Sunday, November 20, 2011

changes...

This is my favorite time of year, from Halloween to New Year’s Day I love everything about it. I love that the weather changes as well as the time, all of the festive decorations, the family togetherness, the music, the holiday scents and flavors that only come around once a year and even the holiday shows that come on TV. I love this time of year. Thanksgiving and Christmas are my two favorite holidays but those holidays evolve around food and lots of it! Last year getting through those holidays was a blur between clean outs, work and going to Temple University Hospital twice. My goal every holiday season is to stay out of the emergency room due to holiday eating. Last Thanksgiving I was very lenient with my diet; this year I have to be more careful.

The past few weeks have been very vague. I went to see my surgeon a couple of weeks ago and my incisions look wonderful. He said that I need to talk to my GI doctor about my regulation issues. We discussed my nausea levels and if they have seemed to improve since the surgery and I told him that I hadn’t noticed any difference. After discussing my overall post-op condition he mentioned the idea of an ileostomy and how it had helped a fellow GP patient. I told him that I was happy with how I am doing regardless to the regulation issues. I was very thankful for him helping me surgically and relieving me of all those clean outs. He said if I needed him to give him a call.

I decided to give it another week before I called my GI doctor about the regulation issue. Since I have come home from the hospital I have used milk of magnesia several times to clean out and just doubled the dose to make it stronger. Unfortunately it was never efficient enough. I noticed that I started gaining weight and was becoming distended. How can someone gain weight when they are hardly eating; things are backing up internally. I called my GI doctor and drank a bottle of magnesium citrate while I waited. I was beginning to experience pressure pain and it felt as if my sides were going to rupture at times. As many times as I have fussed about drinking that terrible stuff I have to say it is very efficient at doing its job. My GI doctor finally did return my call and asked what was going on. I explained the whole situation and his suggestion was to continue taking my two Dulcolax that I take in the morning, my regular GP diet and a half bottle of magnesium citrate every day or every other – my choice. I chose to do the magnesium citrate every other day. Hopefully this will create some regularity for my system. If not we’ll go from there.

During this time in the back of my head I’ve been thinking a couple of things;

  • The surgeon told me that I would slow down going to the bathroom and that it would just take time.
  • I’ve been down this road before with my colon. Is this a repeat with my small intestines? Are they slowing down like my colon did?

I have known for a long time the possibilities and I’m okay with that. I have also been working on managing my personal stress. One day it just went off like a light bulb that I have to manage my stress. Stress is like throwing gas on a fire for me. It has got to where my stomach and intestines become knotted up and hurt, my pulse shoots up and flare ups seem to happen a lot easier. I have to manage my stress and stay calm which is perfectly fine with me. Who doesn’t like being less stressed?