I see where you are concerned about having surgery at your age, 67. I am 63 (hope to reach 64 in August..lol) and am having a total colectomy with end ileostomy on Monday. If I told you I weren't scared out of my wits, I would be lying. However, over the past two years I have become prednisone dependent and it is ruining my body...gave me osteoporosis, the beginning of catarracts and increased my blood glucose that now I have to take 1 mg of Amaryl. I ran the gamut of medicine, 6MP for over seven years and it never kept me out of flares but did increase my bilrubin test to double the norm and lowered my white count to 1.6! Remicade worked (although not sure because I was still on the pred) for the first two infusions...after the 3rd infusion I built up antibodies to it. I even tried Humira for a few months...nada.
The surgery isn't going to be easy but the surgeon said this type of surgery is a lot less stressful on the system for someone my age than the j-Pouch. As a matter of fact, he refused to do a j-pouch on me.
So, good luck to you. I hope the meds work. My rectum is the only place I have inflammation....my colon has always been clear except for some diverticulosis, which everyone our age can expect. I never had any polyps nor dysplasia but that rectum has been one stubborn son of a gun. Too bad they cannot just take the rectum out but the inflammation would only manifest itself higher into the colon, so they take the colon along 