Drumroll please....

As of April 29, 2011 I will have had Chuck for 2 years. He is a good guy, he can get a little annoying but who doesn't when you spend 24-7 with them. Still I feel like maybe it's time for something new.

So...I spoke with my specialist and my surgeon and we're working on setting the date to put my insides back together!

I had a visit with my surgeon on Monday of this past week to talk about the surgery. He assured me that as long as the little tiny piece of colon area that they left inside is healthy they'll be able to sew it up and I should be able to live ostomy free for a while. I say for a while because with Crohn's disease it's never a guarantee that you won't suddenly flare up and become incredibly ill so you take every healthy day with a lot of gratitude.

Then he said, so we'll have you come in for a scope. To be very precise a "flexible sigmoidoscopy". I looked at him and thought "Can't you just ask me to bend over and shine a flashlight up there? There can't be that much to look at!"

My scope was set for this past Thursday afternoon. Usually preparation for the scope is the worst thing ever. You don't really eat for a couple of days, you drink stuff that I would compare to motor oil if I knew what motor oil tastes like and then you strap yourself to your toilet for 2 days. You show up at the hospital weak, tired, hungry and cold - not to mention sometimes nervous and a bit cranky.

But as my insides are not actually hooked up to anything I had no prep to do. WOO!

Get to the hospital and the nurses weren't the most friendly I've ever dealt with there. They asked me a load of questions that were ridiculous if any of them had even bothered to glance at my intake papers.

"Have you done your preparation?" "Have you had this procedure before?" "Have you had any surgeries?" As my friend pointed out it's like they read off a laminated template and cannot deviate. I told the nurse I might as well have a parking stall there. I mean really, my back end could double as a teaching hospital at this point.

Then my surgeon's nurse comes and wheels me into the room. He was waiting for me. We chatted, I'm sure I was witty. Everyone is witty when they have a few cc's of Pentathol running through the veins.

"Joseline, your gastro Dr. Todoruk is here in the hospital today and I'd like to call him in for the scope so we're both looking at the same time."

To which I said

"You know what - you invite everyone you want. This could be a party!"

"Okay Joseline we're about to get started..."

"Hey, if I shine a light in a tube it just lights up the tube, but if I shine a light in a funnel the light shoots out everywhere. So...if you put that light in me and I'm not really hooked up to anything am I going to glow like one of those glow worm toys?"

"Okay Joseline, time to go to sleep..."

I did not actually go to sleep, I was mostly awake however definitely in a different dimension for the procedure. You lay on your left hand side and the TV they're all looking at is also right in front of you.

Now in my drugged stupor I was watching as something the size of a large lobster claw was pushed around and took "biopsies" of my remaining colon piece. It is very disturbing to watch something that large move around on your insides while at the same time feel the corresponding uncomfortableness.

When I mentioned it in recovery my nurse there, who was for the record about a million times nicer and cheerier than any of the nurses pre-appointment, laughed and said the TV is super magnified and the pinchers I saw are actually about the size of the tip of a pen.

I'll take her word for it only because I wasn't hemorrhaging when I finally came out of it all the way.

So now it's the hurry up and wait game. If the biopsies show that my colon that is left is diseased then it is no surgery for me. If it shows that it's healthy, then sometime in March when I get back from vacation they'll wheel me in. (A little later than the THIS TUESDAY they offered me...)

The only downside is that this surgery will not be laproscopic. Apparently when you're doing the equivalent of attaching two plumbing pipes with reducers and glue you need more room to work. So I can once again look forward to 40 or 50 staples down the middle. They will use my existing scar if at all possible which should mean that I have a double set of railroad tracks when they're done and I probably will have an even tinier bellybutton than what I came out with the first time.

Keep your fingers crossed for me, will blog more after my next surgeons appointment!