hi there , it has been way to long since i last wrote ,and much has gone on since then and is about to this week as well .
I saw my surgeon finally in Feb and when he saw the colostomy and how large it had gotten he said let's fix it to where i told him YES !!! ,so before i had left his office he showed me exactly what he would be doing , for the first surgery , which was to reconnect my large colon to the rectum (he had to take a section of the colon near the rectum out as that was where the stool had blocked , and he also had to reconnect the large colon where he made the ostomy .I was told all the possible risks for the surgery and then the date was set for Mar 19 , before i left the city i had an appt with the anesthesiologist for a week before the surgery , i also had blood work done after i left the surgeon's office , things moved fast that day,the surgeon also told me before leaving his office i would have a temp ileo for 3 months .
. I went to see the anesthesiologist and he told me I would be having a spinal epidural which terrified me but it turned out the one who told me all the possible side effects and risks (those of what i could understand as the man talked so fast I could barely understand him ) was not the one doing it which was nice because the one i had was very nice and explained everything to me .
The surgery went well , i spent 6 days in the ICU because the surgeon used a new thing for lack of a better word on my wound called a vac which sucked out all the fluids and any infection that might start . I have to say i am glad he did use it as i am sure that is what made the world of difference with the recovery .On day six he took this vac off me and after that i was up waked to the washroom for the first time in those six days (had to have a catheter in ) and had the nurse help wash my hair . Sadly in the afternoon that was when things changed as i was transferred to another floor one i told the nurses was my own personal Hell (sorry for the word but best way to descibe it ) you see i worked the floor they took me to and for the love of me i can't figure out why they would transfer a surgical patient to a chronic floor .
When the nurses took me to the floor they felt bad for me because that floor is about 100 degrees (i know because we put a thermometer in one of the rooms in the spring one time and 105 in the hall and 110 in the tub room ) my room as I was wheeled in you could feel the heat , and the paint was falling off the wall in one spot , one of the nurses took some flowers i had been given and put them in the window and as she was doing this she said well you have a window with a then she goes view of the roof , they put on the window a teddy bear my granddaughter had gotten me but it didn't do much to cheer me up , but i said thank you as the ICU nurese were super ladies .
This room as i said was very hot , so they had opened the window a crack to let some air in , which was not bad till thru the night where i thought for sure i would end up with pneumonia and be stuck there even longer , and if i had asked them to close the window i would have cooked with the heat , so i laid in my bed with a blanket up near my head to try and keep the little bit of a breeze off my head
A few mins after the two nurses left me there one from the floor came in to take my info down , after doing that she looked at me and asked do you know how to care for this appliance ,I told her yes this was not my first one after that the only time i saw the nurses on that floor was to give me my meds and for my meal try .
After the nurse who took my info left they brought in my room mate and that was when little did i realize that room really was my own personal H :( . You see this lady and please don't get me wrong i am a big lady and my mother in law is an even bigger lady so i have nothing about large people but to get a good picture of what was to come later it is the only way , this lady was at least 400 pounds , and about 9 pm was when i was about to learn how bad my night was to get , you see this lady needed a cpac mask for sleeping and i never realized till that night how noisy they are but thought okay i can deal with this not so because even though i am told you are not suppose to snore well not so with this lady i swear on a stack of bibles (now that i am home i can laugh about this next description not at her but at what i went thru ) that she snored three different types of train sounds if that is possible , then at one point I thought i heard some one closing up the laundry bags and dragging them to the laundry shute and as i used to work that floor i knew the sounds well , it turned out it was this lady , on top of that she passed gas thru out the night . I tried hiding in the bathroom to drown out her noises as the bathroom wall was a heavy brick and the door a heavy metal but to no avail the noises came right thru , well i thought okay i know they have a tv room maybe i can go there and sleep wouldn't work because across the hall from where i was , there was an elderly man yelling let me out i gotta get out of here so they took him to that room , so i spent my night in tears , and by moring i had not slept in 24 hrs .
When my morning nurse came in all smiles and said good morning man did she get it , but i found out by the look on her face she wouldn't listen as this lady was one of their patients who had just had her leg amputated and been brought back so they really loved this lady and she could do no wrong , in my way of thinking she should have been in a room herself .
