Today marks 6 years since stoma surgery and it always gives me a jittery feeling thinking back. It was such a long and difficult journey which I wasn’t sure I would survive, so remembering those times can be unsettling.
APRIL 3rd 2016
12.30pm I was being put to sleep and for the following 7 hrs approximately, I was having my life saved. Around 8pm I remember waking up with an NG tube down my nose and my family around my bed on the high dependancy ward.
The next three days are a slight blur, but I remember snippets of things that are vaguely daunting and just a bit scary. Tubes and wires, the awful NG tube scraping my throat so that it was painful to swallow. The central line in my neck that needed resiting to the other side.
Then ten weeks on the ward, the most difficult of all my hospital stays. Sepsis and rectal catheters, high temperatures, another NG tube but this time for feeding me. Tears and depression, fear and exhaustion. Scar opening up and needing packing, more tears wondering how on earth I am going to cope, seeing my stoma for the first time.
Then a turn for the better, with light at the end of the tunnel. Sunshine, a better future. Getting acquainted with my new side kick Tomas, feeling better and stronger each day. Feeling well.
This is just a very short version that began on the 3rd April 2016. A lot has happened since those early years with Tomas the stoma, good bad and downright painful but I think we make a great team.
