Hello everyone. I am 37 years old and have been dealing with UC since I was about 19. Two years ago, for the first time, I was hospitalized for a BAD flare. I lost 70 pounds in 3 months. I was on every medication know to man, I think. Anyway, they were giving me Delaudid (not sure about the spelling) about every 4 hours for the pain. The dr's said they didn't know what was wrong with me. I had severe pain in the area of my traverse colon (middle) and the end of my decending colon (down the left side). On the night before they were going to kick me out of the hospital (second time), I got a massive pain in my right shoulder. The dr's were called in, did some tests and told me I had two hours to tell them whether or not they could do emergency exploratory surgery on me or I would die. They said I had "free air" floating around in my abdomen and that if it was a hole in my stomach, they could fix it. If it was my gall bladder or small intestine, they could fix it. If it was my colon they had to take the entire colon out. I woke up from surgery many hours later with an ileostomy. My colon had perforated in 5 places and was leaking stool into my abdominal cavity. I was completely crushed! I was told by many of the other dr's that according to the medical records taken on the sugery, I am VERY lucky to be alive. I am very grateful for their efforts but I still have alot of depression to deal with, and I am dealing with it pretty well. I have considered having the reversal done (j-pouch), but my colo-rectal surgeon says that I will basically be in a constant state of diarrhea. As with the ileostomy the stools are a bit more liqiud and I have to use the restroom about 6-10 times a day with the bag. He said that I will still have to use the restroom just as often. Can anyone, who has has the reversal done, give me their point of view on whether it was worth it or not. I am an outdoors type of guy and I am in a boat, fishing alot. I REALLY don't want to wear depends for the leaks. I have seriously considered the completion surgery to remove my rectal stump, as I have leakage problems periodically with it, but I just can't bring myself to do it yet. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you