Christmas with a stoma

I hope you all had a good christmas with your stomas.

I thought I would write about christmas time with a stoma mainly because it is a very stressful time, lots of food and drink and general merriment, and I wanted to note the effects of all this on my stoma. Before my stoma I used to flare with the colitis at this time of year so found it interesting to see if things would cause different issues.

Certain christmassy foods can be known to have some unwanted effects, but I wanted to see for myself what eating sprouts and the like, and drinking various alcoholic beverages would do. I have had alcohol since surgery many times ( sounds awful lol) , I am a bit careful most of the time but at christmas I tended to drink more sherry and Baileys type drink which is all quite rich. I also used to like christmas pudding and cake, so that could also be good fun.

FRIDAY 22ND DECEMBER

I had a few mince pies, I love them but do forget to chew well so let’s see how that goes. I am also having a few sherries. 😉 I am off work tomorrow but back in christmas eve and then boxing day ( I will be having a nice little run of days off between christmas and new year). I am also having a few wines tomorrow night in the local with friends.

It is now evening and the mince pies seem to have caused little to no damage so far. Yipee, I have lots more to eat and that must mean that christmas pudding is a goer too.

SATURDAY 23RD DECEMBER

Woke up feeling ok, did have to empty the bag in the early hours but no change there. ( literally) I do notice that since surgery whenever I bend forward,the skin right near Tomas at the top stings and itches. No idea why, maybe it is being slightly squashed. We went out for a few drinks in the evening and I had two medium Rose wines, and I must admit even just two drinks makes me have a small hangover type feeling. I absolutely know that we all should make sure we are not dehydrated when we drink alcohol, and drink soft drinks in  between. I didn’t sleep particularly well either.

SUNDAY 24TH DECEMEBER

At work today (and we could wear our christmas jumpers.) Tomas behaved and all was well, ate fair bit of rubbish i.e chocolates and it didn’t seem to affect my output much. I took a small salad for lunch and I find I can now eat lettuce, cucumber ( I trim the green off) tomatoes ( I don’t eat the skin if I can help it, daren’t for now, but happy to peel it anyway). Had a large (very) sherry and it was lovely. Stoma fine, changed bag and aired Tomas for a good hour while sitting up on the bed. Skin looking good.

CHRISTMAS DAY

Woke up early, we had brown bread toast with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon ( this is one of our family traditions, gorgeous)

Ate lots of rubbish throughout morning. Managed to eat about 20 mint things that are similar to matchmakers.

Christmas dinner was lovely ( very lucky that my husband cooks ) I love Brussel sprouts and I can honestly say that they do not affect my stoma at all. I have to be careful with peas, and I tend to just have a handful but we didn’t have them today anyway. Broccoli and cauliflower are also ok. Had a glass of the red stuff and more sherry too. The things that I had a problem with was more output so emptying more because what goes in must come out, and I was a pig, and ballooning ( my bags are filling up with wind in the night and I wake up in the early hours to empty, I don’t like to leave it because this is when the bags can lift off a bit and cause leaking.

BOXING DAY

At work today and we had some nibbles. A colleague had brought in these lovely spicy vegetable spring rolls and I had a few.  I will not lie, I was a bit worried about how I might feel later on, but yet again all was good. I am either learning to eat slower and chew well or my stoma is settling in and coping better with different foods. In the early months of stoma life my output would get very very watery if I are something that didn’t break down enough, and I would feel off for that day. Those episodes are getting better and I don’t worry as much about what I eat. I have even eaten chicken skin without trauma, but I still won’t eat jacket potato skins and other tough skins. I would love some grapes but am nervous to eat them.

So all in all things were good, I did have a blip yesterday where the edges of my stoma were stinging and itching so badly I could hardly stand it and was very relieved to take off the bag and clean my skin. This happens to me quite a bit and I don’t know why, because when I clean it there is nothing to see.