August 8, 2012

• Ahhhh the good drugs have kicked in!

  Is this not a gorgeous picture? It makes me feel good just looking at it. I think of that wave as warm water and I'd just love to be floating in that right now!
  

  
  Today's Affirmation:  I am willing to change.

  All of the affirmations that I post are from Louise Hay so if I forget to mention it on one of my posts, all of the credit goes to her.

  Ahhhh the good drugs have kicked in! Today has been a really rough day! I know I'm going to sound like I'm whining, but I'm not whining to my husband or kids, I'm whining here, in my own room and this is one of the biggest reasons I came back to Xanga, so I could have a place to let it "all hang out." Be aware in reading my blog that there will be many times that you'll read what I wrote and think, "Ack, too much information!" however, if you're going to hang out in my room with me, I thought you should know that up front.
  (In my mind this is narrated in Meridith's (Ellen Pompeo) voice from Gray's Anatomy )I have what is called Short Bowel Syndrome which is a result of all the colon resections I've had. My doctor calls it CSDD. Chronic Severe Debilitating Diarrhea. It never goes away and I never get a break. I keep a log for my doctor and I have to write down the beginning time I go into the bathroom and the time I come out. That tells him how many times a day I have to visit my Throne Room and how long it's taking me. The only part left of my colon is the Transverse Colon. A persons colon is basically an upside down U. There is the the Right Colon which is obviously the right side, the Transverse Colon which is the bottom of the U and then the Sigmoid Colon which is on the left side and is which is attached to the back door. My first two resections removed my entire Sigmoid side. The third resection which was done last summer, removed my entire Right Side Colon called a Right Hemicolectomy. The only remaining part is the Transverse Colon which is joined from my small intestine and goes straight down through my abdomen to connect to the back door. I'm sorry, I really hate the words rectum and anus so if you think I'm being childish by not using the physiological verbiage, that's why. I'm in the bathroom every day with diarrhea between 7-12 times a day....every day. This guarantees that there is no healing between bowel movements. Thus I am usually raw and bleeding in one capacity or another. I'm usually in the bathroom between 2.5 hours on a good day to 5.5 hours on a bad day. You would think with only having diarrhea that it would be a peace of cake to void and go but it's not. Because I'm missing so much of my colon, it takes work to get everything out the door. I almost cried when my doctor told me I was missing my "pusher" and that's why I'm struggling every day. I'm also missing my Gallbladder which was the 3rd cancer. Because I have no Gallbladder all the Bile Salts that would normally be processed and reabsorbed by the body are dumped into the diarrhea making it acidic. One of the reasons my butt is raw and bleeding most of the time is that the diarrhea burns so badly from the acid. So basically I have acid diarrhea 7-12 times a day for up to 2.5-5.5 hours a day.
  I'm on Norco every 6 hours which helps to slow down my intestines. I have lost 60 pounds in the last year from diarrhea alone. 60 pounds, that's crazy! Everything I eat goes right through me. I have often lost my appetite when I've had to leave my dinner in the middle of it to run to the bathroom only to find what I've been eating waving back at me from the toilet. Who wants to go back and eat the very stuff that you just saw floating in the toilet? Yukk!! The Norco helps a little but not a lot. A normal person who'd taken Norco every day, 4 times a day for over the past year would be constipated for the next 10 years. Not me! I'm also on what's called Questran. It's supposed to help bind the Bile Salts so they don't burn so badly and also to help bind the poo. Unfortunately the Questran can have the opposite effect and cause a blockage. Because I'm missing so much of my colon, this can be a really BAD thing. I absolutely cannot afford to be constipated in any way shape or form because I have no way of getting it through and out of me. My stomach muscles have really taken a beating in having to work so much harder to compensate for the lack of muscle found in the colon. The Norco also helps with the soreness of my abdomen and the rawness of the back door. On a really bad day my abdomen feels like it would if it were raw, ground meat. Don't ask me how I know this, I just do. Now on days like today when things are REALLY bad, I bring out the big guns. My doctor has given me an opium tincture to take which will usually give me about 4-5 hours of not having a bowel movement (on top of making me sleepy and relaxed .) I will often take it when I have to go somewhere during the day and cannot take the chance of either not making it out of the house at all or having to stop multiple times on the way. I've been working through a blockage for the last 3 days and so have not been able to take the Questran. Because of this, the diarrhea has been much more acidic than usual which is extremely painful. I finally gave in and got out the "big guns". While it has the opposite effect of working through a blockage, my body got to the point where it just needed some rest.
  On really, really bad days I actually pull out my vaporizer and smoke the "for medicinal purposes only" weed. I've always been embarrassed to admit that to anyone. I think it's a pride issue. I don't like the fact that I'm feeling so badly that I have to give in to something that I've always looked down on all my life. Yes, I know my self-righteous attitude was from my mother and I've come to realize that it's not the horror that I was taught to believe it was.) Well anyway, trust me, that very "horror" has saved my bacon on more than a few occasions! I take Wellbutrin daily as well as it helps me deal with the depression that this whole mess has caused. My life as I knew it a year ago is over and done with. Dead and gone. I can no longer eat dinner with my family, go to the movies, do anything on a whim, enjoy Christmas activities outside my house, go to Full Moon Rituals or Sabbats or travel to any place that doesn't have not only bathrooms within immediate distance but it also has to have more than one stall. We've all been in situations where we've been sick to our tummies and in a public restroom and there's a line of people outside banging on the stall door. Because stress affects my innards, to put myself in that situation would only insure that the very same people banging on my stall door would be waiting twice as long.
  So after a lengthy explanation as to how my insides work, you'll understand what has actually happened when I say "good drugs" and pulling out the "big guns" and you'll understand that I don't do drugs for recreational purposes but rather to get me through the next day, hour or even minute.
  I know that Breast cancer is a big thing and there is a lot of concentrated effort on finding the cure. I so wish that there was as much concentration and effort to find the cure for Colon cancer as there is for Breast cancer. If you leave my blog with anything at all, I hope you'll keep in mind that having your Colonoscopies is SO important. If you suspect that there's anything at all wrong, please have it checked out. I was first diagnosed with Colon cancer (small "c" on cancer on purpose!) when I was only 33. The second time was when I was 40 and the Gallbladder followed the same year. I put off having anything checked out for almost 7 years because I was too embarrassed. Who wants to admit that they're bleeding out of their butt? I let it go for that long and only had it checked out because I was becoming extremely anemic from loss of blood. Please take care of yourselves! I love you all.

  Blessed Be

  • 1:35 am
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