Posted 1/31/2018 10:31 PM (GMT 0)
Hi Donna, I'm not too knowledgeable about all the aspects of your description, but I'm currently with my husband who is having his second diversion 8 weeks after his ileostomy take down. (He is recovering from rectal cancer.) He had NO quality of life after the take-down and barely left our bedroom. He has a myriad of problems around his surgical site including scar tissue, colitis, ulcers, severe stricture and fistulas with infection. In the past 3 months he's had 8 procedures dealing with all of that but at this point, I'm afraid that he's just getting worse instead of better. I finally made the decision to bring him to the ER on Sunday. He had severe blockage and was in danger of perforation. He has a serious infection and his potassium was dangerously low. It's taken 4 days just to get him stable!! This time he'll have a colostomy and our surgeon said that this is still not permanent... he's just relieved that my husband will be able to resume a normal life and so are we.
If your take-down is not working, and your quality of life is so bad, maybe you can get a third opinion? I would hope that if you think your life was better with the ostomy, your doctor should too!! I'm sorry that I don't have a lot of advice to offer, but I thought you might feel better to know his story, which is similar to yours. Ask me any questions that you might have and maybe I can tell you something that might help.
I'm sorry you're suffering so much.