Archive for the ‘Ostomy Dreams’ Category
January 24, 2009
*This is potentially the last ostomy dream I’ll ever have! Assuming I never have an ileostomy again, I have a theory that I’ll never have another dream about my ileostomy. I’ve been thinking a lot about these dreams and I think they are a way for the body to look out for itself. They were always a way for my body to tell me it was time to empty my pouch.
I had to empty my ostomy pouch and I was attending a large party of sorts. It was night and I was at a large mansion that was only one story high. People wore costumes and filled the backyard. I went inside to find a bathroom.
I found the bathroom but it was more like a locker room. Lots of men were walking around and showering. Most of the toilets had broken doors on them. So many people were in the bathroom that there were lines at every stall.
I went to a stall and saw only one guy standing there. The stall had no door and was missing one of the walls. The stall next to this one also was missing its door. A man was inside that stall as well. I approached the man just standing by the toilet.
“I have to use this toilet.”
“Okay,” he said.
I touched his shoulder and turned him as if he was a door, putting him where the wall between me and the other guy should have been. His back was to me and he started talking to the guy in the stall next to me as if they were good friends.
I sat down and opened up my bag. I looked between my legs and realized I was sitting on a very large dark brown leather recliner. A boy and his mother approached my stall and looked in.
“I can’t use this,” I told him. “Usually I empty my ostomy pouch into a toilet.”
“Here! We can help you!” the mother said.
I stood up and walked to the sinks next to the trashcans. The boy found a white garbage bag and opened it up.
“Empty the pouch into here,” he said.
I opened my pouch and emptied it into the bag. There was a lot of waste and it filled up most of the bag. When I was finished I started cleaning the bag and realized that my ostomy bag was completely gone! The boy had taken off the pouch and all I had left was the barrier. I pressed tissue against the stoma and started looking for the boy and his mother. Both had completely disappeared. I walked around the bathroom for a long time and couldn’t find them.
Then I woke up and had to empty my pouch.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged bowel, Colitis, colon, colostomy, crohn, disease, dream, flare up, help, ibd, ileostomy, inflammatory, intestine, J-pouch, management, risks, stoma, Stories, support, surgery, tips, uc, ulcerative, video, vlog | 2 Comments »
January 17, 2009
This is the second-to-last ostomy dream I ever had.
*A real ostomy dream before waking up with a full pouch.
A couple friends and I were going to make some kind of chemical. It was supposed to be a cleaning product or organic product or something. But we didn’t have all the supplies to make it.
We went to an antique dealer and looked at his wares. He told us that usually people use a large metal container with multiple filters in it to make chemicals. But he had something better to sell us. He sold us a device that looked like a stripped down box spring. It was a metal frame the size of a double bed with a layer of metal springs and supports all across it. It was made completely out of metal. The man told us that the springs worked better as a filter for our chemical. So we bought it and carried it home.
We took it into our garage to clean it. Our garage was very small and messy and took up most of our small backyard. Our neighbor had built a fire in the fire ring in his backyard. He had a massive log three feet in diameter and seven feet long propped up in the pit. The flames were big and smoke crept into our garage, so we closed the doors.
We started cleaning up the metal frame when I realized that my ostomy pouch was full. I went into the house but somebody else was using the bathroom. I checked the other bathrooms but people were using those too! I went back to the garage and a few minutes later went into the house again but the same thing! Somebody was always using the bathroom.
Then I woke up and checked my pouch, but I didn’t have to empty it. Confused, I looked at the clock and realized only twenty minutes had passed since I first emptied my pouch this night.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged bowel, Colitis, colon, colostomy, crohn, disease, dream, flare up, heatlh, help, ibd, ileostomy, intestine, J-pouch, management, recovery, stoma, Stories, surgery, tips, uc, ulcerative, video, vlog | 1 Comment »
January 3, 2009
*Real ostomy dreams before waking up with a full pouch.
I was out in the rural countryside in a small house. It was late at night and I stepped outside with two other men. We were near the intersection of two quiet, divided highways. We could see by the moonlight and noticed that a large cottonwood tree, a hundred feet tall, had fallen down. And under the top tree branches, under the heaviest branch, was a man on a motorcycle, crushed and dead.
“This tree fell down on that man!” I said. “We need to help him.”
I walked over to the tree but the older man with me said, “We can’t help him! He’s already dead. We need to leave!”
“We can’t just leave,” I said. “we have to get this man out from under the tree.”
“Why did this tree fall on that man?” the older man said. “Where was God to protect him?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Sometimes things just happen and there’s no explanation. It’s just like ulcerative colitis. It comes out of nowhere and hits you.”
The older man said to me, “Why didn’t God stop your colitis?”
“I don’t know!” I yelled. “God has His own plan. Maybe He was punishing me. But if He was punishing me, what was He punishing me for? The punishment doesn’t work very well if I don’t know what my crime is.” I started to get upset and I didn’t pay attention to the dead man under the tree anymore. “God is always doing these kinds of things. How are people supposed to learn when God doesn’t tell them anything?”
