It's been awhile since I have posted anything, and a lot has happened.

I was diagnosed with a rare from of appendix cancer last Oct, at which
time I had emergency surgery due to a perforated bowel. I was given a
temp ileostomy at that time. In Feb of this year, I had what we refer
to as "The Mother of all Surgeries" to remove the cancer. The surgery
lasted 10 hours and involved a very potent chemo during the surgery.
The recovery was pretty rough and long. It took about 7 weeks before I
was ready to go back to work. There was a concern that if they had to
remove too much of my intestines, the ostomy would become permanent,
but they were able to save most of them, so it was still a temp. I was
hoping they would reverse it during that surgery, but they didn't. The
surgeon said I should come back in 4 to 6 months for a followup surgery
and at that time they would reverse the ileostomy.

Well, on July 6, I returned for my followup exploratory surgery and
ostomy reversal. Everything went well. They did find some benign tumor
that they removed, and they also removed another 18 inches of my small
intestines. But they did reverse the ileostomy (whoo hoo!). I spent 12
days in the hospital before heading home to finish my recovery.

It has now almost been 4 weeks and I am going to go back to work on
Wed. As for the reversal, my colon is still getting used to being
active. At first I was having about 10 to 15 bms a day and a lot of
diarrea. My doctor said to take Immodium after every bm, which I
started to do last Wed after having my stitches removed. The stool is
still loose, but the bms are down to about 6 to 8 a day. I'm not sure
how long it is supposed to take to get back to normal, hopefully not
too much longer. While I am glad to be rid of the bag, there were times
after having to go to the loo every hour, the ostomy seemed not so bad.

As for my cancer, the pathology report from the latest surgery showed
no more cancer. So as of now, I am cancer free. My only concern now is
recurrence. There is a lady that had surgery shortly after I did in
July that had a recurrence and she was given a perm ostomy. I have
learned that I can live with an ostomy, but my prayer now is that I
will remain cancer free and bag free.

Kevin

On Aug 1, 2004, at 6:54 AM, ileostomy@yahoogroups.com wrote:

>
> There are 2 messages in this issue.
>
> Topics in this digest:
>
> 1. Hi everyone- post an update!!
> From: "Kez" <crohnszone@...>
> 2. Hi everyone- post an update!!
> From: "Kez" <crohnszone@...>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 01 Aug 2004 08:51:46 -0000
> From: "Kez" <crohnszone@...>
> Subject: Hi everyone- post an update!!
>
> Hi everyone- how are you all doing?
>
> Why don't we all check in with a health update?
>
> I'm good at the moment. Still in remission in the bowel I use (I have
> some bypassed by an ileostomy). Some might recall that a while back I
> mentioned my ileostomy would be permanent because the Crohn's had
> flared up in the leftovers. Well, those leftovers seem to have
> improved and I am being booked in for a sigmoidoscopy after which the
> surgeon will be happy to reconsider reconnective surgery if my
> feeling of improvement is confirmed.
>
> So- don't give up hope. These bowels can eventually be brought to
> heel!
>
> Kez
> xxx
>
> PS- post your updates!!
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 01 Aug 2004 08:50:45 -0000
> From: "Kez" <crohnszone@...>
> Subject: Hi everyone- post an update!!
>
> Hi everyone- how are you all doing?
>
> Why don't we all check in with a health update?
>
> I'm good at the moment. Still in remission in the bowel I use (I have
> some bypassed by an ileostomy). Some might recall that a while back I
> mentioned my ileostomy would be permanent because the Crohn's had
> flared up in the leftovers. Well, those leftovers seem to have
> improved and I am being booked in for a sigmoidoscopy after which the
> surgeon will be happy to reconsider reconnective surgery if my
> feeling of improvement is confirmed.
>
> So- don't give up hope. These bowels can eventually be brought to
> heel!
>
> Kez
> xxx
>
> PS- post your updates!!
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
> _______________________________________________________________________
> _
>
>
> The Ileostomy Group is part of Crohn's Zone IBD Network at
> www.crohnszone.co.uk
>
> |Ostomy Forum:
> http://www.bowelweb.com/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewforum&f=4
>
> |Ostomy Chat: http://www.bowelweb.com/chat.html
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> -
>
>