Firstly, massive apologies for such a ridiculously long time between posts. I started back at work and seemed to run out of time! So I left my story at the point I was about to go in for an urgent total colectomy.
There I was, laying on my hospital bed, tears pouring down my face while I let the news of my predicament sink in. Oddly enough, somehow I Felt that it was something I had done! Like I had not taken my illness seriously enough, and if I'd managed it differently, then I wouldn't have got this bad! Of course this isn't the case, but it's odd the short of things that go through your mind at a time like this. I had no more time to think about this, as suddenly two nurses came bustling in with the tube for my nose I had been warned about.
It was a long tube that had to go up through my nose and down the back of my throat right into my stomach. As one nurse pushed the tube, I had to drink a glass of water, so that as I swallowed, the tube could go down. Well, despite telling them minutes before that I wasn't sure such a procedure was necessary, the second I began to swallow water, l was heavily sick, with a nasty, fecal smelling liquid. It went all over me and the bed, and they put a bowl under my lap, all too late. Again, oddly, I was apologising to them - as if I had had too much to drink or something else self inflicted. Once the tube was in my stomach, one of the nurses, attached a syringe to the end of the tube and aspirated off the rest of the fluid in my stomach. There was a surprising amount.
I had to remove my pyjamas, due to the mess that had been created, and the bed had to be changed, and then I was left alone in my hospital gown with my saline drip, and my mobile phone. I texted my husband, my mum and my sister with the latest news about surgery in just a few hours and then, I texted a work colleague to tell them, so they knew I wouldn't be in in the morning!
Then, the floodgates opened! Massive, completely incontinent diarrhoea! It kept going through the night, and I discovered that hospital incontinence pants are brilliant! Every time I went to the loo, I thought "tonight is the last time I am ever going to go to the loo conventionally. It was a weird feeling. I was sort of sad in one sense and relieved in another.
Nine o'clock in the morning came, and four surgeons came into my room. They asked how I was feeling and I explained I was feeling very much better since the uncontrollable diarrhoea over night. The head surgeon felt my abdomen, explained that the x-xray showed three strictures in my large intestine and pressed where each one. Was. He then said that the blockage has obviously been cleared, and there would be no surgery today.
I just looked at him blankly. "No surgery today? When will it be then?"
He was already half way out the door by now. He simply shrugged his shoulders, muttered about it depending who was more urgent on the waiting list and walked out.
I was completely dumbfounded. And now had no idea what the next step was. The next nurse that came in also had no idea, and had to chase the surgeons down the corridor to find out what the next step for me was if surgery was no longer happening today.
I was quite worried that this meant I was about to be sent home after all this. Only to have it all happen again in a week's time. It turned out that I didn't need to worry about this. As I was to be in hospital for some time yet!
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