Life's Journey

Since my last post there have been good days and bad days. I'm living on quite the rollercoaster lately. The healing from my surgery seems to be going well. I'm 3 weeks out from surgery today and I feel like it's healing well. I have a home health nurse that comes twice a week to help me change my entire colostomy set up. She's super nice, her name is Lupe, she is a petite girl with dark hair that often says "cool beans" which makes me snicker a little. I'm glad she is there to check my wounds and make sure that I know what I'm doing. And she checks all my vitals and tracks my overall health and pain levels.

Things seems to be "Flowing along" quite nicely with this new system. I was starting to become almost regular. Then I didn’t go for a day. Then another day. On day 3 I was sick. I was up all night vomiting. My stomach was bloated, I hadn't "pooped" in 3 days. I didn't sleep at all the night before, I was a hot mess. My tummy hurt, nothing was moving, I texted Michele who told me to come in for fluids. I went straight into the office. I'm so grateful to have Michele here holding my hand. She took me in an exam room to do a quick check on things and just to let me cry a little. Dr. Kim (the GI Surgeon) came in to do a quick exam of the stoma - he wanted to check for any noticeable blockage. He didn't find anything and wasn't sure what was causing my issues. We talked a lot about what to do next. They wanted me to go to the hospital where they would run scans to look for blockage and take appropriate action to alleviate. I was not super keen on let's go to the hospital so I asked for other options. He said I could go home after fluids with a super intense laxative. The deal was if I couldn’t keep the laxative down I had to go to the hospital. Or if I kept it down but things didn't start moving I was told to go to the hospital. The last thing I wanted was to end up in the hospital again so home treatment it was… I was instructed to drink half a bottle of Magnesium Citrate, this stuff is like the powerhouse laxative. It's like drinking a salt lick. It's really hard to keep down when you feel fine, in my condition I wasn't sure I could do it, but somehow I did. And eventually things started moving again. This was a horrible experience and something I didn't want to go through again. The next day I was still feeling better but noticed that nothing had passed. I thought maybe it was because I had just cleaned out my system and it would keep moving the next day. Well there was nothing the next day. Thursday, in the middle of the night, I woke up racing to the bathroom to find myself headfirst in the toilet vomiting… again. This was pretty violent though, there was an urgency that my body get that stuff out. Here I was starting the cycle again? What happened? What'd I do? I didn't understand and was feeling quite sick and quite frustrated. The next day was the bloating, vomiting, and no bowel movement. I went back to the doctor's office for more fluids and meds. Roy was able to drive me so they took advantage and drugged me up good! They gave me a super strong anti-nausea med that made me stupid loopy. Roy said I was talking in my sleep, reaching out for things that weren't there, responding to other people's conversations in the room… I was pretty out of it, which is exactly what I needed. This gave me a safe place to sleep and just let go since I finally stopped vomiting. Roy sat in a chair next to me and held my hand while I fell asleep. When I woke up I was feeling pretty loopy but slightly relieved from a small bowel movement. Hopefully this was the start of a trend in the right direction so I was sent home. But given the same warnings about vomiting and no movement meant go to hospital. I got home and within a couple hours I was vomiting again. It was really as though my body just had an urgency to get this stuff out of me, it was awful. I got through it and contained it but knew I had to get the bowels moving. Yesterday I drank 2/3 bottle of the magnesium citrate along with various softeners and laxatives. I was getting very nervous because nothing was passing. I was starting to feel some gurgling which I thought was a good thing but needed that to turn into more. I could tell that there was some thick stool that was holding things back but nothing I could do to fix it, just had to wait and hope for the best. Last night I woke up realizing it blew out and I needed help, I panicked and yelled for Roy to wake up because I needed his help. I contained as much as possible and ran to the bathroom and into the shower while Roy woke up realizing what had happened and went straight into "fix it" mode. We managed to get through the night but it was a long one. We both did things we never thought we would have to do and the cleaning continued into this morning. I'm like a skittish deer now… I feel a little better, not so full, no more pressure… but doesn't this mean that something wicked is about to follow? So far this seems to be the pattern? But this time we have something new, we are armed with nutritional information. Roy met the nutritionist at the oncology office and she gave him a bunch of info about good vs bad foods. The different reactions that food have, proteins, smoothies, eating habits, etc. We should have had this info before I was released from the hospital and maybe we could have avoided some of these crazy issues. Sigh All I can do at this point is be grateful that I have it now and follow it appropriately. Hopefully I will find balance and not have these struggles anymore.

These past few weeks have definitely challenged me.  I've been bottom of the barrel sad.  There has been a tremendous amount of pain.  I am humbled and humiliated.  I've had to fight as hard as I can just to get through that moment and on to the next.  It has not been easy.

I knew that having the colostomy surgery was going to be a life changer but I don't think I really understood how all-encompassing that would be. This impacts every aspect of my life. But if I can find balance I can find a better quality of life and get back to planning and enjoying the quality moments that I have - "cool beans!". There are still so many things that I want to see and experience, I'm not ready to give up on all that yet.

Sending hugs and smiles

Sarah