No colon, still rollin'

Hey Fam,

Yesterday unfolded as expected and the surgery went well. It’s always nice to hear your surgeon say everything went well, but it’s somewhat hard to believe when you hear it shortly after waking up and are in quite a bit of pain how that’s all a good thing. However, due to the good care and pain meds I actually feel surprisingly good today. It was a rough first night, as usual sleeping in the hospital is near impossible with the constant checking, but the pain from the major surgery was the main culprit. One of the many weird things about surgery is just because they operated in one location, doesn’t mean that random parts of your body won’t also hurt from how they held you down, manipulated you or due to trapped air (which oddly collects in your shoulders). All in all nothing unexpected and a reasonably smooth surgery, but a stark reminder that surgery just plain hurts no way around it.

This morning during the parade of doctors going through their rounds my surgeon asked me how I was doing to which I replied something like, well my abdomen hurts like hell. His response, yeah I might have had something to do with that - I appreciate him owning that. He’s happy with his work and even saved me from healing an extra hole by using the existing stoma site - so I still have my bag on the same side as before and only the large vertical incision to heal. He also moved me off of my clear liquid diet onto real food, which always improves my mood especially since the food at this hospital is actually pretty decent.

So the plan for the day is to hydrate, eat, rest and walk as much as I can to wake everything up and keep it moving. And that’ll likely continue for the next few days as I become reacquainted with my ileostomy.

Thanks for all the messages and support, I appreciate you all!

-Jim