3 months

My k-pouch is officially 3 months old today! Hooray! Feza and I are doing great and I love having him in my life. Yes my stoma has a name and its a "he". You can call me strange but only because you probably don't know anyone else with a stoma. But, in the world of ostomies stoma naming is incredibly common, probably 80% of ostomates do it. Its a world apart from you, I know. If you'd like to sneak a peak into a day in the life of an ostomate than I encourage you to read some posts on this forum from the united ostomy association or how about this one on the j-pouch group

I know you've probably heard me say it a million times but for me it isn't old yet I'M INTUBATING 4 TIMES A DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's the coolest thing in the whole world. Sure, you'll hear me grumble about Feza occasionally, its in the nature of a stoma to be troublesome and if he's anything like his namesake than he's got quite a sense of humor too. But really, he's a blessing and I'm so grateful to have him.

I am also 12 weeks post-op now and really feeling quite well. I still have a day or two here and there where I don't feel well, but I'd say about 85% of the time I feel great. It's nice to feel really healthy and well again too! I have most of my energy back now, though I haven't started exercising again (I used to walk 2 miles 4-5 days a week) I'm sure I'll start again soon once the weather lets up a bit.

In the interest of full disclosure I'll have to admit a couple of things that aren't going so rosy. #1 is I'm having some separation between my stoma and my skin, a kind of ravine (if you will) between my stoma and the rest of my stomach. The actual term is mucocutaneous separation. Well, about a month ago I went and saw the ET nurse (enterostomal - means special nurse trained in ostomies) and she said that I need to pack it with a special powder every day and if it gets worse I gotta see the doctor. Well, it hasn't gotten better and I really can't tell if its gotten worse or not. Some days I think yes and other days I think no. Whats a girl to do? I don't wanna make another trip to Cleveland just to have the Doc look at it and say "keep packing it with powder and if it gets worse call my office" No thanks. Its one thing to go to the nurse at CC and its another thing to go see the doctor. This is not a fear issue, please don't accuse me of that! This is a time issue. When I went to see the nurse I was at the clinic less than an hour - that's practically unheard of! But when you go to see the Doc, well, lets just say that your afternoon is shot. And if you need to go, well its worth it, but if not, well....... I'm just not convinced I need to go. And though I used to be the kind of person who would put off going to the doctor, I'm not that way anymore and I'll be on the look-out.

Well #2 problem. *sigh* Its my OTHER incision. My stomach has healed nicely, lovely really and my jp drain wound looks much better even at 12 weeks than I thought would ever be possible. But after sitting for 6-8 hours I'm still a bit sore and there's draining. Still. I was told it could go on "for a while" and its beginning to bother me. These types of wounds can be notorious for taking their time in healing and especially since I thought the draining would all be over after this surgery I find it very discouraging. My surgeon says its normal and I believe him, I'm just tired of it.

Oh and I just found out I'm going to have my pouch scoped Sept 12th. I called to try and schedule it for December and it wasn't ordered so I emailed Dr Shen to ask him if he still wanted me to have it. He said 'YES! Please call my office again tomorrow' But I didn't get the chance because they called me and they said OK you're all set for Sept 12 at 11am. I just said OK. But when I saw him in June he said 3-6 months and I said I was leaning toward 6 but apparently he was leaning toward 3. Oh well. It'll be interesting to watch anyways..... maybe I'll have another funny stoma-spewing poo story to tell (if you don't know what I'm talking about, check out my Adventures in Gastroenterology post from March).

So here I sit with my 3 month-old pouch, enjoying feeling GOOD and happy that it appears that my health problems are behind me! No matter what though, to God be the glory.