Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The good, the bad, and the painful

About a month ago I ended up getting an infection beside my stoma. I saw the stoma nurse and she gave me some cream for it and by the time I saw the doc the next week things had cleared out enough that he found a left over stitch and pulled it out. Things had cleared up so I stopped using the cream. Then last week I noticed not only was that place back but I also had a place coming up on the other side of the stoma. I started using the cream but things weren't getting better. I changed my bag Sunday night then Monday morning I woke up to it leaking so I changed it again. I knew I needed to either call the stoma nurse or the doc but I was waiting for the mail to come because I had used my last bag and my supplies were suppose to be in that day. While I was talking to mom and telling her what was going on it started to leak yet again. I called the nurse, took off my bag, put a towel over it, and made a flying trip to Columbia. My doc ended up seeing me and dug around thinking there was another stitch causing this infection as well. He found nothing but it hurt...a lot. He isn't sure what is going on but said the one sure fire way to fix it is to remove my stoma. Sounds bad right...nope, it is the best news all day. To remove my stoma means getting my reconnection surgery. I jokingly said I would do the surgery tomorrow (Tuesday) if I could. He said he couldn't get me in that day but maybe Thursday then he winked at me as he walked out the door. I had the required CT done while I was there and now I have to wait and see what the results are. I am praying that everything comes back clean and I can get this over with. Unfortunately the rest of my day wasn't so good. The stoma nurse helped me get the bag on before the CT but it didn't get a very good seal because I had to change it later at Drew's house. Then I hand to change it again when I got home and then again later. In a 24 hour period I had to change it 6 times. Every time I take it off I feel like I am ripping another layer of skin off and the adhesive remover I use burns. It is bad enough that the next time I change it it will probably bleed. I feel like it almost had to get this bad so that I can go ahead and get my surgery. I will live, I will heal, and this way I will have more time to rest up before I get really busy with wedding stuff.

Stay tuned, I will post my results from the CT when I know them.

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