OstomyMan

It’s weird having a spot that doesn’t feel. There’s a spot just below my ostomy on the “inside” (side closest to my belly button) that doesn’t have any feeling. If I push it, I can tell from the pressure change on surrounding parts, but about a 2″ square is still numb. This was explained as [...]

I’m sure I’ll revisit this topic a bunch of times over the next couple of years, but right now I don’t think I’m going to get a J-pouch right now. Maybe some day, but right now it doesn’t seem like the correct decision for me.
In talking with the surgeon about it over the last many [...]

On Thursday I went back to OHSU to have my first real check up. I met with the surgeon about 3 months ago, but he didn’t do much besides just talk with me and make sure everything was going well. So on Thursday I went back and got a “flex sig” (flexible sigmoidoscopy).
One aspect of [...]

Ok, this is sort of to justify why I have been so light on posting over the past month. I’ve been really busy. But it’s not just a justification. It’s also a success. I’ve been REALLY busy with work and family and everything over the past couple of months and it just keeps increasing. I [...]

This last weekend I headed out with some friends to go rafting. For more details about the trip itself, you can read about them on my personal blog here. I actually had a really good time despite the fact that I had my first real problem with a bag that I was unprepared to handle. [...]

For the last several months before I had my surgery, my feet swelled up. It was minor at first and we tried various things to solve it, but I was doing so poorly that even working from bed with my feet elevated the whole day didn’t solve it.
TPN helped and my feet went down in [...]

We’re coming up on 6 months here in a few days. I had my ileostomy surgery on February 27th, so in 3 more days it will officially be my semi-anniversary as an ostomate. I figured I’d take a look back over the last while and see if I could document some of the things that [...]

It’s a funny side effect, but I think now that I am feeling better, my eye sight is returning to normal. I used to have really good vision. My mom used to call me “Eagle Eye” because I could see things very far away. But as my health deteriorated, so did my eye sight. Last [...]

The other day I went to play laser tag for my little brother’s birthday party. It was the three adults versus about six little kids. I actually had a very good time playing, but the next day I was quite sore. My thighs haven’t done much work in the last few years with being sick [...]

I was warned before my surgery that I might have a numb spot on my stomach afterward. I wasn’t too worried about it, especially with how I was feeling, and since I figured the feeling would come back eventually.
It’s now been approximately four months since my surgery. Everything else is pretty well healed up and [...]