August 11th - My First Glimpse of my Ileostomy

During the night there are Nurses in my room every hour checking my blood pressure and my oxygen levels. Morphine reduces the oxygen in the body so I had to wear an oxygen mask as much as possible. As you can imagine I didn't get much sleep.

When a Nurse arrived in the morning, I was told that they wanted to get me out of bed and put me in the chair. I wasn't allowed to eat anything due to part of my bowel being removed and it would have to wait until a surgeon came to see me and confirm that I was able to start on solids. I couldn't even move myself on the bed to get comfortable let alone get out and walk but the Nurses lifted me up and helped me one step at a time. It was only a few paces to the chair but I felt so exhausted. I asked if they would be able to bring a doppler down so I could listen to the babies. A midwife arrived very quickly and I was very happy to have heard their heartbeats again.

Another Nurse came to see me - she was called a Stoma Nurse. I was old i'd had a right hemicolectomy.  She explained that infection from my ruptured appendix had cut off the blood supply to my bowel, it had died and this is the part they had to remove. The appendix sits near to where the small and large intestine join so both were affected. Around 8" in total were removed, a very small section considering the size of the bowel but still. The surgeon had decided that it would be too dangerous to re-join the bowel. As my belly would grow during pregnancy, there would be a chance that the join would split and would cause a leak, leading to further major surgery. My bowel would be re-joined after I had my babies and I would live with a stoma (Ileostomy) until then.

As my gown was lifted I saw a huge dressing stretching from above my belly button to my pubic bone and 2 bags attached to my right hand side. I had no idea what an Ileostomy was at the time. I'd never heard of it but when it was explained to me, things became more apparent. A Colostomy is where the colon (large bowel) is turned into a stoma and an Ileostomy is where the ileum (small intestine) is turned into a stoma. There were two stomas, each with a bag attached. The top stoma is a mucous fistula - it is my large bowel which is being completely bypassed and only mucous would come out. The bottom stoma is the ileostomy. This is where my stool would exit my body but only as a liquid/porridge consistency.

It was clear to the Stoma Nurse that I was tired. She said that she would leave me to it and come back the next day and show me how to look after my stoma. After seeing my stomas and discussing them, I honestly didn't care that they were there. I was just happy that my babies were ok and if I had to live with my condition for the next few months then so be it.

Visiting hours started and I had a very welcome visit from Jodi who came with cards, a teddy bear and chocolate. Craig and Caroline came for the afternoon after Jodi had left. I spent time responding to messages on Facebook and via text. There were so many.

Howard and Nick arrived for the evening visit and we were all in good spirits, ignoring the bell sounding the end of visiting hours.

This picture shows my staples and my stomas. The bottom stoma in the picture is actually the top mucous fistula. I had to have double the amount of staples due to me being pregnant - 61 in total.