Type of surgery question

Well there are re-sections, but not common with UC. Essentially remove a really bad section and connect the good sections back together. It's more common with Crohn's disease when bad strictures, narrowing, or scar tissue is causing big problems.

I would ask if there have been studies showing success of left side resection leading to remission instead of later having the rest removed anwyay.

ask if total colonectomy is no longer best practice, or if you case has special considerations. you are owed this discussion

Just offering my experience with a resection. I had one almost 2 years ago for diverticulitis (didn't have UC then). Its not all that easy. I was in the hospital 5 days and recovery was slow. I thought it was all going to be laparoscopic too but I ended up with a 4-5 inch incision. It has to be big enough for the surgeon to get his hand in. And he had big hands. 😀 and then the 3 smaller incisions for the scopes and whatever. Overall I had 30 staples. So don't expect you'll have the surgery one day and be back to work in a few days. Resectioning the bowel means you're on a liquid diet for 2-3 days after and then they don't let you leave the hospital until you're a) back on solid food, and b) have a bm. And it takes a while for your gut to decide if it likes the new routing.

Red flag raised. That's the big reason that resections aren't commonly done with UC, as UC eventually spreads to the previously healthy areas. You only end up delaying the inevitable and getting a total colectomy later on. The nearly defacto surgery for UC patients is a j-pouch, and I would go for it unless you are not a candidate (then I'd go with the second most common surgery for UC. a permanent end-ileo with an appliance).

OP, it's rather curious that your doctor is suggesting a resection for your UC, please ask your doctor more and report back. I'd certainly bring up with him/her: what about the risk of my UC spreading as any of our large intestinal tissue can become inflamed at a later time? There's other legitimate reasons a UC patient might want a resection but they are for non-UC problems: like a really bad area of diverticulitis, scaring, etc. But those are rare as hen's teeth... Maybe there is a legitimate reason why your doctor is putting a resection within the list of options but I'd call BS on it haha.

Now if you had crohn's disease then this conversation would be very different, it'd be yeah resections are common as beaks on hens (to continue with my oddly poultry-themed examples in this post).