Started the week with a COVID swab, negative, all good there. PC visit Thursday, all good there, starting next on a new med similar to Cymbalta since that helped a ton. Pick it up Monday. Then super scope day prep after PC DR. No idea why they wanted me to have an enema, it's a stump, so I skipped that part, unnecessary. Did everything else properly. Was supposed to have lower endoscope to make sure there is no cancer so we can move on to Barbie butt reconstruction.
I get there and of course I'm the last patient of the day. Luckily I have the same anesthesiologist from the hospital, my GI doc who isn't doing the procedure is there, this was ordered by the surgeon. Now I'm told I'm having an upper endoscope, ileoscope, and a flex sig. I wake up after and they are putting a new appliance on me, the nurse seems new and to not know how to change and prep skin for a new appliance. In my propofol haze, I explain to clean it all up, use the adhesive remover so we are just dealing with clean skin, I tell her about the powder and how to go easy and spread it into the skin so you can barely see a light film, then use the Cavilon spray I have in my ekit and completely cover the powder and wait for it to dry, should not see any powder (I'm still in a haze and haven't opened my eyes). Instead of measuring, they asked me for stoma size so I told them to cut to 38mm and apply a barrier ring to the appliance, she says but it's too small (now I'm laughing with my eyes closed). I manage to open my eyes and tell her it's pliable and to just match the size of the appliance opening, getting her to giggle too. Appliance on (although it's a transparent emergency one, whatever, I like the Hollister adhesion plate so I can roll with this for a few days.
Still pretty out of it today but had breakfast and lunch in quick succession and took a nap. Woke up, noticed hey it's time to empty, go into the washroom, pull up shirt, entire left side of base has released, powder everywhere, appliance being held on by barrier ring only and right side of baseplate!
Welp, guess it's time to stomp upstairs and lay out change supplies. I get the old appliance off very easily and stoma is active so I'm taking my time but trying not to make a bigger mess, I get cleaned, powdered, and sprayed, dried. I remove the protection from the backing and the appliance sticks straight to the waste bag of the old appliance and dirty cleaning supplies, FML I silently yell into my head. Well, as luck would have it, the other night when I contemplated changing the appliance before the procedure, I had precut 2 bags. So I grab the spare and apply. I finished my change without a snow leopard wanting his bag changed too, but honestly would have liked that.
So for a fun Saturday night, I'm going to pre-cut 5 more bags.
Has anyone found a comfortable pair of appliance scissors? The free ones from the 3 companies are fine but uncomfortable and hurt my fingers.
Now I wait for the test results and a surgery date. And maybe a tip on good scissors.
The Dr loved Homie with a Stomie, by the way!
