A Return to the Journey of 2011...Another Set Back

  Part 1

I haven't talked much about my ostomy. It was a painful thing both physically and emotionally. I couldn't handle it and all that it implied which is probably why it is a subject I have ignored.

I drove the ostomy nurses crazy because I wouldn't even try to learn to change the darn bag. I couldn't even look at the darn thing without my head spinning and the room going black. How was I supposed to clean it and touch it?

Of course I couldn't leave the hospital without provisions to care for this new, painful part of my anatomy. My solution to this problem was to have Dave care for it for me.

I'm pretty sure the ostomy nurses thought I was crazy when I told them of my an but they didn't know what I did about my husband. He had been the one to care for Lindsay's Hickman catheter back during her cancer treatment when I had reacted to that line protruding from my daughter's chest just as I was doing now to my own cancer aftermath. Dave hadn't even blinked at my request for him to care for Lindsay's line all those years ago.  I was confident he would willingly, once again, save me from a reality that was too much for me to handle.

Of course Dave never even flinched when I made my request. He asked when he needed to be at the hospital for his training in proper ostomy care and that was pretty much it.

Still the nurses were definitely concerned and kept trying to push me where I could not go until they actually met Dave. The three lessons they were convinced he would need turned out to be just one. My husband handled the reality every bit as smoothly as he had my request. To say he wowed the nurses would be an understatement and frpom that point forward I had no more issues with them trying to force me to handle a situation that caused such an extreme reaction.

The only problem had been that right from the start the ostomy nurses did not like the look of mine. Repeated comments were made about the tissue not looking right but the surgeon didn't seem concerned so that was it until my trip to the bathroom before I planned to leave for home.

As much as I could stand looking at the thing, I couldn't stand anything sitting in that bag. Because I felt intense pain anytime waste was getting close to being eliminated, I was acutely aware  of the arrival of material and I was always quick to see it didn't stay.

That is why I headed for the bathroom on that fateful day. Once inside I realized something was seriously wrong. The ostomy bag was filled with blood. No way was I heading home so I returned to my room and called a nurse.
The startled look on the nurse's  face confirmed my suspicions. She said she needed to call the surgeon. Two hours later I was on a gurney headed back to surgery.

As much as I needed a horse, I wouldn't be getting near one anytime soon. I laid on that gurney wondering what would become of them with my health deteriorating more each day. That question haunted me even as the drugs began to steal my consciousness so the surgeon's knife could once more split my abdomen from stem to stern.

To be continued......

Choices or Nightmares?