HealingWell
Search Close Search
☰

Some practical recommendations for when you go into the hospital for take-down

Support Forums
>
Ostomies
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply
❬ ❬ Previous Thread |Next Thread ❭ ❭
Posted 3/28/2012 7:47 PM (GMT 0)
Here are mine. I hope everyone else here will add to the list.

I will work backwards. When I got home from the hospital, I was very, very glad that the following things were already in my apartment. I live alone and I can count on friends doing things for me but not during the day because they work.

Food in the kitchen:

Several packages of chicken breasts in the freezer.

Jars of applesauce and apple/banana sauce

Psyllium husk

soy milk

Sliced bread in the freezer, for the toaster

Cous Cous, rice, instant mash, noodles

A ginger root

Diverse teas

Honey

Soy sauce and various oils and spices I usually cook.

Having these things already there reduces the amount of little details.

If you don't live alone and someone can go shopping the day you come home, then fresh bananas are nice.

The only food I bought since getting home MOnday was sweet potatoes.

Stuff in the bathroom:

Lots of the softest toilet paper

Lots of packages of wet tp (for sensitive skin with no oils, fragrence, camamille stuff or anything)

Baby wipes (also completely neutral)

Baby bottom cream, the thick oily stuff with zinc oxide (or calmoseptine but I haven't tried it yet)

Large supply of immodium

All the other stuff you normall use every day (qtips, skin-care etc.) so that it is all there and doesn't need to be thought of later. When you get home from the hospital, you will be sore from the incision and a bit overwhelmed with the multiple, multiple poo trips every day, all day long. You don't want to be think about little details. It should all be there for you already.

Stuff to take to the hospital (again, please add to list)

Bathrobe, sweatpants and comfy tops

Wet tp and wipes

Baby bottom cream or calmoseptine

Iphone, Ipad or laptop with surfstick

 

Posted 3/28/2012 8:33 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks B'Dereh! That sounds like really helpful info. I do live alone so that will help although I'll be staying with my folks for a couple of days.

How are you doing now anyway? Are you feeling better yet, both mind and body?
Posted 3/28/2012 9:03 PM (GMT 0)
Thanks, Ric,
I am overwhelmed with how overhwelmed I am and how at the moment I exist as nothing more but the mouth and central nervous system of my digestive tract and new jpouch, and jpouch is boss right now. Millions of times on the loo today, only because I get the feeling to go when there is just a tiny bit in the jpouch.
Um, I found some naughty McVitie's digestives with dark chocolate today, apparently I'd stuck them in the freezer weeks ago and forgot. They cause gas is all I can say. Maybe you want to avoid all sweets for a while longer.
Told my boss today I don't want to start home office til next week, just want to be on sick leave this week. But then I worked off some emails so that they wouldn't pile up.
Good that you're staying with your folks, you might want to stay more than a couple of days, a week, at least. I am getting this feeling that things will progress from week to week, so have the safety of being with them until you feel like you can move on.
Posted 3/29/2012 12:33 AM (GMT 0)
I'd add in some yogurt and some kind of protein drink, like Ensure. They both helped me to firm things up while I had the ileo and the immediate aftermath. Plus, the yogurt will help to get rid of unwanted bacteria in your digestive system.
Posted 3/29/2012 8:49 PM (GMT 0)
Well I'm sure things will get better. It sounds like you're on quite a difficult journey at the moment, but it does sound like things are improving. I'm sure I've got all this to come and I've gotta be honest, it's making me a little nervous. As much as I want takedown, I'm hoping it will go fairly smoothly, but by the sounds of it, I'd better lower my expectations.

Keep me updated on how you're doing...and stay positive! :-)
Posted 3/30/2012 11:03 AM (GMT 0)
Well it's natural to be nervous, we never know how things are going to go. The issues I've been having are within the span of normal issues and they change from day to day. I am grateful I never had a single complication, the pouch healed tight as a drum, the op went smoothly, everything was flowing 30 hours later. Everything else is just a question of weeks and months. There are a couple of takedowners here, who immediately went back to almost normal right out of the hospital, maybe they only had issues for a day or two in the hospital. It could go like that for you as well, or somewhere between them and me and my case is just going average. It's all individual. The thing about expectations - the trick is to be internally positive without expectations, because we have no way to know what to expect. When I came out of surgery, it was a big mystery to me what was going to happen next. Stoma was gone so there was only one other possibilitiy. But when and how?
Another thing i wanted to add about this phase at home after the hospital, is that while it is definitely not as brutal as after the 2nd operation, there is still this gradual transition back to normal with appetite and sleeping well. I noticed yesterday that I had a little appetite instead of just hunger, but that less food than before is really enough, and that my body feels more flexible when I'm sleeping, so either side, sleep is much more restful, and the waking up moments in bed are nicer and cozier instead of filled with achiness. Oh right, the incision is still a bit achey when standing up from sitting but it is minor.