The next person who came in and said good morning to me was my surgeon and he got it real good , and he is a hard one to be cross with as he has such great bedside manner as well as a smile that would melt the devils heart if he had one , so i told him what had happened and I had not been to sleep in 24 hrs and if you are to heal you need SLEEP !! so i told him LET ME OUT !! , he smiled and said i think we were down this road last year and i told him yes but for different reason,so again he smiles and says yes you can go home , i looked at him and said don't fool with me today and he smiles again and said yes i could go home but first he had to go and would be back in a half hr to take out the rod in the stoma and give me my rules , I said fine then when he left i rushed (well a turtle would have beaten me probably lol ) down to the nurses station to call my husband and tell him when he got off to work to come straight to the hospital so he could SPRING ME lol ;) .then i spent the rest of the day waiting and man what a long day .
Well i came home and as i told him i healed up much better , by week three at home i was back in my flower beds getting them ready for the summer (and adding some more grey hairs to both my husband and family doc ) I followed the rules no lifting or bending what would usually take me 2 maybe 3 days at the most took me 3 weeks because i was on hands and knees but to be honest i feel even better when i am out side , I was back up to walking 3 miles each day as well . After i got them all done i had to promise my husband /son's /granddaughters/ family doc /ET nurse and even the Coloplast rep i am paired with for the year should i need support and thank goodness i was paired with this lady as she has went over and above what i think she was suppose to do even now with my up coming surgery she calls each week to see how i am doing and to keep my spirits up should i start to get the case of nerves .
I had to have a gastrografin enema which i was not looking forward to because of the last two enemas i had given to me at the hospital (now they think they may had had a good part in my perforated bowel as there was no hole when they took the first x-ray , but i did have the test or this surgery i am going for would not happen as the surgeon needed it to see if the colon had healed and from what my family doc told me the x-ray came back excellent as though nothing had happend :) .
So as of tomorrow it will be 5 days and counting and i go back to the hospital to have the small intestine put back in again and as i have called myself lately (not sure why ) have Humpty Dumpty put back together again .
The surgeon has told me though this time I have to stay in the hospital till he says it is fine to go , i have to be able to walk (can't see a problem there as i was up the day after when i had the first one done ) i have to keep solid foods down / have to have my bowels moving / and even more important there is no leaks , i asked him how i would tell if there was seeing as how last year other then pain going out the roof for me i was not sick / no fever , this is when he said you have to stay till we are sure . I am not arguing with him this time , but i have made sure i have some things with me one and most importantly is I bought an MP3 player and loaded some cds on it , there is an FM radio and a good set of headphones to drown out back ground noises at night especially if i should get a room mate from H again , as well our granddaughter's Big Sister (from Big Brothers/Sisters ) has a small library of books so is bringing in a small box for me so i have something to read , and i am taking my journal in and with luck finish it up as i have been writing about my nightmare year , so hopefully all of that will keep my mind off of not being at home especially at night (my age you would think you would not get home sick but having not been away from home in 34 years i do ) . I figure with the stress our daughter has been causing , while at the hospital i can turn that part off , as i won't have a phone , and no internet as I won't take my tablet so i can't see her whining or wishing me ill of health , and if i am at home if i even begin to feel a tiny bit good i am one who will say i will just try to do something so this way i have to behave myself as my guys have been telling me already :)
This week luckily the surgery is not till the 25 so it means that my husband and i can go and watch our granddaughter graduate from grade 8 , and because of that i have not told her yet of the date as i didn't want to spoil her special day , seeing as how although i had not planned it I did spoil her 13th bday , on the 24 th i am going to send her a text that we need to talk and i will tell her about the surgery , then that is all i have to do i think before i go in . the only other thing is i have to call the hospital on the 24 th to find out the time to be at the hospital the next day and as the anesthesoloigist told me my surgery is the first one booked i would say it is going to be another early trip to the city . thats okay as much as i am terrified again i want this over with and to get back to my life again , because with this ostomy I have spent the last 3 months about 90 % of each day in the bathoom emptying this bag so i look forward to my old way of life again :)
Well i guess i have written a mini novel but I wanted to let you all know how things are going , it has been a busy three months .I go into this surgery although terrified i am going in with the same attitude as the one in Mar and that is positive :)
Take care
Kakie56
I saw my surgeon finally in Feb and when he saw the colostomy and how large it had gotten he said let's fix it to where i told him YES !!! ,so before i had left his office he showed me exactly what he would be doing , for the first surgery , which was to reconnect my large colon to the rectum (he had to take a section of the colon near the rectum out as that was where the stool had blocked , and he also had to reconnect the large colon where he made the ostomy .I was told all the possible risks for the surgery and then the date was set for Mar 19 , before i left the city i had an appt with the anesthesiologist for a week before the surgery , i also had blood work done after i left the surgeon's office , things moved fast that day,the surgeon also told me before leaving his office i would have a temp ileo for 3 months .
