Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming

Wow, last weekend of November already but I have to say that things are progressing really well. Home care has been wonderful and I have a new photo of the "Zombie Tummy"...it's more like a little ugly tummy now. Kind of like the ugly duckling, misunderstood.

I'm slowly getting into the routine of what things will trigger an upset tummy and send me racing for the bathroom. Things work slowest and best if I manage to get some good whole grain carbohydrates in my system first thing in the morning. I imagine my digestive tract is like a highway system...but now mine doesn't have any traffic lights on it making the trip much much quicker.

For example, the other day I gave myself a panic attack in the bathroom. It appeared that I was bleeding profusely and I was confused and couldn't figure out what had gone wrong. I had been feeling good and had no bleeding or issues since I came home from the hospital so why now 6 weeks later? After fretting and worrying about it for about an hour it suddenly dawned on me that I had tomato soup that day. If something brightly colored goes in, it comes out looking brightly colored.

If you don't know what I'm talking about picture what happens after a normal person eats a whole lot of beets. Usually the next day you go to the bathroom and you're like "What the?" cause your number two is brightly colored. Well for me that transition happens more frequently and within about 2 hours depending on what I've eaten.

I've started practicing yoga again. Slowly and not doing a lot of the "laying on the stomach" positions. I still have a very hard time laying on my stomach or putting any pressure on it whatsoever.

I'm also very sore around my Chuck hole. While my incision was healing I ran into a problem called hyper-granulation. It's where the skin gets a little too ambitious and starts to grow way too fast and too much and you get this weird blistery looking spot on your cut. It's apparently very common and nothing to worry about it, but in order to kick start your body into doing what it's supposed to again instead of being over eager they use silver nitrate and burn the skin back to start the process over more slowly. Silver nitrate is the same stuff they use to burn off warts.

It stings a little bit but I really had hardly any discomfort considering how numb all my incision areas are. Now my Chuck hole is sore though because it had to be burnt a few times so the outer healthy skin tissue was slightly affected so it stings a bit if it's touched or if I move around too much.

So what have I been doing to keep busy? I've read over 10 books since I've been home. I also baked my husband a golf cupcake birthday cake. My closets and cupboards are crazy clean and there is always something good for supper when the man who's bringing home the bacon gets home. Which I think he appreciates.

I've had some serious struggles with Employment Insurance this time, things that didn't happen last time I had to use it. It's hard not to pick up the phone and scream at the poor person who picks up the phone on their end. It's not the call center person's fault that they decided I had to wait an additional 4 weeks before receiving any benefit and that my first benefit check would not be a full one because I got paid for out of pocket expenses. Insert angry face here. Oh well, if it was easy I guess everyone would be on EI all the time.

To wrap things up, my incision is almost closed and the thing I'm most looking forward to trying is - SWIMMING! Swimming with an ostomy is totally doable and lots of people do it all the time. I am very much looking forward to swimming without a pouch, not having to worry about that wet pouch while I'm trying to get dried off and into my clothes and not having to worry about a bump that might dislodge the bag and fill the pool with poop. I'll let you know how it goes and I'll also keep you up to date on the rest of my days off go!!