Hi lmonty, It sounds like you are having the same thing I have had. I'm 44 and had a subtotal colectomy in October 2005 after 15 years of U/C. They did the first surgery on an emergency basis. As for the second surgery, they did that in February 2006, and it was alot easier than the first. They went in and took the old ileostomy down to reconnect then gave me a new ileostomy. The recovery time was about
two weeks before I was feeling good and about
3-4 weeks you are ready to conquer the world again. although without heavy lifting. Ha ha. The only thing I would give you some heads up on for the second surgery is be prepared for the new stoma. Generally it's not any different, but in my case they had to pull over so much that it ended up "convex". In other words, the stoma was normal and all, but the skin around it was pulled in and so the stoma sat in a little dip or bowl. Talk about
a pain trying to get a wafer and bag to seal on it. If this happens get with a good stoma/ostomy nurse right away and get a good fitting system. They make them with convex wafers. Will save you alot of skin irritation. Also take some supplies with you to the hospital just in case. I had my second surgery on a Thursday and on Saturday the bag they put on after surgery, the seal broke. What a mess, and no ostomy nurse on duty on the weekend. The regular floor nurses don't deal with them enough to know what to do, so I sat on the toilet with my wife and two nurses watching while I fashioned a solution. It worked, but didn't fit good enough to keep me from getting skin burn from the waste. That eventually cleared up though.
On 4-21-06 I had my third surgery (Take Down), and that was only a 2.5 day stay in the hospital. My advice on that is have a good cream available for when everything wakes up because you will be flowing for awhile and unable to get off the toilet. A good cream will hold off "butt-burn" to an extent, especially from all the wiping. I am at 6 weeks post surgerynow and doing pretty well. The first couple weeks suck, but it DOES get better. Good luck to you and hang in there. Phil