5 days, huh? I'm thinking about you. It's going to be just fine. Let's try to have some humor about what our new-born, over-eager jpouches do in their first weeks of life.

One more tip for later: I think I figured out that I have been going 20 times a day because I was over-doing it with the psyllium husk. I reduced it to one teaspoon in applesauce or water just before I eat, and so far the goings on have been more reasonable.
Posted 3/31/2012 1:54 AM (GMT 0)
B'D,

Soooo happy for you. You are doing phenominal. NO post op ileus, well healed pouch, bowel moves OH YEAH! Sounds like you are well on your way to success. VERY LUCKY you are. Easy said from someone outside your situation, but trust me you are doing great. SOunds like the adjusting of intake is key. Hope you are keeping a food input and output log. It will be just like a job for awhile. Glad you can just rest and focus on you. GOod luck and hope your progress keeps up nicely. Rosemary
Posted 3/31/2012 2:49 PM (GMT 0)
Great to hear you're doing well B'D. I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing now, I'm not looking forward to the disruption in my life again, but I guess it's what I need to (hopefully) finish this ordeal.

What's it like to not have the stoma anymore? I bet it feels very liberating. I'm looking forward to wearing tight clothes without worrying about a bulge getting gradually bigger. Oh and of course the god awful bag leaks/accidents happening.

Only 3 days!!!
Posted 3/31/2012 3:55 PM (GMT 0)
What's it like -- I've been so wrapped up in the bm's that I hardly thought about not having a stoma anymore. Would you believe I sort of miss the little bugger, keeping in mind I may be the only one who came to see my stoma as a kind of little pet puppy with a personality, and even imagined that the day before take-down, it wanted to spend time alone with me. Humor me.

As soon as I got into my own clothes in the hospital (it can only be sweatpants because remember you are going to have stitches there), I noticed that when I pulled them down, I was being very careful to pull the band away from my waist so that it wouldnt snag the top of the bag and pull on my stoma, even though stoma and bag weren't there anymore.
I love waking up without that huge filled up lump of a bag making me look like a man in the morning.
I love not having to schlepp bag gear around with me (although for a while it is replaced with wet tp and extra pads just in case.)

Now I am not wearing anytghing tight yet because the stitched place is still tender. Bought me a new pair of sweatpants today.

I sleep better without the stoma, except for when the jpouch wakes me up, but I'm glad it does.

I know the 3-days before eurphoria and ecitement, ti's great, you are going in there totally positive and that's going to make everthing easier all around. Deal with thngs but ride your happiness. Hope you're bringing some form of internet with you?
Posted 3/31/2012 4:08 PM (GMT 0)
Ha, well I kind of understand what you mean, after all the stoma has helped me in a big way. But having said that, I don't think I'll miss it. It can be such a chore at times trying to hide it and avoiding eating at certain times so I can go on a date without worrying about a massive bulge or regular toilet trips to empty it. (Although the toilet trips will probably still be regular after takedown!!!)

I'm going to try and stay as positive as I can about it. In a way I'm very excited and I'm starting to feel that(this sounds cheesy) 'at peace' feeling again. (The one I had before my op was cancelled!!)

I will have my iPhone with me so I'll be on the internet as soon as I my head is back to normal after all the drugs!
Posted 3/31/2012 4:26 PM (GMT 0)
My head was back to normal 24 hours later. Got up and walked the same day, did not get dizzy sitting up and got myself to the bathroom for a pee without help.

I wrote somewhere else - whatever happens the first 1-2-3 weeks after the op, just remember it's a new-born pouch trying out everything. Mine acted a bit crazy, still is a bit crazy, I'm trying to practise a kind of mindfull distance to it because I know it is getting better. So that's the point - however it is for you, just know it is on it's way to be really good for you and your life.

Not cheezy.

One thought: I've been home 5 or 6 days now, and haven't made plans to see anyone because I don't want to do that until the bm's calm down and I know I can get through a good converstaion without having to interrupt things. I might even be alone another week, just me and myself. You might end up feeling like that too, and if you do, you don't want her to wonder why you are avoiding her.
Posted 3/31/2012 4:32 PM (GMT 0)
Well that's good to know. I wasn't 'with it' for a few days after the other two ops, but they were both major and also lasted 5+ hours.

Yeah and that is the point isn't it, it's to change my life so I don't have countless drugs and constant fatigue and illness from UC. Thats something to this day that I'm still thankful for, you can't put a price on that.

Well I'll cross that bridge when i come to it, but if I need to, i think I'll tell her. (Which i will do anyway if we do keep seeing each other)
✚ New Topic ✚ Reply