Rectal Dragon Died on May 18, 2005

The adjustment to being home in my own bed is not going well. I can't get comfortable (and I thought the hospital bed was nasty!) and so since I get up every hour to pee or drain the pouch, I thought I'd take a moment and post about the past blurry week of my life.

The good news is: everything down in the rectal land is doing great! No pain, and it seems to be healing nicely! Ding-dong the wicked dragon is dead!

I've not yet looked at the wound to see what was done to me. I can't exactly prop myself up and look down there even with the aid of a mirror so I have no idea what I look like now. I haven't really felt down there either because there is numbness and in general a strange feeling of there being something different.

Dr. S said that the never-ending abscess that I made him aware of turned out to be a rectal fistula and that the only way to really resolve it would have been to close up shop. I don't feel so bad about the decision to end the poop-chute knowing that.

Everything went well with recovery until it became apparent that something was wrong because I was throwing up more fluid than I was taking in, and nothing was coming out the ostomy. Don't mean to gross anyone out with this, but when the poop can't flow out due to a blockage what happens is you eventually throw up fecal material. This is what I started to do.

Long before that happened I could feel that something wasn't right with the ostomy, and tried to tell the nurses and doctor, but being that they think everything is just "usual pains of surgery" my complaints weren't taken seriously until the symptoms matched up. I could tell on the first night that there was something odd happening, that I could feel things wanting to move across the bowel but then get stopped up and then there was this INTENSE pain, like something pinching me.

Dr. S says that the "pinch" is a kink in the bowel where it turns to come out of the abdominal wall, not very far into the intestine at all because (sorry if this grosses you out even more) he inserted his finger into the stoma and probed around and felt the twist and managed to dilate it enough so that a catheter could be inserted to act as a stint. He feels that in about a month when all of the swelling goes down that I should be fine and that I won't need any further manipulations to correct the problem.

Being that the catheter has a very narrow inlet, my food has to be rather digestable and not prone to form "chunks". Even though I desire to eat a cheeseburger, the reality of it is not going to happen any time soon, because my whole system had its reset button pushed with the 7 days of vomitting. At best I can eat a half PBJ sandwhich or a small bowl of soup before I feel bloated and ready to collapse. I probably will be eating soft foods for a couple of weeks and progress slowly but surely.

There was a ton of e-mail and stuff to deal with upon coming home. The phonebook finally came out with my wedding officiant ad and so I anticipate getting calls for that soon, and I do hope I can muster up enough energy to perform the occasional wedding as we could use the money. I asked John not to work tonight because I was in need of getting settled in and didn't want to tackle it alone. One day's loss of pay means one of the utility bills doesn't get paid. Life sucks, but it goes on.

I realized that I won't be able to attend the final module of school—at least not with my classmates. I will have to make it up, but will have to do so with Winter track in a month or two. I hope to attend the final I-Group meeting and stick around for community closure so I can say my good-byes. I don't see how I could attend module with the severe dietary needs I have at the moment, as well as the total loss of energy I have. Not to mention the fact that I was instructed not to lift anything more than 10 pounds, and I haven't even gotten my ostomy supplies yet because I left without getting that from the doctor this afternoon. I'll get it on Tuesday.

Getting the ostomy supplies set up should be a process since I'll get it mail order from a place in Seattle. Hopefully they will have good service and I will enjoy working with them. When I called them today to request a catalog they were very friendly and helpful and were looking forward to doing business with me.

Well, I'm getting ready to try to sleep. Hopefully I will sleep not from sheer exhaustion, but that's probably how it will be.