hospital staff treated me a lot better than they did when I was there the first time. Having insurance makes a lot of difference.
