Another Thumbs Up

Today, I saw my surgeons for my first followup since surgery last week.  They are happy with the healing across the board.  The JP opening is closing nicely and is looking healthy.  The sutures around the anus are a little swollen due to the surgery, but should subside as time goes on.  At some point down the road (few weeks), these sutures will actually have to be removed as they don't actually dissolve.  Somehow, this doesn't sound like much fun, but here's to pain killers.

The penrose drain is still in and will eventually work it's way out.  They trimmed up the end today so there is less hanging, but there is little drainage compared to last week.  This is mainly because the irrigated site is now healing and when they first irrigate, the drain does it's job by allowing the irrigation to seep out.  Once the drain falls out, we have to pack the wound.  I actually got to see it this morning it's much bigger than I thought:  It's about the size of my thumb in my left buttock.  How it doesn't hurt more, I have no idea because that's a damn big hole to have in your body.  They mentioned that is highly likely that I'm going to have a scar there, but considering it's my buttock, I can't see it, and it's unlikely I'm in the market for an ass modeling career, I'm not too concerned, as long as it heals and doesn't impact me.

I'll be off the zyvox (antibiotics) in the next two days, which is a huge step.  Hopefully, the body is okay with it and we can continue forward:  I've been waiting to be off these things for 7 months now.  We are tapering the steroids over the next 3-4 weeks.  Again, a huge step after being on them for the last 7 months as well.  Let's hope we can rid ourselves of these drugs:  Now to me, that's living.

I met with my ostomy nurse ("Ostomom" we've affectionately named her) to go over my stoma changes, stomach changes, and best options for ostomy supplies.  As always, she was flying with options and things that would work best for me.  She had a few extras and gave them for me to try over the course of the next few weeks.  She thought that using a convex wafer was our best option, especially with my changing stomach and my shrinking stoma.  She isn't too concerned about the "height" of the stoma, considering it's still protruding from the stomach, just not as much as we'd hoped.  Her thought is the stomach is still a little distended and swollen from surgery and as I return to 'normal", this should allow to stoma to "stand up".  Honestly, at the rate I'm eating, I'm not sure that I'm actually going to continue to lose weight.  (Need to see where I'm at actually, was down to 145 lbs the other day, which is still pretty high, considering the past two weeks.)

The pain today has been through the roof.  Traveling to the hospital in the car was terrible, but coming home after the surgeons worked over my backside was agonizing.  Popping percocet didn't even cut it:  It was just a matter of struggling through it.  Once home, lying down in front of the World Cup matches definitely helped and allowed the pain meds to kick in.  Thankfully, that's behind me at this point and here's to the weekend being smooth.  Not sure what it's going to be like as the drain works it's way out, but we shall see.

World Cup - If you aren't watching, you missing the greatest sporting event ever.  USA vs. England tomorrow.  Now where did I put the face paint from Halloween?