Keeping hydrated

I've never been overly good at drinking as much water as I should, but now that I don't have a colon, this has become a more significant issue. As far as I know, the main job of the colon or large intestine is to slowly absorb water and salts from food as it passes through. If you don't have a colon, you don't get the benefit of this additional water and salt and, therefore, you both need to generally intake more through drinking and keep an eye on your hydration levels, because you can dehydrate very quickly (e.g. if you are sick) and this can be very dangerous indeed.

So... I've been trying to find good ways to remind and/or encourage myself to keep drinking. If anyone has any recommendations, I'd greatly appreciate them, as I'm genuinely finding this tricky; I simply don't think to drink and, as a result, am finding myself getting tired easily and having an increasing number of dehydration headaches.

So far, my attempts have included:

• having a refillable bottle at work, which I refill whenever I get a cup of tea (strangely enough, I don't have an issue with reminding myself to drink tea!) and endeavour to finish before I allow myself another cuppa;
• drinking fruit squash rather than water (squash should be added to my list of things for a hospital stay - they like you to drink loads in hospital, but water at room-temperature is hugely unappetizing; nearly everyone else on my ward had already learned this from experience and had a wide range of different flavours with which to improve their water);
• having a large glass beside me at home. I get frustrated having to constantly get refills, so having a large glass helps. I think I'm going to expand on this at work and get a jug so that I don't have to keep going to the water point.

Any other ideas? :)

Chilli fries!

Today, I ate chilli fries, one of my favourite foods. Chips, chilli con carne and cheese. Mmm, lovely!

I'd been putting this off for a good while due to the obvious concerns, but have had no problems so far and they were absolutely delicious. I'm feeling more "back to normal" every day, and this has definitely helped!

Wriggling around

Tonight, I'm feeling pretty uncomfortable. No cramps, no pain, no diarrhea, just a jolly irritating feeling in my behind, like I will shortly need to go to the toilet. I won't, of course, because everything comes out via my stoma now (with very rare exceptions), but it really feels like it and I'm finding it hard to keep still and seated!

I've been amused over the past few months at how relieved I am when I do actually have to pass stuff, because it reminds me of how things "used to work" (!) - who'd ever thought that anyone could miss sitting on the toilet, eh? - but this is just frustrating. Argh!

Can't. Sit. Still.