Taking it one day at a time!

Hey kids and puppies sell! Besides, this is a much nicer picture than a railroad track scar and a bag of poop.

I also have it on good authority from one of my husband's buddies that I would get a lot more people reading my blog if I would just lift my shirt higher in the photos. 

So tomorrow is 5 weeks since surgery and I'm still having loads of problems with my hardware for my ileostomy. We had one day on the weekend where we had to get up for an emergency change in the middle of the night and then had to do it again by 11 a.m. that morning. Last night was the first night in about three that I didn't have problems. 

I had a big appointment with my ET nurse last week and she gave us lots of stuff to try to get the flange to stick to my skin properly and seal - so we're on method number three and so far so good - but it's barely been 24 hours and they're supposed to last five days. 

Yesterday I had my follow up appointment with my surgeon. I think it's a prerequisite that as a surgeon you have to be totally laid back and calm to the point of being a bit maddening to patients. I waited an hour to see him at the hospital, he walked into my room looked at my scar said it looked good and then asked when I wanted to see him again. I'm pretty sure that was supposed to be my question to him - but hey. So for all that and Paul having to take a whole morning off work we were with the doctor for about five minutes. Whatever. That's better than some of the people in outpatients at the Royal Alex to see another doctor who got called away for emergency surgery so they all had to reschedule.

Good news from yesterday, my surgeon wants me off all medicine of all kinds. Basically I have no Crohn's left in my body - not to be confused with a cure - and that sounds wonderful to me. Actually when he said that my exact words to him were "talk dirty to me some more". So I have an appointment with my Gastro specialist to talk about it - but I can't get in to see him until July cause he's a busy guy and now that I'm feeling good it's not really an emergency. I'm cool with that. 

So other than that I've tried a couple of outings. I have gone to two movies - both in the afternoon when it's very slow and that has worked well. I've also gone to watch Paul play slo-pitch two Mondays in a row. They play double headers and even though I'm sad I can't play this year I'm happy to cheer them on, visit and keep score from my cushy chair. At least I'm outside and it's something to look forward to. I'm really worn out the next day though but that and the soreness after being out is getting better.

Eating - that has finally started to work itself out. My stomach has stretched and I can pretty much eat a normal portion at meal times and I don't snack nearly as much. I've put on 4 kg since I came out of the hospital and I feel good.

Next Sunday June 14 I'm going to be walking 5 km (slowly but I'm going to do it) in the Crohn's and Colitis Heel & Wheel A Thon. I'm looking forward to it - it's at Rundle Park and my team's name is Potty Posse. We are going to have shirts and everything. This year the team is me, Paul and my ever supportive sister. Next year I would love to have more walkers and fund raisers with me. There is a free barbecue after and Rundle Park is actually very nice.

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes and words of encouragement. Oh - on a side note I've decided that besides helping out with the Ostomy Society here in Edmonton and my other hobbies I'm going to work on cooking my way through a bunch of cookbooks this summer. I love cookbooks and read them like novels and so I've decided to try a bunch of recipes. So far I've made peach shortcake muffins, triple chocolate cookies, a greek pasta salad and some barbecue chicken and steak recipes and they've all turned out awesome. Paul and my sister are entirely supportive of this particular phase of my healing! I don't cook a recipe every day but I try to do a couple a week and it's fun, gives me something to plan for during the day and hey why the heck not!

I'll be posting a follow up and pictures after our walk next weekend - stay tuned!