Warning: as usual with my posts regarding my struggles with Crohn’s this post contains frank discussion of basic bodily functions not usually discussed in polite company. If talk of peeing and pooping make you squeamish, you may want to just move along.
Those of you have read my previous post know that I had gone into the hospital to have what the medical staff referred to as an “ileostomy takedown” or in other words, my internal plumbing was reconnected and all organs that belonged inside my body (the stoma, which was a portion of small intestine pushed out through my abdomen for the removal of waste via an appliance aka “the bag”) were put back inside. This is an operation I had been looking forward to. Even though the creation of the stoma quite literally saved my life, it was an inconvenience to deal with – some of the issues I have described in earlier blog entries.
So, how did it go? Pretty well actually. According to the surgeon the surgery could not have gone better. Unfortunately, this does not mean that there were no issues. The biggest one, from my perspective, was that the epidural given to me to control pain also caused an issue where I could not release my bladder. You see, the epidural provided strong drugs to my mid-section which essentially turned off nerve receptors. The good news is that thanks to this treatment I was up and around pretty quickly. The bad news, I couldn’t urinate. This led to not one, not two, but several different catheters being inserted into my uretha – an uncomfortable procedure at best and in my case painful as apparently one of the times my uretha was “nicked.” As bad as not being able to go was, the sight of blood coming out of where blood should never come out was a bit unnerving to say the least. Plus this caused some pain in my you know what, which prevented me from trying to go. At one time the urine back up was so bad that after one catheter I released 1.2 liters of urine. For comparison, the average male bladder maxes out as about 400 – 600 milliliters. My bladder was pushed to its limit. This extended my hospital visit by a couple days as they wanted to be sure that my urinary function was normal before sending me home.
Well, that and the unexpected vomiting.
The third day post-op my gut seemed to be waking back up. I didn’t actually pass gas or stool yet, but my bowel sounds were active. In fact, one nurse said my gut sounded “hyperactive.” Which usual meant that things were starting to move through my system again and my long unused colon was waking up (so to speak). Wrong. Just as I was about to try to eat some lunch my guts went into full revolt. And very much like the girl in the Exorcist I began spewing everywhere! Since I hadn’t eaten much what came out was a build up of gastric juices and other liquids. The good news is that I learned I could still move quickly despite any lingering internal pain, the bad news is that we discovered how much liquid I could hold in. Turns out, quite a lot.
After these two setbacks, things started to improve quickly. My bowels began moving on day 4 PO (post-op), pretty much pure liquid but I was passing stool and gas. My bladder kicked back in later that same day thanks to some Flowmax and the discontinuation of the epidural. So by day 6 PO I was able to come home.
Now, one day shy of three weeks post-op, my stool is still pretty liquid with signs of solids every now and then. Still going more often than I’d like, but it’s way more controllable than the stoma was – plus no more bag to change frequently and more importantly, no accidents since my surgery. My staples have been removed and my new scar is healing. I have a shallow hole where my stoma used to be which is getting shallower by the day.
Still several more weeks before I can lift anything heavier than a gallon of milk, but I can walk and stand upright. I even have permission to get on my exercise bike and next week I’m going to ask about being allowed to work from home so I can at least catch up on emails. Things are looking up and I have no regrets about undergoing the surgery.
Physically, I did lose some weight again through the ordeal and am now at about 190 pounds. The lightest I’ve been in some time. Given how fast food is still flowing through me, I may get down to the mid-180 range before things settle down. The good news though is that my bodyfat% seems to be dropping in relation to my muscle mass. So though I’ve lost some of both fat and muscle, the fat loss has been greater. I’ll be in a good position for rebuilding once I’m able to lift again.
Onward!
Journeys With Dave 