Hey all! I hope everyone is doing well. So it is 2 months after my surgery and I’m feeling…
Great!
Exactly 2 months ago today I was 120 pounds, weak, couldn’t walk on my own because I was so weak, had no appetite, and was taking Morphine among many other things to help with the pain after my surgery. Today I am about 144 pounds, walking freely, driving anywhere I want, eating anything I want and I’m feeling great!
The reason that I was in such poor condition coming out of the surgery is because I was in the hospital for about 15 days before my surgery day just withering away while we waited to see if the higher dose of Remicade would work. I became so weak just being in the hospital and waiting….and waiting….and waiting to see if any medication would help my UC symptoms, but nothing did so I ultimately wound up having surgery to get my colon removed.
My 2nd of a total of 3 surgeries will be on June 1st. They’re going to make the “J” Pouch inside of me during this surgery, and I am guessing that my recovery from this one will be 100 times easier than the first one because I will be going into it 100 times more healthy than I was for the first one. I have been working out, trying to get my muscle and my strength back, and things are going well. It hasn’t been the best 2011 for my thus far, but things are starting to look better and better. My goals for 2011 are to be able to surf, play soccer and be healthy enough to spend at day at Disneyland by December of this year! haha. I have decided not to try and surf or play soccer yet until all of my surgeries are done, because I don’t want any accidents to happen regarding my ileostomy and what not, so I feel like it’s safer.
Anywho, I know a lot of you guys may be thinking about surgery and may be nervous just by the thought of surgery. From my experience, it has been much much better than living with UC. It might be the fact that my UC was so bad that nothing was working to help it. I went on the SCD diet and it wasn’t working, so I guess from my perspective, even though surgery was the only way to go, I’m glad that it happened. I LOVE being able to eat my favorite foods again without feeling the pain in my stomach and spending countless hours on the toilet. This is coming from someone who has never had surgery or had never been in a hospital before January 2011, so you can imagine how freaked out I must have been about having surgery, but I knew it was the only thing left to do.
Other than that, things are going really well. I will be graduating from Cal State University San Marcos next month which will be cool and we’re going to have a nice graduation party at my house with friends and family which will be a good time!
I hope everyone is doing well and finding what works for them. Surgery has worked for me so far and hopefully things just continue to get better and I can be surfing and playing soccer again. Those are the 2 things I miss the most right now!
Medications: NONE
-Curtis
Curtis is a young guy who developed a very rapid case of severe ulcerative colitis symptoms in early 2011. Shortly afterwards as when medications were failing to solve his problems, he had only one option left which was surgery, and he is hanging in there and doing great. Curtis is an expert soccer player and has his own line of T-Shirts he creates too.
So happy to hear this Curtis! Way to go and gain the weight back!! You are only going to continue feeling great after your last surgery. I’m a month and a half post takedown and life is WONDERFUL! I cant eat everything I want just yet (Well, I can..I will just be paying for it all evening in the restroom lol) but life is 100000x better than with UC. I am so excited for you – you’re getting healthy and have a positive attitude. I promise that attitude is going to get you very far!!! Continue getting better and I’ll keep you in my prayers :)
I am sooo glad to hear all this Curtis. It sounds like you and my mom were pretty much in the same position. She is 2 weeks out from having her colon removed, and it has been quite a tough recovery for her. They tried so hard to build her up and get her protein up before surgery with her PICC line but she just kept getting worse and worse so they just treated it as an emergency and did it through the night. The last 3 days have been better for her, the pain before this was terrible for her. She said to the doctor, I have had 9 hour brain surgery and the recovery was NOTHING like this, this is so hard! Anyways, she is so happy with the variety of food she gets to eat and sometimes even forgets that she wont “suffer” if she eats something. I am hoping that the next few weeks will just get better for her. She is out of pain meds so we are trying to find something to keep the pain atleast comfortable until she heals even more! Thanks for the update!
How good does it feel to write “NONE” in that spot where you used to have all those meds to list? I am five weeks out from my colectomy and also on zero meds. It’s the best! I am still slightly limited on activities because of waiting for my incision to finish healing (it’s doing really well though!). It is so nice to go out and shop, hang out with friends and family, etc. and not be worrying about where the bathroom is. I’m so glad you are experiencing the same freedom and improved health. I look forward to continuing to follow your progress!