A year, almost to the day, I started a journey I did not know I would be on. On May 22nd, 2024, my husband took me to the emergency department as something did not feel right in my abdomen. I had been dealing with a kidney stone since May 19th, but this felt the same. It felt like what I described to my husband: like a puff of air had been released in my abdomen.
When the CT scan results came back, it showed I had a diverticulitis perforation. I knew my husband had diverticulosis, but not myself.
I woke up on May 23rd, after the surgery, in pain and with an ileostomy bag on my upper right abdomen.
During this past year, I dealt with the infection from the perforation, pneumonia, a prolapsed stoma, and a parastomal hernia. And the aggravating part of the whole journey was that it did not need to happen. On a CT scan done in 2018 after surgery to remove a kidney stone, the CT scan showed that I had diverticulosis, but neither my urologist nor GP said a thing. At that time, I did not have the ability to review my diagnostic imaging results online.
Now to the present. I am having stoma closure surgery on May 21st, 2025. The surgeon who is doing my surgery advised the surgeon who did my emergency surgery last year on how to perform the surgery in a way that my small and large intestines did not have to be separated. So, the surgery will only take 30 minutes to an hour to repair the parastomal hernia and perform the stoma closure surgery. I will be in the hospital for a couple of days, then a 3-week recovery.
I want to thank everyone for sharing their stories and advice, as you all helped me deal with the situation I was thrown into a year ago.
I wish you all well on your journey as an ostomate. Please keep giving each other positive support, but leave politics aside.
Take care all,
