The confidence-boost from a bit of red

When I was younger, I never had much of a courtship (or even acquaintance) with make-up and, now that I'm an adult, I only wear it maybe once or twice a week. When I do, it's usually just a bit of mascara and - if I'm feeling adventurous - some lipliner and lipstick. If I've got my compact on me, I'll add a bit of translucent powder.

My husband & I are members of the wonderful New Sheridan Club, a vintage-inspired social club, so it's no great surprise that my chosen lipstick is red (my favourite at the moment is Revlon's Matte lipstick and I'm always amused by the fact that my current shade is number 007), and I even occasionally attempt vintage hairstyles, thanks to encouragement and reassurance that they're not impossible given in videos on YouTube by beautiful people like Fleur and Lisa.

Since my hair has started to thin, though, and especially since I've been unable to do practically anything with it (bar wrap it up with a nice scarf), I've been scared of putting my usual hot sticks in and even pincurls seem out-of-bounds, as brushing out a set would probably leave me with hardly any hair at all...! Oddly, however, this limitation of my "beauty regime" to my face seems to have made me more enthusiastic about make-up. It makes sense, really: anything to both distract people from the top of my head and make me feel a little more self-confident.

I've always been amazed at the confidence automatically installed by the wearing of red lipstick. At first, of course, I was absolutely terrified and thought that everyone was looking at me and thinking that I looked like a two-year-old playing with her mum's make-up kit, but now I feel comfortable when I have it on and, more than that, when I do wear it, it lifts my spirits, makes me smile more and makes me feel better about myself.

I always try to be self-aware when it comes to make-up, because I wouldn't like to think that I would ever not be able to not wear make-up, but right now I really appreciate the little brightening effect that that splash of red gives me.

Cramps & sleeping upright

The past few days, I've been feeling a bit under the weather, especially in the general stomach area. I've been getting a cramp or stitch-like pain that comes and goes, but is worse after eating, and my stomach is bloated and tender.

This all started two nights ago. We were watching a film and, at about 7pm, I had a banana. Two or three hours later, I was starting to feel peckish again and was getting strong urges for something salty, so I had a few crisps. About ten or fifteen minutes later, I started to get a cramping sensation just below my ribcage. I've had this once before and was not enthusiastic about the prospect of reliving my previous experience...

Previously, I had tried to simply ignore the pain and go to sleep, but the pain gradually got worse. It came and went, a bit like contractions, and no position seemed to ease them (staying perfectly still, regardless of position, seemed to be the most helpful). I thought that it must be something like indigestion, so got up and walked around for a bit. Then I was violently sick, repeatedly. I spent the following seven hours in a vicious, painful cycle: stay still, be sick, move, worsen pain, desperately try to stay still again...

Yes, so I was a little wary when I started to feel the twinges of pain at the top of my abdomen. I slept sitting up in a chair in the living room, since lying down made it worse before, but, fortunately, it didn't get much worse and I wasn't sick. Unlike last time, though, the cramping has continued for two days now. I'm going to call my GP tomorrow and see what she says.

I can't deny that a part of me is worried that this might be something more sinister than indigestion. Namely, Crohn's Disease. What if something has started up in my small intestine? What if it worsens and they need to operate on that, too? What if they have to remove some of it? How much could they remove? Surely you can't survive without any intestines?!

Argh. I'm being ridiculous, I know. I'm not noticing any major changes in output, so no diarrhea. If anything has started, it's not as bad as it was before, so they would try different medications first. Of course, it could just be something that I've eaten or some kind of reaction to my previous surgery. It could be a bug or something. I really have no idea, so I'm officially going to stop worrying (before I get an ulcer!).

In good news, my sleep is - generally - back to normal now, which is something that I've forgotten to mention previously. I sleep on my side most of the time now, which is perfectly comfortable, and I don't greatly miss sleeping on my stomach. If I eat at the right times before I go to bed, I don't even have to get up for up to six hours to empty my bag, something that I couldn't even imagine as a possibility a few months ago.

Waiting out the hair loss

So... my hair's still falling out, but it's also still falling out pretty evenly all over, so I continue to be grateful for that. I've undertaken a number of steps to battle/slow down/cover up this, which I thought I'd list here.

• I'm taking vitamin B supplements in addition to my daily chewy multivitamin, as recommended by a pharmacist (if you've got an ileostomy, best to check with a pharmacist about which ones are best for you - I've read that some coated tablets sometimes don't completely digest within the small intestine and so will just pop out into your bag without helping in the slightest).
• I'm also eating various foods that are supposed to be good for your hair, including liver, which I've really never eaten before. It's not that bad, honest.
• When I do wash my hair, I'm using a 2-in-1 children's shampoo & conditioner, which - as well as being gentle and no-tears - smells lovely, of strawberries. It also means that I only have to put one product on in the shower, thus reducing the amount of hair that I - unintentionally - pull out every time I touch my head.
• I normally wash my hair every day, but am currently trying to only do so every other day. On my "off" days, I use the Batiste dry shampoo that was so brilliant when I was in hospital, which freshens my hair up when I brush it (without any extra hair-pulling).
• My mother-in-law bought me a new hair brush that's supposed to encourage healthy hair growth by stimulating the scalp. A very good friend who's also going through a similar experience following surgery has bought a Tangle Teezer, which she said was v. good at brushing hair and detangling at the same time, which results in fewer hairs falling out. I might look to getting one of these, too.
• Finally, I'm experimenting with hair scarves and bands to try and cover up the increasingly noticeable skin beneath my parting (as seen below). I sometimes curl my hair in an attempt at a vintage style, so the picture with the scarf was following a tutoral by Antje from the Fedora Lounge. Another great thing about this style was that the scarf "boosted" my thinning hair from underneath, making it appear like it had more volume (although it doesn't look like it in this phone-camera pic, unfortunately). It made me feel a lot better about my appearance, not having to see my increasingly-bald patch at the front (even if no-one else notices it, I do!). Definitely worth the £2 for the scarf!