. I went to see the anesthesiologist and he told me I would be having a spinal epidural which terrified me but it turned out the one who told me all the possible side effects and risks (those of what i could understand as the man talked so fast I could barely understand him ) was not the one doing it which was nice because the one i had was very nice and explained everything to me .
The surgery went well , i spent 6 days in the ICU because the surgeon used a new thing for lack of a better word on my wound called a vac which sucked out all the fluids and any infection that might start . I have to say i am glad he did use it as i am sure that is what made the world of difference with the recovery .On day six he took this vac off me and after that i was up waked to the washroom for the first time in those six days (had to have a catheter in ) and had the nurse help wash my hair . Sadly in the afternoon that was when things changed as i was transferred to another floor one i told the nurses was my own personal Hell (sorry for the word but best way to descibe it ) you see i worked the floor they took me to and for the love of me i can't figure out why they would transfer a surgical patient to a chronic floor .
When the nurses took me to the floor they felt bad for me because that floor is about 100 degrees (i know because we put a thermometer in one of the rooms in the spring one time and 105 in the hall and 110 in the tub room ) my room as I was wheeled in you could feel the heat , and the paint was falling off the wall in one spot , one of the nurses took some flowers i had been given and put them in the window and as she was doing this she said well you have a window with a then she goes view of the roof , they put on the window a teddy bear my granddaughter had gotten me but it didn't do much to cheer me up , but i said thank you as the ICU nurese were super ladies .
This room as i said was very hot , so they had opened the window a crack to let some air in , which was not bad till thru the night where i thought for sure i would end up with pneumonia and be stuck there even longer , and if i had asked them to close the window i would have cooked with the heat , so i laid in my bed with a blanket up near my head to try and keep the little bit of a breeze off my head
A few mins after the two nurses left me there one from the floor came in to take my info down , after doing that she looked at me and asked do you know how to care for this appliance ,I told her yes this was not my first one after that the only time i saw the nurses on that floor was to give me my meds and for my meal try .
After the nurse who took my info left they brought in my room mate and that was when little did i realize that room really was my own personal H :( . You see this lady and please don't get me wrong i am a big lady and my mother in law is an even bigger lady so i have nothing about large people but to get a good picture of what was to come later it is the only way , this lady was at least 400 pounds , and about 9 pm was when i was about to learn how bad my night was to get , you see this lady needed a cpac mask for sleeping and i never realized till that night how noisy they are but thought okay i can deal with this not so because even though i am told you are not suppose to snore well not so with this lady i swear on a stack of bibles (now that i am home i can laugh about this next description not at her but at what i went thru ) that she snored three different types of train sounds if that is possible , then at one point I thought i heard some one closing up the laundry bags and dragging them to the laundry shute and as i used to work that floor i knew the sounds well , it turned out it was this lady , on top of that she passed gas thru out the night . I tried hiding in the bathroom to drown out her noises as the bathroom wall was a heavy brick and the door a heavy metal but to no avail the noises came right thru , well i thought okay i know they have a tv room maybe i can go there and sleep wouldn't work because across the hall from where i was , there was an elderly man yelling let me out i gotta get out of here so they took him to that room , so i spent my night in tears , and by moring i had not slept in 24 hrs .
When my morning nurse came in all smiles and said good morning man did she get it , but i found out by the look on her face she wouldn't listen as this lady was one of their patients who had just had her leg amputated and been brought back so they really loved this lady and she could do no wrong , in my way of thinking she should have been in a room herself .
