Hi guys! Sorry I haven't posted. I have been around on other peoples posts, but I wasn't quite ready to go into my whole story. Sorry if any one was worried. Thank you dreamintwilight for the personal posts you sent me. They meant a lot.
So here it is in a nutshell. I went into the ER about a week before my surgery date because i was in so much pain, and luckily, they just kept me until my surgery date.
The surgery itself went really well, an there was hardly any pain after. However, I woke up while they were wheeling me up from surgery because the catheter that they had put in was hurting me. I insisted that they take it out because it was burning, and eventually they relented. I got myself to the bathroom although I was still incredibly dizzy and disoriented and peed on my own, much to the amazement of everyone. I was in some pain after the surgery, but I don't really remember it. By the time my head was right, I was already feeling better than I had before the surgery, which I think is amazing.
I did pretty well while I was in the hospital, although my emotions were like a roller coaster. The first time I saw the stoma, I had a panic attack and couldn't stop crying. For the most part though, I kept my emotions in check because I had family and friends around ALL OF THE TIME and I didn't want to upset them. The biggest physical surprise for me was that there was still output and cramping coming from my colon. No one had warned me about that.
I was in the hospital for only about five days after surgery, and then I decided to go home. I wasn't really emotionally ready, but I felt physically ready, so I made myself do it.
I got progressively better for about a week, then I started having cramping from my colon but no output from my bum (the stoma was working like a charm). After about three days of that, I was in extreme pain from the cramping and I was throwing up. I ended up in the ER, then I spent one night in the hospital. I had a lot of output from my colon that night, which hurt, but was manageable with pain meds. My surgeon said that I was dehydrated, and that things like this just happened some times. He told me that I could spend another night in the hospital, but I decided to go home.
I didn't really have any pain for about five days, but I was horribly weak. I got a bad cold, which took all of the remaining strength right out of me. Then the cramping started again. After about three days, it became intolerable again and I had to go back to the ER, where I continued to have cramping and vomiting until I was back on pain meds and anti-nausea drugs. The pain was horrible. I was in the hospital for three nights this time, and while I was there I had a ton of out-put, including poo (not just mucus and blood) from my colon.
After my first night in the hospital, my surgeons partner came to check on me (he was the one on call). He basically told me that if I was back in the ER again one more time then I would have to have my colon out. He told me that it was obviously too diseased to keep. I reminded him that it hadn't even been three weeks since my surgery and I said that I wanted to wait a while before I made that decision. He thought that I was wrong to wait, but he said that it was ultimately my decision unless an emergency happened, which he is pretty sure it eventually will. He was defiantly not hopeful that I would keep my colon for long. I was pretty miserable after talking to him.
On the second day however, my surgeon came to check on me and he had a completely different view. He said that what was happening was that because I was so impacted before the surgery, the light prep he had me do hadn't really done anything (which I knew), and as a result, I still had a lot of poo in my colon that still needed to come out. He said that he had underestimated how much disease I had had in my colon, but even if he had known, I was probably too impacted for it to have helped any way. He thinks that once all of the old poo is out, this pattern will stop happening. This was a lot better news than what his partner had said.
I got out of the hospital today, and I am finally starting to feel like myself again. I have been pretty depressed off and on since the surgery, but I feel like that cloud is lifting. I feel like I could handle living with the bag forever if I have to, although I am not ready to make that decision.
I'll write more soon, but basically that is the bare bone facts of what has happened. Thank you all for your continued support. Above all, I do not regret my decision to get the surgery, as it has made my life bearable again. Even with the two hospital stays, I can already tell how much less pain I am in than before the surgery. I feel a million times better.