Then I woke up and had to empty my pouch. It was perhaps the most theological dream I have ever had.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged bowel, Colitis, colon, colostomy, crohn, disease, dream, flare up, help, ibd, ileostomy, intestine, J-pouch, management, stoma, Stories, support, surgery, uc, ulcerative, video, vlog | 1 Comment »
December 27, 2008
*Real ostomy dreams before waking up with a full pouch.
I was in the jungle with seven or eight of my friends. We traveled down a raging river on large skis. Two people each stood on a pair of skis, thirty feet long, and glided down the river, one person in front of the other.
When we reached our destination, we all fell in the water and took off our skis. My friends wanted me to lead the group through the jungle because my ostomy pouch repelled dangerous animals. We walked through the jungle for a long time and carried the skis with us, which kept catching on the thick foliage.
Later a large tree blocked our path. A long brown snake wrapped itself around the trunk. The snake didn’t attach us because my ostomy pouch sedated it, but we couldn’t pass it either because it might still attack. I took the end of a ski and bashed the snake’s head against the trunk. My friend handed me a pocket knife to kill it. When I tried to attack the snake it moved out of the way. Eventually I struck the snake, then a second snake appeared and I killed that snake too.
We exited the jungle and returned to our large cabin. Somebody had started a campfire on the living room floor and didn’t extinguish it before we left. I got upset about that. Somebody also didn’t wash the dishes before we left on our expedition and that upset me too.
Then I woke up at the time I usually wake up to empty my pouch, between 2:00 and 3:00 am. My pouch was puffed up with air but not much stool because the stool was very thick. I got rid of the air and went back to bed.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged bowel, colectomy, Colitis, colon, crohn, disease, dreams, flare, help, ibd, ileostomy, intestine, management, Ostomy, sleeping, stoma, Stories, surgery, tips, uc, ulcerative, videos, vlog | 1 Comment »
December 20, 2008
Hey everybody, lots of snow in North Dakota today! I hope all is well in your part of the country.
Yesterday’s Stool Count: 8 times during the day, 3 times during the night.
Remember, I’m purposely going when I feel like it and not using Imodium. Things will get better later.
Keep fighting,
~Dennis
*Real ostomy dreams before waking up with a full pouch.
I woke up the day after my birthday. My parents or friends had given me a new set of ostomy pouches that they thought were better than the ones I was currently using. And I was already wearing one! I don’t know if they put it on in my sleep or if I forgot that I put it on. I didn’t question how it got on.
The pouch was full so I went to the bathroom and emptied it.
The problem, though, was that I could not figure out how to close it up again! It was an incredibly complicated system. The pouch had two openings for waste to pass through. I rolled up one end and closed the snaps and tied the strings and did all the different fasteners, but that only closed it on one side. Then I undid everything and tried to close the other side. I struggled with it for many minutes and didn’t know what I was going to do because I couldn’t figure out this pouch at all.
Then I woke up and had to empty my pouch.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged bowel, Colitis, colon, colostomy, count, crohn, disease, dreams, flare up, frequency, help, ibd, ileostomy, intestine, J-pouch, living, management, Ostomy, sleeping, stoma, stool, Stories, surgery, tips, uc, ulcerative, videos, vlog | 1 Comment »
December 13, 2008
Hey everybody, life is going fantastic with me and I can be discharged at any time. I just had my second soft-food meal, so I’m going to wait a couple hours to make sure my bowels are moving fine. But I already have my IV taken out, my drain taken out, my catheter taken out, my medicines prescribed and purchased, so I’m in the home stretch.
I’ll still stay in town here for a few days in case I have any problems. That way I can come back to the hospital and it’ll be easier that way. I also have some liver tests on Tuesday for my PSC (Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis), a disease I haven’t talked much about. In the coming months I’ll talk about my PSC more.
As per Saturday updates, I have another ostomy dream for you. I have at least five more of these ostomy dreams for the future as well. I’m guessing that since I no longer have an ileostomy that I will no longer have ostomy dreams. But will I have j-pouch dreams that wake me up before having to go to the bathroom? Most likely. I’ll let you know.
Keep fighting,
-Dennis
Yesterday’s Stool Count: 3 during the day, 1 during the night.
*Real ostomy dreams before waking up with a full pouch.
I walked into a small auditorium. It had a sloped floor with brown carpet. A large white board was on the front wall. Arranged were approximately five rows of seats, eight seats wide. The seats had plush, red cushions.
I sat down in the middle of auditorium. Fifteen others sat scattered around me. On the floor in front of us was a giant plastic model of a person’s internal organs. I could see the stomach and intestines and colon and rectum. A presenter walked us through the different parts of the body. He explained what colitis was and how it affects the body. He had another model that showed how j-pouch surgery works.
His models, however, were completely inaccurate. Inside the colon were several spiral shell-like structures. Live snails were also crawling around the intestines. The colon was green and was twice as large as it should’ve been. I knew that everything he said was wrong but I didn’t say anything to him.
The audience was very rude to him. Everything he said disgusted them. I knew colitis wasn’t a cool disease and wasn’t fun to talk about, but I didn’t think it needed to gross a person out, especially when these people chose to come to this lecture.