The next person who came in and said good morning to me was my surgeon and he got it real good , and he is a hard one to be cross with as he has such great bedside manner as well as a smile that would melt the devils heart if he had one , so i told him what had happened and I had not been to sleep in 24 hrs and if you are to heal you need SLEEP !! so i told him LET ME OUT !! , he smiled and said i think we were down this road last year and i told him yes but for different reason,so again he smiles and says yes you can go home , i looked at him and said don't fool with me today and he smiles again and said yes i could go home but first he had to go and would be back in a half hr to take out the rod in the stoma and give me my rules , I said fine then when he left i rushed (well a turtle would have beaten me probably lol ) down to the nurses station to call my husband and tell him when he got off to work to come straight to the hospital so he could SPRING ME lol ;) .then i spent the rest of the day waiting and man what a long day .
Well i came home and as i told him i healed up much better , by week three at home i was back in my flower beds getting them ready for the summer (and adding some more grey hairs to both my husband and family doc ) I followed the rules no lifting or bending what would usually take me 2 maybe 3 days at the most took me 3 weeks because i was on hands and knees but to be honest i feel even better when i am out side , I was back up to walking 3 miles each day as well . After i got them all done i had to promise my husband /son's /granddaughters/ family doc /ET nurse and even the Coloplast rep i am paired with for the year should i need support and thank goodness i was paired with this lady as she has went over and above what i think she was suppose to do even now with my up coming surgery she calls each week to see how i am doing and to keep my spirits up should i start to get the case of nerves .
I had to have a gastrografin enema which i was not looking forward to because of the last two enemas i had given to me at the hospital (now they think they may had had a good part in my perforated bowel as there was no hole when they took the first x-ray , but i did have the test or this surgery i am going for would not happen as the surgeon needed it to see if the colon had healed and from what my family doc told me the x-ray came back excellent as though nothing had happend :) .
So as of tomorrow it will be 5 days and counting and i go back to the hospital to have the small intestine put back in again and as i have called myself lately (not sure why ) have Humpty Dumpty put back together again .
The surgeon has told me though this time I have to stay in the hospital till he says it is fine to go , i have to be able to walk (can't see a problem there as i was up the day after when i had the first one done ) i have to keep solid foods down / have to have my bowels moving / and even more important there is no leaks , i asked him how i would tell if there was seeing as how last year other then pain going out the roof for me i was not sick / no fever , this is when he said you have to stay till we are sure . I am not arguing with him this time , but i have made sure i have some things with me one and most importantly is I bought an MP3 player and loaded some cds on it , there is an FM radio and a good set of headphones to drown out back ground noises at night especially if i should get a room mate from H again , as well our granddaughter's Big Sister (from Big Brothers/Sisters ) has a small library of books so is bringing in a small box for me so i have something to read , and i am taking my journal in and with luck finish it up as i have been writing about my nightmare year , so hopefully all of that will keep my mind off of not being at home especially at night (my age you would think you would not get home sick but having not been away from home in 34 years i do ) . I figure with the stress our daughter has been causing , while at the hospital i can turn that part off , as i won't have a phone , and no internet as I won't take my tablet so i can't see her whining or wishing me ill of health , and if i am at home if i even begin to feel a tiny bit good i am one who will say i will just try to do something so this way i have to behave myself as my guys have been telling me already :)
This week luckily the surgery is not till the 25 so it means that my husband and i can go and watch our granddaughter graduate from grade 8 , and because of that i have not told her yet of the date as i didn't want to spoil her special day , seeing as how although i had not planned it I did spoil her 13th bday , on the 24 th i am going to send her a text that we need to talk and i will tell her about the surgery , then that is all i have to do i think before i go in . the only other thing is i have to call the hospital on the 24 th to find out the time to be at the hospital the next day and as the anesthesoloigist told me my surgery is the first one booked i would say it is going to be another early trip to the city . thats okay as much as i am terrified again i want this over with and to get back to my life again , because with this ostomy I have spent the last 3 months about 90 % of each day in the bathoom emptying this bag so i look forward to my old way of life again :)
Well i guess i have written a mini novel but I wanted to let you all know how things are going , it has been a busy three months .I go into this surgery although terrified i am going in with the same attitude as the one in Mar and that is positive :)
Take care
Kakie56