The day that alcohol was not my friend

I am seriously ashamed. The other day, I was drunk. Very drunk. So drunk that I was ill, which has only ever happened once before (when I was much younger and more naive), and it was completely my own fault.

I've mentioned before that my husband & I go to some gin events. My favourite tipple is scotch whisky. We enjoy alcohol and probably drink more of it than lots of people we know, but it's very rare that we drink excessively. When I had recovered from my operation to the point where I felt strong enough to try a drink, I did. And I was fine. No problems whatsoever. So the next time we were out, I tried two drinks, and - again - I was okay. The other day, I was not okay.

I know why I wasn't okay: I didn't drink enough water. I was ridiculously stupid. There was one pitiful moment where I went to the bathroom, only to be shocked at seeing my bag. I had genuinely forgotten that it was there and - more seriously - that I now dehydrate even more quickly than I used to. Subconsciously, I think I wanted to forget about it and just "be normal" again for the evening. I think this is covered in my occupational health report by the comment that I "haven't yet come to terms with the long-term effects of [my] illness". <sigh>

The main reason I'm posting this is to encourage anyone with a new ileostomy to keep on top of their hydration, especially when drinking alcohol and in the warmer weather. From various forum threads that I've read, alcohol seems to effect different ileostomates differently (some people find themselves less likely to get drunk than beforehand, whereas others have given alcohol up completely), but the lesson that I've learned - the hard way - is two-fold:

1. Take it slow. So slow that there's absolutely no danger of your "forgetting" to take it slow. Basically, ensure that you stay self-aware.
2. Keep yourself well-hydrated.

I'm going back to only having two (alcoholic) drinks on an evening out and we'll see where things go from there.

A good bag-changing experience, yey!

I had a really good bag-changing experience today. This was a surprise, because I had been getting a slight pain around my stoma that normally suggests red-raw skin. When I took the old bag off, my stoma immediately shrank to the touch, which gave it the appearance of feeling rather sorry for itself (!). Despite this, the skin around the edge wasn't too bad, with just a few millimeters of redness that should disappear in a couple of days with some protective powder giving it a chance to heal.

What I was really pleased about was that I tried a smaller cut-out today. Given the redness around the sides, I decided to try making the hole in my bag a bit less wide. The last time I tried this, my stoma decided to rebel and expand as much as it could to avoid fitting through this smaller hole, which meant a hasty re-cutting, which obviously provided an excellent opportunity for said stoma to start playing up and spouting stuff everywhere. Grr. That was a not so great bag-changing experience, but it's only happened the once.

I've found that if I'm not lazy and get up at a reasonable hour, shower, and change my bag all before 10am, then my stoma is calm and easy to care for. It's also smaller (narrower, at least), because it's not passing anything, and so is easier to put a bag onto.

I suppose it's worth noting here as well that my stoma is quite long. Not seriously prolapsed or anything, but varies in length from about 1 to 2 inches and always points downwards (the "top" side is longer than the "bottom" side). At first, I was a little upset by this, as my stoma didn't look anything like the neat, circular bobbles in all of the leaflets I was given, but now I am grateful for this, as it means that all output goes immediately downwards, into the bag, and doesn't hang around near the stoma (or, more importantly, the sensitive skin surrounding it). One day, no doubt, I'll muster enough courage to put a photo on here to show people what I mean and show that not all stomas are textbook in appearance.

Now... time for a cup of tea, I think!

Hair loss, Part 2

Something else that this process has taught me... your hair grows in cycles. At any one time, a proportion of your hair stops growing and is ready to fall out (whilst the rest continues to grow). If you undergo major surgery, are ill, underweight, or very stressed, these cycles can be interrupted. This doesn't have an immediate effect, but 1-3 months later, a much higher proportion of your hair is ready to fall out, and does. More details can be read here.

This is what my GP said at my appointment. She also mentioned that it was to be expected and that there wasn't anything that could be done to stop it, but that it shouldn't result in bald patches or anything (no matter how much seems to fall out every time I wash my hair!), but more a more-or-less overall thinning of my hair. Good news, although I'm still wary about washing it... Oh, if only a cool shower didn't feel so good during this horrid warm spell!

I have a wedding to attend at the end of July, so my current plan is to do absolutely minimal styling until then and then either curl or blow-dry it for the wedding to try and hide the lack of volume, maybe wear a thick hair band/big accessory or something (to hide my parting, rather than draw attention to my head).

Now, I've got to decide whether or not to try keeping this bag on for another day. It's been on for three so far and looks okay - not great, a bit dry around the edges, but nothing's pealing away - and I'm tempted to try it for four. Then again, we're planning on going on a walk to the coast later and I'm not sure I want to have an accident on the way. Hmm. Decisions, decisions. I think I'll have a cup to tea whilst I decide!