Wednesday 23 November 2011

Full of cold

Today, I'm full of cold: stuffed up, slowed down, and not hungry, which always frustrates me, because I usually look forward to every meal. My meals, even more so now that I have been through bowel rest (being told not to eat, to give your digestive system a break), help me to structure my day and make me feel comfortable. Thus, not feeling hungry makes me feel a bit alien in my own skin.

I have to admit, it also seems a bit odd to feel so ill without being really ill. By which I mean, not hospital-bound or life-threateningly ill, but still feeling downright awful. This is the first time I've been properly ill since my surgery in April and it took a good hour's of strained thought this morning (whilst I lay half-awake because I couldn't breathe regularly enough to sleep) before I convinced myself that it was okay to have the day off of work. I didn't want to, because we're really busy at the moment and I feel a little like I keep letting people down, but, you know what, it might be "just a cold", but it can still mean that you're too sick to go to work (let alone expose everyone else in the train, bus and office to it). That's okay. Just because I have inflammatory bowel disease doesn't mean that I have to "save up" my sick days in case I need them to cope with that.

So today, I'm sitting at home, wrapped up in multiple blankets and my favourite pyjamas, and looking forward to regaining my appetite before our planned Thanksgiving dinner on Friday (being in the UK, we've never had a Thanksgiving dinner before, but thought we'd give it a go).

I tell you something, though, nothing has prepared me for the bizarre sensation of sneezing with an ileostomy! Maybe it's just me, but I have to put one hand/tissue to my nose and the other across my stoma to support it. Nothing worse than a twinge of pain has resulted when I don't, but it feels more comfortable.

Sunday 20 November 2011

Birthday treats

Today, I am twenty-six (I won't say how old that seems!). I've been through quite a bit in my twenty-sixth year, so decided to take it easy this weekend. I'd planned to drive and visit my parents and see my best friend & lovely Godson, but, two days ago, I started getting bad pains in my lower abdomen and my appetite disappeared. By Saturday morning, the pains had worsened, output was watery and my stomach had become painful and tender, so I couldn't drive. This left us on our own at home; an even more quiet birthday than planned.

I'm pleased to say that my pains have eased today, so we've been celebrating with a bit of champagne, chocolates, a few slices of pizza and lots of horror movies (most starring Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price). Not the birthday I'd planned, but a very pleasant one nonetheless. I'm looking forward to seeing family this time next week, when hopefully these random symptoms will have disappeared for good.

This little chap, a birthday present from a good friend, has been sitting beside me throughout the weekend; isn't he great?


Thursday 17 November 2011

Back to normal

I don't mean to jinx anything (*touches wood*), but the past couple of days, I've honestly felt that I'm back to normal. Well, the new version of normal-with-an-ileostomy.

For some reason, this seems to have been reinforced by the fact that I'm sitting in my favourite chair after a lovely cup of tea, about to start some knitting (cunningly ignoring my ironing pile), and listening to my amazing husband decide which are his top five introductions to Beatles songs. :) It's good to be back.

Saturday 12 November 2011

My first major leak

I haven't written in a while, because things have generally been going really well: I haven't had any further symptoms, my scar's faded from the vibrant pink that it was a couple of months ago, and my stoma has been behaving itself. I've also learned a lot about how my body digests food and thought that I knew, at least roughly, when I would need to empty my bag, so the need to do so had started to seem like less of an inconvenience and more of something that just happened.

Yesterday, though, I had my first major leak. I posted ages ago on once waking up in the morning to find half of my bag coming loose in the night, but I now realise that even calling that a "near-leak" was wholly inappropriate. Nothing about that experience can compare to the horror and embarrassment that I felt when I reached the bathroom, went to lift my ostomy belt and realised that there was output everywhere between my bag and my skirt. 

Fortunately, I was both at home by the time that I realised this and had loads of layers on (handy, output-catching layers). We'd just returned from a meal out at Pizza Hut and a brief trip to Tesco, so all I can think now is thank goodness I didn't go to the bathroom and find it out there. 

Argh. I'm not going to let this get me down too much, but it's frustrated me more than I'd anticipated. I had a little cry after I'd cleaned myself up and my wonderful husband gave me a hug and I felt better, but I can't help but still find it worrying that I'd effectively soiled myself without realising. I literally had no idea about it until I went to empty my bag.

After taking some time to reflect, I realised that there had been a couple of signs. Firstly, just before we went to the restaurant, the skin underneath my bag was pretty itchy. Also, yesterday morning, the side of my bag that eventually leaked looked odd after I had showered, like the water had effected it more than usual; I assumed it would dry out and all would be okay. On top of this, I had had such a wonderful - and distracting - meal with my husband that I didn't empty my bag at all whilst we were out, which wasn't a great plan. 

Ah well, at least it's happened now and I know that I coped with it, even if there were a few tears. None of this is worse than the symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease and I'm still alive thanks to my ileostomy, so I'm taking it as another baby step - albeit a slightly more messy one - on the road back to normality. And I'm so close!