*A real j-pouch dream before having to wake up and empty my j-pouch.
I had to visit a doctor because I was having problems with my j-pouch. It had an unusually high volume and I had no explanation for this. I scheduled an hour block with the doctor because he wanted me to have a bowel movement in front of him. He wanted to watch me to see if anything was wrong with me. I went in and didn’t question this strange form of treatment.
The doctor’s office was a large, white room, six times as large as any doctor’s office I’d ever been in. The toilet was in the middle of the room with no privacy. I sat down and immediately had to go to the bathroom. I sat on the toilet for a long time, the stool kept coming out.
The doctor eventually came in the room, talking to another person. He hadn’t been watching me at all. I was still on the toilet and had occasional movements. The doctor continued to talk to this other person. He was talking about a red-headed woman he was seeing once who had a problem with her j-pouch similar to me. He couldn’t remember what her problem was, though, so he didn’t know if he could help me.
The fourth time I lost control of myself back in my ulcerative colitis days. This story is the Near Miss. It could’ve been a lot worse, but thanks to some quick thinking, I managed to control the crisis. The longer you have colitis, the better you get at managing these sorts of things.
After your J-pouch is constructed, you will have some occasional discharge. This is before you start using your J-pouch officially, before your takedown. This is normal and generally not a cause for a concern. However, if you have excessive discharge, have pain still several weeks out from surgery, or if you have blood, mention it to your doctor. People can get pouchitis before they start using their J-pouch. It’s better to stay on top of this rather than wait until you have a problem.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
Question: Did you have any concerns about discharge after surgery? Reply below!
*A real j-pouch dream before waking up and having to empty my pouch.
I woke up one morning and went into the bathroom to empty my j-pouch, same as usual. The bathroom was small and had a window next to the toilet. The bottom of the window was below my knees, so I was completely visible to the outside world as I sat on the toilet.
I entered the bathroom and sat on toilet. Directly outside was a large deck. It was winter and had just snowed the night before. My roommate stepped out of the patio, standing in the snow with his bare feet. He wore sweat pants and a t-shirt and stretched as he admired the new fallen snow.
He stood outside for a long time and didn’t leave, so I got out of the bathroom. I didn’t want him looking in at me as I emptied my j-pouch.
Ten minutes later I came back in the bathroom. However, my second roommate was now standing on the deck, admiring the snow! I couldn’t go to the bathroom with him watching me either so I left again.
I returned a third time to the bathroom only to find a third roommate standing on the deck! This was getting ridiculous. The urge was getting stronger and stronger to empty my j-pouch but I didn’t want anybody watching me through that stupid window.
Finally, I gave in and sat on the toilet and emptied my j-pouch. I awoke with an urgency to empty my j-pouch and a fear that I had already emptied it in my sleep. Fortunately, I did not have an accident and made it to the bathroom with no incident.
It can be quite a transition to go from living with a colon to living with an ileostomy. But what about transitioning to living with an ileostomy to living with a j-pouch?
The transition is actually quite smooth.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
Question: For those who have done it, what was it like transitioning from an ileostomy to your j-pouch? Please comment!
Having an itch under your ileostomy barrier can be a major source of frustration, almost as bad as having an itch under a cast. For anybody who has ever had this problem, check out this video. I can’t guarantee that I can teach you how to satisfy all your itches, but at least I can let you know what NOT to do. I’ve made many mistakes trying to scratch my ileostomy, mistakes that resulted in a broken and leaky barrier.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
Question: What do you do to satisfy itches under your ileostomy? Leave a reply below!
*A real dream before waking up and having to empty my j-pouch.
I was in a new house. I stood in a grand room that had forty foot high ceilings and a fireplace on one end. A black leather couch divided the room in half. One wall was made of glass, looking out over the lake and trees. The other walls were painted dark gray. I planned on making giant origami animals out of colored paper to hang on the walls to brighten the place.
Then I had the urge to go to the bathroom. I ran upstairs to a tiny bathroom. My j-pouch wasn’t even full. However, I looked down and was surprised to see that I had an ostomy bag again. I closed the bathroom door but it didn’t have a lock on it so I picked up the entire toilet and shoved it against the door.
Then I woke up and had to empty my j-pouch. This time, the pouch was completely full, just like my ostomy bag was in the dream.
You wouldn’t think takedown surgery would affect your bladder, but it does. For a little while, anyway. When I started using my j-pouch I had slight problems with urination. This video covers my experiences with urinating during my first six weeks after the takedown surgery.
I found the answer to this question by simply filling up my ostomy bag. For those considering surgery, this video is useful in that I go through when you may want to empty your ostomy bag based on how full it is.
Sadly, I think Jon in this Garfield Minus Garfield comic reflects the attitude of many people with colitis. We all fear something. After seeing our health fail us so terribly we have a hard time trusting our own body.
But just because we’re afraid of failure doesn’t mean we don’t face failure. There’s no way to ever eliminate the prospect of failure. Instead, we turn towards life in spite of failure.
