Ostomy care

I never imagined having to deal with an ostomy, and am aware and grateful that it is a temporary thing for me.

Today,  my instructor,  Ruth from Petaluma,  wanted me  to  change the bag unaided and showed up at my room at 9:45. I went to the toilet to prepare myself and re-emerged to find that there was a member of the surgery team there,  too,  wanting to remove the last drain from my side (the catheter had been pulled in the middle of the night).

The process of replacing the bag is  a bit like a craft project,  you have to measure the circumference of your stoma and then cut a hole in the entrance of the bag to fit exactly,  then quickly put it in place and seal it. I was leaking because breakfast had passed through me quicker than expected,  so also had to try to keep the stoma clean and dry before putting the  new bag in place.

So I'm doing all this and trying to remember all the steps and the right order for them,  when the surgical assistant decided that this was the ideal time to remove the draining tube. To  say it was stressful would be an understatement -  dealing  with all  the yuckiness of the stoma and bag would have been quite enough,  thank you!

Anyway,  everything got done and I am now free of all unneeded attachments.  I also have my meds to take home and am basically free to go.  Woohoo!

Hospital

It's day 5 of my stay in  Kaiser SF. I'd been hoping to post more from here to record the minutia,  but it's not been happening,  so let's look back now.

Jean drove  me down on Thursday morning and it  was a fairly easy trip down.  We checked in and headed up to the Ambulatory Services Unit on the 4th floor,  which has been my home ever since.

Everything was smooth and pretty painless leading up to the procedure,  and the operation itself went on the blink of an eye (for me,  at least! Much more stressful for Jean who had to be conscious throughout the five hour procedure! )

I woke up to a fair amount of pain and the usual hospital bed frustrations (Not being able to move,  pain when trying to get up and walk,  etc.) But I was able to walk up and back down the corridor that first night,  which was encouraging.

Main problem with the room has  been the heating.  It is either stiflingly hot or ice  cold and the thermostat doesn't really give you a clue as to what it is doing and any tiny adjustment causes a dramatic change.  That aside,  all the nursing and support staff have been great.

The ostomy bag. I'm not going to be stuck with it forever,  thank  god, but will have to wear the horrible thing until my  chemo is done.  I got some initial instruction on Friday on how everything works and it kind of made  sense in my head,  but on Saturday a nurse came to actually change the bag,  and the full reality started to sink in.

Basically,  a part  of my small intestine is now sticking out and I need to make sure that it is always covered and that the bag covering it doesn't get too full.  I'm sure it will become second  nature before long,  but right now it's just icky in the extreme.

Had a close call with my Mp3 player.  I've been carrying it around most of the time in the breast pocket of the hospital gown.  On Saturday one of the support team came to help me wash and change and,  of  course, I  forgot to pull it out and it went off to be laundered.  Fortunately,  I realized what had  happened before too  long,  and before the laundry had left the ward,  so a kind nurse was able to dig it out for me.

Sorry for any typos in this.  I'll try to fix them later,  writing this seems to have wiped me out! 

Still here

I've got strong pain meds,  a colostomy bag and a catheter.  Doctors visited at 6:30 this morning and told  me everything is looking fine.  The only food  I've had since Tuesday is a small bowl of jelly.  The scars on my stomach are itchy,  but don't look too  bad.  Tired and hurting,  but relieved that they are telling me everything went to plan.

Could do with a table that moves better.

Staff are lovely and helpful.  I need to walk as much as possible.

The Night Before

I'm going through the same bowel preparation that I had to do for the colonoscopy way back at the start of this process. Gavilyte is not fun.  Today I have to have no solid food - tea, coffee and chicken broth are OK, but no fruit juice.  It's hard to go through a day without casual snacking!  Fortunately, our dear friend Kathy has provided us with a big pot of soup, so at least I will not have to prepare any food tonight!

I can feel my insides start to churn already - I'm about 1/3rd of the way through the big big big bottle of stuff I have to get through.

We leave for the City tomorrow morning - 10:30 arrival, so not too bad traffic wise, hopefully.  I've been waiting for this day for a long time.

Osmosis

Jean correctly deduced that I needed some stress reduction, so she booked us a session at Osmosis (https://www.osmosis.com/) - an enzyme bath followed by a 75 minute massage was just the thing to distract my mind from the upcoming event.  

Just 2 more days to sit through now until the "procedure", and one of those will be taken up with fasting and gavilyte (http://gavilyte.com/), so it doesn't really count as a day!

The tumour has officially shrunk!

Had a pre-operation meeting down in San Francisco with Dr Alkoraishi, who is to be my surgeon next Thursday.  Very encouraging - he gave me a physical exam and said that the tumour had shrunk from when he looked at it before, so all the radiation and chemotherapy have had the desired effect.  He said I should expect to be in hospital for 5 days, although he may release me after 4 if I'm lucky, and to plan to be off work entirely for two weeks, largely because of the pain meds, which is more or less what I was expecting.

It was a relief to get this done with - I've been waiting for something to happen for a few weeks now and just fretting about the operation is doing me no good at all, so it was nice to have some encouragement. 

So, 10 more days to go - I'll try to think of other things for at least some of that time, but I'm not sure how successful I will be!

I'm being very lax...

...with this blog thingy, but to be honest there is really nothing happening at the moment!



The San Francisco hospital phoned on Tuesday to go over my admission instructions.  I have to start practicing breathing to avoid pneumonia and I've got another one of those bloody great big bottles of Gavilyte to go through on the night before the operation and I need to swab myself off with anti-bacterial wipes the night before and the morning of.  Clear liquids only for 24 hours before the procedure - not too bad, as black coffee and tea count as clear liquids.

The procedure itself is minimally invasive - they make 5 incisions in the stomach and poke cameras and instruments through some of them and pull the things that they are cutting out through the other.  Sounds like a doddle!