Hi everyone,
I've read almost every post on thread 11 to glean information. You guys are great! It has been real encouraging to hear the success stories and also the ones where things have not gone well but continue to get better. It sounds like everyone pretty much has no regrets in doing the sub or total colectomy.
I had my visit with my colorectal doc today and he said my defecography tests came back okay. The surgery that he had done 5 years ago for pelvic floor repair was still successful. He has watched over me the last 5 years and says that because of my bowel motility becoming slower and now pretty much non-existent, I will need to have this done. He had warned me 3 years ago already but me being the big chicken that I am, not that I was thrilled with the prospect of another abdominal surgery, 
had thought I could beat this thing. And I did...right into the ground. I now have extreme pain on my left side which is where most of my congestion is. It looks like a lop-sided pregnancy when I'm bloated! Chronic pain and unless I'm taking mega Dulcolax, nothing is moving. Nothing works anymore...suppositories, herbal supps, or Miralax, and forget about fiber. Fiber supps have been the worst because they block me up and I bloat big time which in turn puts more pressure on my left side. Has anyone else out there had that constant trembling feeling going on throughout your whole body and the chills along with your abdominal pain?
I just wanted to thank everyone out there for their feedback. You don't have any idea what a blessing you all are to me and others like me who are having to deal with this alone. I'm still really scared but I know I will overcome this too. My surgery date is set for Nov 27th and I have an appointment with the gastroenterologist Oct. 26 just to confirm that my upper GI is in order. My doc was concerned, because I still had markers in my SI, that I might have colonic inertia going on there also. I also have a mass in my bladder/vaginal area that my doc is not sure of...he thinks its mesh and scar tissue from my previous surgery. So I will jump through all the hoops, one more time. I have seen multitudes of doctors between this and the fibromyalgia so I've had my fill of docs and tests. Does the ab pain get better after the surgery? I think that is my worst fear...that I will add more pain to my already existing pain. My doc said he could not make any guarantees that the fibro would be any better but that the abdominal pain would be gone. And that is okay by me because that is where all the pain started in the first place...in my bowels.
As you can tell by this post, I don't sleep well either and migraines seem to go hand and hand with my constipation bouts. I read one post about being constipated for 9+days and then everything going liquid. Oh my gosh, I thought only I did that! That is the worst thing because you never know when the bomb is going to drop. And once it does, its like the dam broke. I have cleaned up one too many of these messes...some of them pretty embarrassing. And my husband refers to the smell as somebody taking the lid off the septic tank. I try to warn him and say run for your life and whatever you do 'don't light any matches!' We try to keep our humor in all of this. When I haven't gone for weeks, my husband swears I have a black hole that I'm keeping it all in!
I would love to hear from all of you, gogently