Bennie,
I know exactly how you feel. My 17 yr old daughter had a colostomy done on April 15. For us we really had no other choice because she was passing so much blood that she had 5 blood transfusions in a two month period and she was in such pain. It was just unbearable any longer. The doctors cannot decide if she has Crohns or Colitis so they only removed the worst 40% of her large intestine and even though her rectum is a big part of the problem they left it with the hopes that they can cure that part with medications and maybe someday reverse it. I know everyone is differerent but I can tell you how it has all been for us. The surgery lasted for 4 hours and they were able to do it laproscopic (spelling?). They could not tell us ahead of time if this would be possible or not, they said about a 75% chance that they could. Being able to do it this way really helped out with recovery time and pain after it was over.
She was in the hospital for 6 days after the surgery. It breaks your heart to hear your child yelling out in pain. After the surgery I ask the doctor if we made the right decision and he said most definately. After we got home she was very week because she had been in and out of the hospital for two months (mostly in) and had lost all of her strength and muscle tone. Two days after she left the hospital (with my encouragement)she put on her cheerleading outfit and went to the school for picture day.
She took her last pain pill on May 2. Any pain that she had after that tylenol would do the trick. She does still have some nausea but I think that is from the antibiotics that she is on.
On May 4th she drove for the first time in two months. She was really scared about driving but once she did it she saw that it is okay. The doctors said that she could drive anytime after surgery but not until she was off of the pain meds.
She has not went back to school yet because emotionally she has not been ready. She was having some panic attacks being around large groups of people, but it was because she had been out of the loop for so long. She also has withdrawn herself from her friends and went thru periods of being mad and depressed. I tell her that I am thankful that she had a problem that they were able to do something about and that alot of kids her age have medical problems that the doctors cannot do anything for. I finally convinced the doctor to give her a low dose med for anxiety and it seems to really be helping. She is starting to act like her old self again.
The one thing that nobody warned us about is that when your rectum is still there you are still going to have the urge to go to the bathroom. This really caught us off guard. She is still having the urge to go about 6 times a day and having blood come out her bottom. Not like before but it is still 6 more times than what we want. They are giving her rectal meds in hopes that this will help fix this.
As far as medications, she is currently tapering her prednisone and is down to 20M. They put her on 6MP and Allapurinol but it made her WBC go too low so they took her off of that. Nexium and will also stay on the antibiotic (Cipro) until they decide what maintenance med to put her on. She will always be on a maintenance med since they are unsure of her dx.
This was the hardest thing that I have ever been thru in my life. So far I think her recovery has been everything that I expected. I know that we still have alot in front of us but everyone says that it gets better each day and so far that seems to be the case.
I hope our story somehow helps you.