I have a date!

Hi All,

As some of you know, I have been hanging out for today to have my appointment with my surgeon, Dr Chow. I was hanging out for it because I really wanted to know when I would be going in for surgery and what type of surgery I would be having.
She told me I was originally booked in to have surgery on the 1st of August, in 2 weeks time which would have been great - the sooner the better in my opinion. I want to feel well again and want to start recovering and getting on with life ASAP. But if you have been following this blog you will know that last week I developed the bloody shingles (if you haven't read it already just click here for my last post) It is all over the left hand side of my belly around onto my back. Not ideal, so I have to wait for them to clear up before I can have the operation. I couldn't have got them somewhere else could I so it didn't have to impact on the surgery as much! But such is life I guess.

Because of this, Dr Chow has pushed the surgery back by 2 weeks to the 15th of August. A bit of a bummer but I had expected that it would be rescheduled, and it's only a month away. It gives my work more warning as well which is nice. I so hope that these shingles have cleared up by then, they have been showing no signs of backing off until maybe today- I think they looked slightly better ( I hope it is not wishful thinking on my behalf) The pain from them has also reduced considerably in the last day which is nice. It is still sore but no longer feels like I have broken my ribs or been set on fire which is  nice change. That's what it was like every day prior to that - not nice at all. I had to take a lot of codeine and felt a bit of a space cadet at times because of this. Haha!
I have had to take over a week off work and potentially will have to take more if these don't start healing. It's very frustrating, but then again I don't want to be responsible for giving this to anyone. My GP said I should be able to go back to work by Saturday (tomorrow) but I spoke with another doctor who said don't go back to work until they have crusted over or gone scab like (I'm sorry that sounds so rank) which is what they need to go like for me to be at absolutely no risk to anyone. So for now I am still a recluse. Sigh! I think I will book in to see the doctor on Monday and get another opinion and see if they give me the all clear.

Bad things happen in threes right..I have had my 3 now. Universe I hope you are listening. You can stop now. Thanks!

Oh so back to the last thing  - Probably the most important too - DUH nearly forgot!
The type of surgery!
Dr Chow would like to perform a temporary loop ileostomy. Which means that my colon would still be intact. She had a few reasons for wanting to do this. I wasn't so keen to begin with, I was set on having a permanent one for quite a few reasons but I am happy as I can be with the decision. Her reasons being she wants to give my colon a rest and see if it can be healed with medication and time out. (one day I could potentially be reconnected and not have a bag anymore) We both aren't too optimistic on this happening. She said I probably will have to have surgery down the track to remove my colon, but that is only if my colon continues to be a bastard and give me abscesses. Otherwise I can just keep the temporary one and all is dandy. The other reason being its a pretty major surgery to have everything removed, a long surgery, a long recovery time, and overall pretty drastic for someone my age (24) that still wishes to try and have children. By having the temporary ileostomy it might help keep my fertility a little bit better and give me a window of opportunity to try and have children. She was a lot more optimistic on the children front then my gastro specialist, but I am not keeping my hopes up. She still doesn't think I will be able to conceive naturally though. If you would like to have my babies for me, be the oven for my baby and all that jazz, just apply below in the comments section. Easy. Hahaha  - I am joking…..Not really….Yes I am….?!
This surgery should only take about 45 minutes or so which is A LOT shorter than what it was going to be if it was permanent so I am pretty happy about that.

I have to go back for one last appointment before my surgery to see the anaesthetist, because if you haven't realised yet, nothing is simple with me! I will be seeing him in a few weeks in regards to getting a PICC line put in to my arm. We will need to discuss whether he would like to put it in the day before surgery or after. I am hoping before because it makes it a lot less painful for me…Then again if it's after surgery I might have some pretty sweet pain meds to counteract that! I also remembered I forgot to ask a pretty major question when I was at the appointment and then realised it is a question for the anaesthetist anyways so I can ask him then.
I don't tend to react well to morphine (even codeine a really weakened form makes me go to la la land) It also makes me itch if I have too much. Whilst the feeling is initially quite nice, I don't feel in control and I know I will be too away with the fairies for my liking. After the surgery I will be given a PCA machine. This stands for patient controlled analgesia. It means I can administer my own pain relief when I need to. After the last surgery I had I was given one of these. I told them of my dislike for morphine and got given something else which I don't remember the name of. I barely used it, the anaesthetist was really worried that I wasn't using it enough but I do just have a high pain threshold! The only annoying thing is the morphine lasts about an hour. You can only give it to yourself once every hour and it has a limit of how many times a day you can use it, so you don't overdose. The one that I had I could give it to myself every 5 minutes but that means that it wears off really quickly. I did like it a lot better but it wasn't as fun when I was made to have a shower and realised half way through I was in a shit load of pain, the same while doing my physiotherapy. So I need to discuss all this with him as well.

I have had quite the rant today, so thank you for stopping by! I also want to thank everyone that has been wishing me well, sending cards, and generally giving me all sorts of lovely things. I really really appreciate it. You guys are amazing.

Love to you all

Holly x