Is anybody reading this thing anymore? I mean other than family that knows what is going on anyway? I feel like I'm talking to a wall here, which isn't doing much for my motivation to keep blogging. Between that and the fact I am not comfortable sitting for extended periods of time, I just haven't been blogging much at all lately, so if you are reading these, let me know.

Anyway, things are progressing nicely, now. I've been spending a lot of time lounging around trying to heal, and I think I'm making good progress. The power outage sucked. Because of the storms, we lost power for 24 hours, had it turned back on for maybe 2 hours, and then off again for another 10 or so. Cold house, cold food... luckily we have a little wood stove and putting a Duraflame log in there was enough heat to heat up a kettle of water for things like tea and hot chocolate. We also discovered you can roast marshmellows over a candle.

Recovery-wise, I'm doing good. I found another staple in my stomach that we missed when taking them out in the hospital. I had my follow-up appointment with my doctor yesterday and he removed the final staple. The steri-strips are all gone too, so now it just looks like a healing up ax wound to my stomach. The incision starts a couple inches above my belly button and continues down, curves around my belly button, all the way down until about 4 inches below my belt line. He also gave me a couple pictures they took of my colon. I'm not exactly sure what a healthy colon looks like, but it's hard to escape the fact that after looking at mine, it's obvious mine was not healthy.

I was supposed to have an appointment or two with my ET nurse by now, but that hasn't happened.... which is somewhat discouraging. Granted the power outage put them behind schedule too, but all things considered, I think they definitely dropped the ball on this. I'm a new patient with a stoma and for 2 weeks now I've been just figuring it out on my own. I ran out of bags and had to get ahold of my doctor to get me a prescription for refills, which I then had to get filled... this is stuff I should have been talking to the ET nurse about. She was supposed to be showing me how to deal with this and making sure it was being taking care of correctly. With the holidays though, she was out of town and then losing power.... I sorta just fell through the cracks I guess. I've been at times feeling like depression was trying to grab hold of me too over this... just kind of a lot to deal with and having somebody that knew WTF was going on and how best to handle it would have been nice. I keep having to tell myself that this is only temporary... best case scenario is that right now it IS only temporary, but there is a definite possibility, even though a small one, that it will be permanent.

Anyway, the doctor said that it's probably another 6 weeks at the earliest that I'd be able to have the reversal, or reconnection, surgery. He also said that now we're on MY timeframe rather than the cancer's, so I could wait a year or more if I really wanted to. I told him that I'd probably want to do it sooner rather than later and he said that part of the reason to wait is because he wants me to have a good experience with the ostomy. He wants me to really understand it and learn how to cope with it effectively so that later on, if it becomes advisable to remove the j-pouch, I'll know all about living with the ostomy. He doesn't want me to fear the ostomy challenges and end up suffering longer with a failing j-pouch just because I'm afraid of the ostomy. If I learn to live with it effectively now, then later on I'll always be able to make an informed decision as to how I want to proceed, whether with the j-pouch or reverting back to the ostomy. I certainly can't fault his logic, and am determined to really try and do my best to learn what I need to learn. I will say though that right now, the ostomy is a bit of a challenge, and I don't even leave the house hardly at all. It's hard for me to really accept living with this permanently without getting somewhat depressed, even though I've heard from a lot of people how once you become comfortable with it, it gets a lot easier. Meetin with the ET nurse probably would have progressed me further along down that road, so I just need to take it one day at a time and give it a chance.

So that's pretty much it for now. I'll try to write more often. If you want to see a couple pics of my colon, let me know. If you have a weak stomach, I wouldn't really suggest it. It's not REALLY gross in my opinion, but you can definitely see the disease. If you had any doubts about whether or not I REALLY had ulcerative coliitis and cancer, this will convince you completely.

-jk