Then I woke up with a slight leak in my bag. It was too full and the adhesive wasn’t holding well. The leak wasn’t very serious, although the front of my shorts was completely soaked in near-odorless stool.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged colectomy, Colitis, colostomy, crohn, disease, dreams, flare up, help, ileostomy, management, Ostomy, stoma, Stories, surgery, tips, ulcerative, videos, vlog | 1 Comment »
December 6, 2008
*Real ostomy dreams before waking up with a full pouch.
I was living in my house with another man, the same house I live in now. One day a former professor visited and said she was going to stay at my house for a little bit. I said she could and she went upstairs. I didn’t see her very much at all.
The next morning I got up for work and she was in the shower. She was there for over two hours! I looked at the bathroom door, which was more like a back door since it had glass panes for a window, divided into squares. She had the blue and white curtains drawn and her shower was so hot that steam came out from under the door. I grew frustrated waiting for her so I dressed and left for work.
Unfortunately, it was downpouring outside. My house was tiny and white and sat on a gray hill. The sky was gray and the ground was slippery. I ran down the path and mud splashed on my shirt. The coat closet was outside the house, a shallow white square standing upright next to the path, approximately fifty feet away from my house. I ducked into the closet and moved all the hangers aside, taking shelter under the little roof. I kept a spare shirt in the closet so I unbuttoned my shirt and prepared to change. I looked at my stomach, though, and noticed that I didn’t have an ileostomy anymore. I got very worried and wondered what could’ve happened to it.
Then I woke up and had to empty my pouch.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged bowel, colectomy, Colitis, colon, colostomy, crohn, disease, dream, flare up, ibd, ileostomy, intestine, J-pouch, Ostomy, risks, stoma, surgery, uc, ulcerative, video, vlog | 1 Comment »
November 29, 2008
*Real ostomy dreams before waking up with a full pouch.
**This is a bizarre one today.
I was changing my pouch one day and the stool kept coming out of the bag and would not stop long enough for me to get a new pouch on my skin. I realized somehow that my stool from the future was coming out of my stoma, days and days worth from the future all at once. I put a pouch loosely over my stoma to collect the waste. When it filled up I set it aside and filled another pouch. I continued doing this because all the stool I’d ever have go through my stoma was coming out at once. (What a time-saver that would be!)
Once all the bags were full, I printed off white plastic labels for each bag. The labels had the date of when the stool was supposed to be emptied. I don’t know why I didn’t just throw all the pouches away. Instead, I planned on saving each pouch and then putting it on my barrier on the proper date, and then emptying it.
Then I woke up and had to empty my pouch.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged bowel, Colitis, colon, colostomy, crohn, disease, dream, flare up, help, ibd, ileostomy, intestine, J-pouch, management, Ostomy, risks, stoma, surgery, tips, uc, ulcerative, video, vlog | 1 Comment »
November 22, 2008
*Real ostomy dreams before waking up with a full pouch.
I was in the living room of a very large house. The house had many rooms and white carpet. Other people were with me and I looked down at my pouch and saw it was half full. Strangely, the stool inside was frozen solid, a hard hemisphere of waste. I walked through the living room and into a side room.
The floor of the room was twenty feet below me, and the ceiling was just as far away. The room was very long and cold. Snow covered the floor, and four snow forts were built against the wall. I stepped into the room at the bottom of the slope, the snow forts above me. A girl from one of my classes tried talking to me but I couldn’t hear her so I walked to the other end of the room and climbed up to the door.
The next room was a swamp. Wooden logs made a small L-shaped path to the next door. I started walking across the logs when two motorcross drivers raced in on their cycles and sped across the log bridge.
Then I got into my car and drove down the Interstate. The road was three lanes wide and nobody was out yet, as it was early in the morning. I was in the far left lane and within seconds two guys walked up to me, each taking up the other two lanes. The two men walked calmly next to me. I clocked them at 50 mph, even though they were just walking, not running.
Then I woke up and had to empty my pouch.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged colectomy, Colitis, colostomy, crohn, disease, dream, flare up, help, ileostomy, J-pouch, management, Ostomy, stoma, surgery, tips, ulcerative, video, vlog | 2 Comments »
November 15, 2008
*Real ostomy dreams before waking up with a full pouch.
I got up in the middle of the night to empty my ostomy pouch. I went into the bathroom and was very tired. I went through my standard routine to empty the pouch, except the pouch had a lot of stool in it and I needed much toilet paper to clean out the bag. When I was finally finished, the entire toilet bowl was full of paper. I flushed it anyway and immediately the toilet clogged. The bowl overflowed and water leaked everywhere. I grabbed the plunger but could not get the water to stop.
Then I woke up and had to empty my pouch.
Posted in Ostomy Dreams | Tagged bowel, change, colectomy, Colitis, colon, colostomy, crohn, disease, dream, flare up, help, ibd, ileostomy, intestine, J-pouch, management, Ostomy, stoma, Stories, surgery, uc, ulcerative, video, vlog | 1 Comment »
