New to you, old to Crohn's

Hello,
I wanted to introduce myself since I just joined you guys, but have been following a lot of you in your battle with crohn's. I am 29.95 years old as vie taught me kids and have been struggling with this pain in the butt for about five years. I've been through most of the medications, too many hospital stays and visits to count, many test and have not been able to go into remission that whole time. A little back story, I was diagnosed with crohn's three weeks before I was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I truely believe that the chemo made my already bad health even worse and I think I have just never been able to catch up.
So back to the present. about two months ago I was finally introduced to the wonderful bowel blockage and it scared me to death, they stuck an N.G. Tube down my throat and cleared the blockage. Tpi went home scared of all food and stuck to a soft food diet. Two weeks later I started feeling that pain once again, went to the E.R. And once again I was blocked, they did the same thing as the last time. By this point when I came home I was not only scared of food, but I was feeling extremely helpless, not wanting "this" for the rest of my life. I have two great and little kids and a wonderful husband and I just felt like a burden to them (and still kinda do). Finally about a week later I once again felt horrible. This time when i went in to the E.R. They stated my blockage had perforated my bowel and Formed and abcess and I was off to emergency surgery and the I.C.U. They cleaned up everything, put me on T.P.N., put in the drains and scheduled me for small/large bowel resection for July 1st, this Friday.
So this is why I come to all of you is for your wisdom, because I'm scared of the unknown, and a whole lot of other things. The Dr. Is planning on doing it lapro., but if need, he will open me up with a possible ostomy. I was fitted for the ostomy today and just cried during my appointment. I pray I come through the surgery fine, that it helps me and that I don't wake up with a bag. Please know that it's nothing against anyone who has one, but I'm self concisous as it is, I already have loads of scares from my breast cancer, I just don't want another like that. Any info that you could give me is greatly appreciated.

Finally, hello new friends!

Hi Littlebitofink and welcome to Healingwell. Sorry to hear of all your trials of late.

One thing is I think after the recovery of your surgery you will hopefully be on to a long long remission.

While surgery is scary they are going to take those bad areas out and that should help your disease some and get you back to feeling better.

I am not going to lie there will be some pain afterwards, but they give you great pain meds to help out. If you can ask for a pca pain pump. I like these as you can just hit the button and get pain meds when YOU need them instead of waiting on the nurse. You will also have some explosive diarrhea for a few weeks until your bowels adjust to the changes. Try to stay on a low residue diet for awhile until things heal up then slowly start adding in foods one at a time to see how you handle them.

As for the ostomy I do not have any experience to share, but if you have questions we do have an ostomy form where you could ask questions about ostomies.

Try to walk as much as possible afterwards as this will help your recovery and help to wake the bowels up sooner. Sending healing prayers your way, and hope this surgery leads to a long long remission. Hugs!