How did you rate your after care when you had your ostomies done?

I think i asked this before, but what is A&E?
Anyway my care was pretty good, my ET nurse was very helpful, but honestly, i got more help from here also. My home health care nurse was useless, she told me (this is true) to stick a safety pin into my bag and make a few small holes to let the air out! OMG what a mess that would be! After that she was going to come back and help me change my bag, and i canceled my appointment, and since my husband is a nurse, i just told her he could check my vitals and my incisions for infection. Plus, i dont think she took baths very often, lol.
My nurses in the hospital were good, of course it was where my husband worked, so that makes a difference. But i got very lucky and one of CNA's daughter had an ileo for 3 years, as an infant, so she knew lots about them.
Anyway, can you call another hospital and get a different nurse to help you? Or you can also call some of the companies have nurses and reps who can help you.

wow summerstorm that is funny...stick a safety pin in it why don't ya???
I received very good care in the hospital but I had other things going on so the focus was on that and not teaching me to deal with my stoma,wafer and pouch. Things were interesting when I got home. I didn't know that there were actually WOCN's until I got to this and C3Life's site. I live in a smaller town and we didn't have that speciality here. I did find one fairly close and working with her has made all the difference in the world as far as maintaining the wafer...Good Luck and keep us informed.
Cathy

Call your surgeon if the ostomy nurse isn't helping with the skin breakdown! I did and they gave me a few tips, then I got tired of useless info from my ostomy nurse (she told me I couldn't irrigate because I had to wait until I was regular, but I was on 2 antibiotics NOT making me regular - basically, she said irrigation is to make you regular, but I couldn't irrigate until I was regular *scratching head*)

Anyhow, I decided to take it into my own hands. I had been using convatec products and felt like I liked their products the best.. so I called them direct and spoke to a nurse or some type of ostomy guru. Of course they were going to sell me on products, but she sent me a HUGE care package of sample products and told me I needed the skin protector wipes and powder AND paste. My dimwit of a stoma nurse told me I didn't need stomapaste with a moldable convatec wafer! (Ya, no WONDER I WAS IN PAIN WITH SKIN BREAKDOWN!). So, she spent about 30 minutes on the phone with me and she sent me plenty of samples. If I want to try something new, I just call them.. but they did walk me through over the phone some tricks..

MIlk of magnesia and a blow dryer is what helped me until I spoke to convatec. Also, you might consider the eakin seal until you are 100% healed with skin breakdown...

In the hospital my nurses were a nightmare Washington Hospital Center- they were terse and not compasionate, nor were they following the written and verbal orders from my GI and surgeon until I had to call them to explain to the nurses what I needed, and I was in control of my paim management not their opinion.  They even bad-mouthed my doctors to me.  How disrespectful.  As for the Ostomy nurse, even in a DC huge hospital, there is only one Ostomy nurse that works one day a week for visits, and a long time to reach on the phone.  Basically it was trial and effort, of me and my wife who figured out I didn't have a perfectly round stoma and I had to customize the cutting of the wafer.  My wife was immensely more help than they were. 

On other surgeries, the nurses at Georgretown, the other big hospital in DC, they were prepared to deal with my ostomy even though it was my legs/Charcot disease for the reason being there.

I have gotten so much better advice here, and I am told there are associations of ostomates that will come to your house as a volunteer and help - but I haven't used them.

WOW! Pin holes in the bag, oh, my! Yeah I'd vote for another hospitals ET nurse and there are usually other visiting nurse companies around. One thing that helps me with skin breakdown is stomahesive powder on the burn and then an Eakin Seal around the stoma on top of the burn then put on the wafer..Also to click on the tupper ware like bag onto the ring that is already on you (as part of the wafer) put a bit of foam soap around the part of the bag that clicks onto the ring then you don't have to press so hard. oh, also before applying the wafer put allcare wipes on your skin. This applies a layer of shelack on your skin and helps it not get irritated. (But never put the allcare wipe on a burn or .....ouch!) This is the combined knowledge of two excellent ET nurses. One at my local hospital and one at the place where I got the ileo. Each ET nurse seems to contribute something. Good luck, Rosemary