Ostomy Tips, Tips for Ostomies, Prune Juice to Moderate Paramecium Outbreaks, Glad-handing Your Way to Success, et al

It took me 20 years to realize that I could empty my one-piece appliance WITHOUT tearing it off and replacing it wholesale. For some reason, when I tell people that story, they think I’m joking! I’m forced into showing them boxes full of receipts and how I was going through $1500 worth of ostomy appliances per month. Long story short, I saved myself a TON of time and money when I realized that I could just REATTACH the damn bag after each cleansing. Gees, Dave.

The Ostomy/Wound Nurse talked to me shortly after my surgery, but it did not go as planned. I’m in bed as she’s discussing dietary restrictions and probable adjustments to a person recently-disemboweled. She made it as far as “tacos!” before I involuntarily expressed my great displeasure with her discussing ANYTHING food-related!

I’ve undergone my fair share of surgeries, and for a lot of different reasons, but what I’ve learned over time is that I am a magnet for attracting complications. The morphine drip was making me itch, so someone had the bright idea of introducing Benadryl to the mix. That put me into respiratory distress, and I didn’t have the pulse-ox meter on my finger, either, so there was no alarm tripped out at the nurses station. I woke up to quite a sight. There must have been at least six medical personnel standing around the bed. I could hear bells ringing, and my lips and tongue felt so dry and swollen that I couldn’t speak. Wow, something has gone very wrong! They had hit me with Narcan. But at some point I had to re-introduce the morphine into my body. Of course, I had to press the little morphine goddess drip controller thingy. The feeling was immediate and devastating. It was one huge electric pulse that just buried me in pain. When it was time to push the little morphine goddess drip controller thingy again, I was less than enthusiastic. Fortunately, it wasn’t nearly as much of a shock to my system.

My one over-arching memory was when they moved me from recovery to my room, and then when they lifted me onto the bed. I’m talking about the pain. My mom was on the left side of the bed, while my twin brother was on the right side of the bed. Each was holding a hand. I remember groaning, over and over, “Oh, my God!” “Oh, my God!” “Oh, my God!”

Thank goodness I didn’t end up with an upper limb DVT and HA-MRSA. That was going to have to wait a year for a botched left shoulder rotator repair surgery! 🤷‍♂️😷🤒🤧

CLARIFICATION: The first paragraph is not real! Although, it can be the stuff of nightmares …👻👻👻👻💀💀☠️☠️🎃🎃👺👺

You may be one of the reasons they call it medical practice… Sorry, I couldn't resist…

Hope things improve for you going forward… jb

Count me among those surprised that you were changing the one piece every time it needed emptying. I am also surprised your skin did not become irritated with such frequent changes. It was really irresponsible of your medical team to release you without basic ostomy management instructions. I always have difficulty getting across to doctors that morphine does nothing for me. I usually have to suffer unnecessarily in pain until higher dosages still provide no benefit. Morphine and codeine are two pain relievers that are impotent in reducing pain for me. I was finally advised to list in my chart that I was allergic to them — that has finally worked.

DVT, MRSA, been there. Had it. No fun. Still suffering with DVT though several years now.

The kicker with having a twin brother is... imagine him grabbing the nurse or doctor, teeth grinding. Saying, "We. Are. In... pain... help. He can't hurt you, but I will." 👍

13 years later, and I have a partial left shoulder replacement. I love the surgeon who did the operation, but not for the doctor that butchered me. The doc who butchered me was the one who did the secondary operation to deal with the infection. OK, that apparently went fine. But like I said, complications. It’s the day after the secondary operation and a physical therapist comes into the room and wants to move the arm and shoulder around while I’m in bed. Not long thereafter, while I was talking to a relative on the telephone, and without looking down at the gown at the time I said it, I mentioned something about how much I was sweating, yet the room wasn’t even warm! Then I looked down, and it wasn’t sweat, the drain had let loose and things got dicey pretty quick, let me tell you. I lost so much blood so fast, that I became acutely anemic essentially while I was bleeding out. I remember a 30-year veteran charge nurse, who was trying to apply direct pressure, whispering to a counterpart to get ahold of a supervisor. By that time, they had my feet dangling over the edge of the bed, and of course, I was in the complete head and shoulder slump position because I’d lost so much of my precious bodily fluids. Oh, the memories! But wait, it gets even better!

Two days later, a different physical therapist walks into the room, saying that she was there to get me ready for physical therapy class or whatever the heck it is, rehab stuff. Well, I wasn’t sitting in my bed. I was sitting in a chair to the left of my bed, and without warning, the physical therapist walks up to me in the chair and yanks a towel or some damn thing from under my left elbow, which, of course, was resting on the left armrest of the chair. She yanked that towel from under my elbow just like a magician would who’s trying to pull a tablecloth out from underneath a bunch of high-end cutlery and Chinawear, or whatever the heck it’s called. My reaction was entirely predictable. I let out a burst of relatively unrestrained profanity, while shifting my weight slightly to the right, as I’m balling up my right fist to punch her in the face. Which, I did not. I did, however, contact the head of rehab and told her I did not want to see her employee, I did not want to hear her employee’s voice, and, in fact, I did not want her employee anywhere in the building while I was undergoing shoulder rehab. I never saw her, nor heard her, anywhere in the building for several weeks. Small victory, but I’ll take it.

My Ostomy Journey: April | Hollister