A New Possibility

I had a great appointment with my Surgeon, Dr. Cagir (that's him on the left), his Nurse Practitioner, Nan Walsh as well the hospitals ostomy Nurse. Dr. Cagir was pulled into emergency surgery 10 minutes before my appointment, so I met with Nan and Sue. Nan said my body is healed from the surgery and responding beautifully. That being said, my second concern was the possibility of being able to irrigate on a daily basis.

[Reminder: to irrigate is to take a warm water enema every 24 - 48 hours which flushes out the large intestine thus allowing the individual to go without a pouch [sweet!] and instead simply wear a large bandage.]

Nan did request that I speak to Cagir to confirm that irrigation is a possibility, yet she did read the surgery report which stated that I do have enough remaining large intestine to be a candidate for the possibility to irrigate. Yes, only the possibility. It can take one to two years of irrigation on a daily basis to train the large intestine to void once every 24 - 48 hours. And it doesn't stop there. I will then have to irrigate once a day for an hour in order to keep the large intestine trained. And I am fully committed to taking it on.

Sue then followed up with a visual of the necessary equipment used to irrigate and showed me how long and exactly how the process works. Very simple and very similar to the coffee enemas I did while on Gerson Therapy.

Considering I am a young man with lots of life to look forward to, a one to two year wait for the desired results, is a drop in the bucket if daily irrigation will provide me the freedom from wearing a pouch on a daily basis. Hell, I'd even wear a pouch for years if I had a damn near guarantee that it would stay empty until the next morning. And, of course, the large bandage would be ideal.

After my meeting with Nan and Sue, I caught Dr. Cagir on the way out of my appointment (and gave him a big hug - love the guy) and he said I will need to wait until 14-days after chemotherapy is over (in March of aught-9) before initiating daily irrigation. Regular chemotherapy treatments apparently causes consistent irregularity of the large intestine and irrigating would therefore be a waste of time.

He also thanked me for giving him a copy of my Letters to the Prison City CD and suggested I call it Prisons of Cagir. He's a nut. Today's meeting was great. I am very pleased with my new possibility.

What the Ostomy is Like for Me Lately

Lately, what's confronted me is how to deal with a certain aspect of my ostomy. And it is an aspect that I have not been to thrilled to be blogging about. Gas. See, now that my large intestine finds its way out of my body on the left side of my abdomen and is no longer attached to a sphincter muscle, I no longer have the capacity to manage it at will.

Okay, so right out of the gates, we're all clear that because of the ostomy I am alive. That's no secret and I would do it all the same were I to go back in time and do it all over again. So, although I am not without gratitude, and happy to have gotten back to a somewhat normal life, I am committed to living a life as "normal" as possible and that would include life without the unmistakable sound of gas exiting my body - at an inopportune time to boot. [did i spell that properly?]

Again, it's not life ending or even a threat, but let's be honest - we have a cultural conversation in this country about not passing gas in public - or at least not loudly - unless of course you are in the company of those whom you most enjoy laughing joyfully about the sounds your bodily functions. Unfortunately, I have yet to create that relationship with every person I know and for that matter, all those I don't.

I have begun to take on certain proactive methods of dealing. Beano, for one.

[...i can't believe i am even writing about this. gas is something i either hide from others or laugh about among those i'm close with. not something i have mature conversations about. and now i'm talking about beano. how awkward!!!]

So, yes...Beano. And I am also avoiding carbonated beverages and of course any foods that can put a bottle of Beano to shame. And then there is the irrigation.

Irrigation is a daily process that is an option for some people who have ostomies on the left side of their abdomen. It's very similar to an enema - something I'm a little familiar with. The idea is to flush out the colon first thing in the morning once every day or two and eventually have your colon trained to only empty following an irrigation at that time. Then the individual gets to wear what looks like a large bandage over the stoma as opposed to a pouch, which can sometimes be a bit bulky or, without irrigation, needs to be discarded at an inconvenient time. My hope is that I will be able to effectively irrigate in the near future. Not only will it be nice to be free of pouches, etc., but I believe this will significantly help with untimely gas once I get the hang of it.

In the mean time, at least my ostomy pouches have a very effective carbon filter. Oh yes, joy, joy. So, should I be "blessed" with unexpected gas at an inopportune time, I won't have to worry about the damage being any worse then the initial shock following that ever so familiar sound.

And now that I've made that clear, I hope we can all just move on and leave this topic behind.