Bowel resection scheduled- any advice welcome!

Will you have an ostomy? I had emergency bowel resection, but it was not done lap, it was full open and was pretty hard to recover from, but mainly because of all of my muscles being cut. I have an ostomy (getting reversed soon) and overall that has not been too bad. The ostomy forum here is very helpful.

Good Luck!

The area you describe is the terminal Ileum? anyway I went through that last May six days of Ice chips. A couple weeks slow walking to build up strength. Was walking and doing heavy exercise by week 5, lifting 50 lbs +. That's the physical part. It took the gut several months to restart. No regrets.Plan on soft foods for first week or so. Your body will let you know. I'm 6 pound More than pre-surgery weight today. I walk several miles a day. Up and down flights of stairs several times a day.
The point is move around, not doing it prolongs the healing process. I did a minimum of twice what the doctors said to do. Oh yeah the scar has faded and is not any worry. I had the laproscopic procedure also.

T

Thanks T, I really like hearing the positive stories! Definitely going to try and keep active. And yup, terminal ileum, that's the one :)

I had my terminal ileum and cecum removed about 7 years ago due to a small tumor. I didn't have an IBD at the time so I wasn't sick or in pain before the surgery.

Even though it was laproscopic, they needed to make an incision to get the part out. I ended up with a 3 inch incision under my belly button. You will probably stay in the hospital until your bowels wake up, anywhere from a few days to a week. Grown ups will be constantly asking about farts. Walk as much as possible as soon as possible to get everything moving.

I had "explosions" for the first week or so at home where I barely made it to the bathroom. It got better by the 6 week mark when I had to go back to work but it took about 6 months to totally settle down. My digestion never went back to the way it was pre-surgery, I've had problems on and off since.

I was really exhausted and slept a lot for the first 3 weeks and was still napping at 6 weeks. It took a few months to get back to normal.

Be careful when lifting your little ones even after the doctor clears you. I got a hernia and that's a surgery you want to avoid.

Weird things the doctors never tell you: Your hair might thin out a bit about 6 weeks after surgery. Also, your period might change for the first few months. It might be more painful, heavier, or irregular or you might skip a cycle. I've had 5 abdominal surgeries and only one surgeon (a woman) told me about this ahead of time.

Hi, No I don't have diarreah, I have a temporary ileostomy which sometimes is loose, but usually pretty good. I have it till about March or April then go back in to get hooked up again.  Any other questions don't hesitate to ask. Take care of yourself!  You will be fine. Sue

Hi!  It sounds like your visit with the surgeon went well.  Glad to hear that.

I already gave you the big story so...I had 18" removed at the TI (terminal ileum) with full open surgery.  The estimate for your recovery sounds like a good estimate.

I do have persistent D since my surgery, but even more since I had my gallbladder removed (not everyone gets it though).  I control mine with a prescription medicine.

Hoping you feel as great after as I did!

Thanks for all your responses! I am so nervous about the surgery at the end of the month. My main fears are that I will end up with worse off symptoms than I have now. I really don't want to be chained to the toilet on a permanent basis afterwards. I can deal with recovery for a few months (or however long it takes for things to go back to normal) I just hope they DO go back to normal.
Looks like I will have a back to back colonoscopy and surgery.. Colonoscopy on the Tuesday, surgery on the Wednesday.. I won't be eating for a few days then so I only have to do the bowel prep once. Not looking forward to that either!
Thanks for your support :)

It can take up to a full year to feel 100% So don't feel discouraged if you aren't' feeling better sooner. I hope everything works out for you!

I have had 3 open resections and wanted a laparoscopic last time but the dr said too much scar tissue. I recommend watching food/cooking shows on tv or reading food magazines. Really got my bowel sounds humming quickly. Also had toradol injections prescribed every 6 or 8 hrs and only had to use the pain pump a couple times. Getting up to walk is key to passing gas. Yes, I had excessive D at first but it settled down after a week or so to my normal D. Good luck, you will feel better.

I agree with tinglebell.... though mine wasn't as invasive as an open surgery. As you saw in the other post about my surgery (just updated it), I probably will be back to an at least semi-normal schedule next week in terms of my job and everything. Some may think it may be pushing it... but it is interesting how fast the body heals if you keep it moving and "feed" it positive thoughts!

One thing I am not sure I mentioned or not... but my surgeon said I have active disease throughout my small intestine. She said that I will always need medicine to calm that down, can't go without it. I am on Tysabri... was planning on staying on it anyway. Hopefully it can put me in remission now, as the really bad parts are now out. The medicine DOES work... my bloodwork and symptoms prove it. I just think it was having a hard time trying to deal with 3 strictures and a full small intestine full of inflammation!

Aussiegirl2008 said...
Thanks for all your responses! I am so nervous about the surgery at the end of the month. My main fears are that I will end up with worse off symptoms than I have now. I really don't want to be chained to the toilet on a permanent basis afterwards. I can deal with recovery for a few months (or however long it takes for things to go back to normal) I just hope they DO go back to normal.
Looks like I will have a back to back colonoscopy and surgery.. Colonoscopy on the Tuesday, surgery on the Wednesday.. I won't be eating for a few days then so I only have to do the bowel prep once. Not looking forward to that either!
Thanks for your support :)

My doctor and I knew it was time for me to have surgery when the complications of my disease were worse than risks associated with surgery.

I had this surgery done a little over 2.5 years ago. As far as bm's go, I had D for about a month which then switched over to C. I've had to take a dose of Miralax nightly ever since then to keep things moving along. Some folks continue to have D. Others return to more normal/regular bm's. If you are either on the too much D or too much C side, the good news is that your doctor can prescribe or direct you to safe OTC options that will help alleviate the D or C symptoms.

I had surgery on a Monday morning and was sent home Friday afternoon of that same week. I had not had a BM at time of discharge from the hospital, as I understand some docs won't send you home until you've had a BM. But I was passing plenty of gas & did have a BM on Saturday. Tuesday (day after surgery) was my worst day pain-wise.  

Definitely walk as they tell you to. I'd actually try to do an extra trip or walk for longer than they suggested, so long as I felt like it. Thankfully, my hospital also had a free wi-fi connection, so I was able to watch movies & tv shows from my smart phone. That helped pass the time after those first couple of days.

I was on a soft residue diet for 30 days, then was directed to slowly start adding in other foods after that. I definitely did as others mentioned and had to eat smaller meals.

The hospital nutrionist also gave me a target amount of protein to eat each day. (100g/day for my height/weight, which at the time was 155 trying to get back to 170.)  I feel like this was an important element to my recovery. I'm glad I had that target as it was somewhat difficult to get there some days, and I know I would not have eaten enough protein on a low residue diet if I hadn't been trying to. Eggs, cottage cheese, fish, peanut butter and I think later chicken was a lot of my early diet. I was also still drinking Ensure as a calorie/nutrition/iron supplement, though I weaned off those over the course of my first month back at home.

I was back at work (desk job) 3.5 weeks after surgery with a few notes:

- I started back to work mid-week (Wednesday) so that my first week back would be a 3-day week

- I was able to work remotely from my home PC this first week

- the following week was the 4th of July, which made it a 4-day week

- the first two of the 4 days was also worked remotely from home

- my first 2-3 weeks back in the office I took the elevator to the 4th floor of my building, as I usually take the stairs.

- Both at home and back in the office, I made it a point to get up every 60-90 minutes and take a 5-10 minute walk.