Emergency surgery 4 days ago

Ok, I've written here a few times. Gotten very few responses, but just in case one out of the 400 of you that have seen my posts since Oct are curious. Figured I'd let you know my parastomal hernia deteriorated enough for emergency surgery Jan 24th.

My Surgeon finally saw firsthand the extreme pain I was having. Unbearable pain while the stoma was retracting. He cleared his afternoon schedule for the next day & I underwent a four hour surgery to fix the hernia & look for problems.

The surgeon found the intestines right behind the stoma were pushing against the stoma, causing the severe pain & less output. He moved the stoma over less than two inches and repaired the hernia with surgical mesh. Also, went from temporary stoma to a permanent stoma....which has less problems.

I'm in a lot of pain but very grateful that the surgeon took me seriously and got "right in there" to fix it. Now the pain of belonging to a "support group" where everyone looks and very few respond? Geez, like to thank the two of you that reached out to me to lend support. The rest of you, 398? Thanks for nothing...actually thanks for making me feel more alone with this ostomy than ever before. I'll be recommending friends do NOT expect much from this site.

Glad you got the help you needed, and it sounds like you've got a good chance at a much better quality of life.

Most people on this site are lurkers, and the counts are not 400 separate people, but every time someone looks at your post it goes up (so the people who are responding are overcounted because they are going back ... and every time you yourself look at the post the count goes up too). So, maybe 100 people total looking, say 75 of whom never post for anyone..... guess I'd have to ask how many posts that you looked at that you actually responded to? Sometimes people just don't have anything helpful to say. But hey, if the site is not for you, then I hope you find a place you like better.

Hang in, and hope your healing goes smoothly.

Good to hear you are on the mend now and hopefully that's the end of your problems.

If there is a post I read and I have no knowledge or experience with the persons problem, I wouldn't make a comment unless I could offer something useful. I guess that's what happened when you posted for advice. I wouldn't let that sour your opinion of the site. I think too that a lot of people aren't registered to comment but can read and that gets tallied with the counts.

As well as multiple views from people checking the same thread more than once, some of those 400 views will also have come from non-human bots :/

Anyway, I think Tornado6 has hit the nail on the head. There is a fair amount of collective knowledge, but it's far from exhaustive. This particular Ostomy board is heavily geared towards UC patients (if you want to know why, just look at the UC board; busiest board by miles). As a Crohn's patient with a permanent ileostomy, even I feel like a large chunk of this board is irrelevant to me, because I'm never going to have a 'takedown'.

I feel for you because you are in an inherently isolating position: there are lots of UC folks, but very few people with colostomies and damaged nerves due to car accidents. I would suggest trying lots of ostomy forums until you find one with a bunch of people that most suit your needs.

I hope the permanent stoma works out well for you.