Post op....... Part 2

Sorry its been a while life has this funny way of making me forget to write this everyday i think oh i will update my blog later and it never seems to happen...... Anyway...... Here goes..... So i'd had my operation and i have told you about my problems with Ernest but there were a few other things also going on at this time...... Things never get boring with me my body likes to prove its self fairly frequently as a medical challenge lol. As i'd said before the scans had looked very positive nothing in my lymph nodes and nothing sinister else where in my body so although i was struggling with Ernest i was still feeling pretty positive i knew Ernest would take some getting used to and as far as i was concerned that was all i had to worry about now. WRONG!! Of course it was wrong.....its as if i don't even know how awkward my own body likes to be lol...... So one afternoon about a week after my operation and just a few days before Ernest became the stoma from hell my surgeon decided to pay me an afternoon visit, These never end well, Its not something they tend to do unless there's a problem so i cant say i was very thrilled to see him but i did my usual fail safe huge smile and bright and breezy hello, He instantly looked like a rabbit caught in the headlights and was clearly wondering why i didn't seem to know the unwritten rule that if your visited by your consultant in the afternoon its bad, I have a VERY convincing smile lol. So to cut a very long story short he perched himself on the edge of the bed and told me that the scans had been wrong. They had sent away everything they had removed to be tested including some lymph nodes they had taken out as a precautionary measure and it turned out that it was present in 5 of the lymph nodes instantly jumping me up from where i thought i was at stage A to stage 3C :-/ The option of no chemo was of course instantly taken away i would now have to have it and it needed to be started asap. I went on as you know to have an evil time with Ernest a few days later which sort of helped take my mind off it i guess but to be fair i could have done without it. I was eventually let out of hospital not too long after Ernest had had his limelight but to be honest it all became a bit of a blur date wise i came out towards the end of the first week of December i think, i was still getting used to Ernest and still felt that my Perineal wound didn't feel quite right but was assured by the Nurses and my consultant that it was doing fine and that i would soon get used to it, It was bound to feel a bit different and i was booked in to see my Oncologist a few days before Christmas. And that's where i'm going to leave it for now :-) thanks for reading again hope it makes sense. Oh and please dont forget I'm also currently doing a weight loss fundraiser for the charity Beating Bowel cancer so feel free to visit my fund raising page http://bit.ly/zuEzUf or Text RLFP74 £1 to 70070 to sponsor me today Leyanne.

Post op part 1..... Hello Ernest

Me again.....Ok you might not want to be eating or about to have dinner when you read this one. So we had got up to November and my operation last time as i said before everything had seemed really positive up till then considering what an idiot i had been ignoring my symptoms. I hadn't really known what to expect with having an ileostomy and to be honest I don't think I had really listened alot to what the nurses had been telling me that been said even if I had I believe that Ernest (my stoma) would have been a shock either way!! Its fair to say that Ernest didn't work quite right from the word go..... He was trouble with a capital T! My bag would leak every night there was no stopping it they even tried me on a bag with another bag attached to it to drain into for a few night but the "stuff" that he was producing was having none of it... it had the look of pond weeds and just as pond weeds will block a pond filter this "stuff" was blocking the tube between the bags so that the fermented pond water type "stuff" could still come bursting out to its hearts content...... Nightmare!! I was so miserable and sobbing constantly wondering how I was ever going to cope and thinking my life couldn't get any lower when the Dr suggested putting me on an Imodium type medication, Finally after about a week and a half of anguish my bag seemed to sort its self.... wonder drug!!... i was so happy and then.... blockage!!!! Now I've had the odd small blockage since and been fine and its sorted itself out pretty easily..... this was not that kind of blockage..... this was evil..... near death experience blockage caused by too much of the Imodium being prescribed. Over the space of around 24 hours my health had deteriorated seriously.... the nurses on the ward we useless and ignored me constantly....i told them i could not eat or drink and that my stoma had not been producing anything and nothing (considering they were meant to be monitoring my input and output constantly) and eventually after about 30 hours it happened, the worst thing I think I have ever encountered I began to vomit feces it is a truly horrible experience and one I hope none of you ever have to go through. I told the nurses straight away only once again to be ignored.... which is a pretty hefty fete considering they changed the bed but made no note of what had happened and didn't summon a Dr. The vomiting of feces continued for roughly another 5 hours before a Dr finally was called the Dr told the nurses to put me on fluids (IV) and to put a tube via my nose into my stomach to drain it out so I would stop vomiting..... Now to be fair they did try the tube thing but I just couldn't swallow it so they had to give in....I may have also used some harsh words, but they didn't make any attempt to put me on a saline drip which was desperately needed as i'd been unable to drink now for over 36 hours normally I would be quite feisty and complain but I just had nothing in me my fight was gone. I continued to vomit feces until the next day at around 2pm (visiting time) informing a nurse on every occasion and also asking when my fluids would be put up on at least 2 occasions. Visiting time brought my family and my mum..... a force not to be reckoned with!! almost as soon as they had arrived I was vomiting feces much to there horror right in front of them.... then my mum exploded.... storming of to the nurses station demanding fluids and a Dr immediately. A young female Dr came first to try to put the canulla in, now my veins are notoriously bad and the fact that i was so dehydrated did not help matters she gave in just short of turning me into a pin cushion and sent for another Dr he arrived roughly an hour later and walked in just as I was in the middle of vomiting he was disgusted i'd been left in the state I was in for so long and again tried to get a canulla in finally succeeding after god know how many failed attempts about 15 mins later he then, again sent for someone more senior to come to see me to see what was going on with my stoma as it was clearly blocked having produced nothing for at least a day and and a half and the fact that I was vomiting feces. By this time visiting time was over and i'd had to say good bye to a very worried looking family clearly thinking that I could be near the end which to be honest I had been thinking too and had even said so to my mum. Then he came Dr knight in shining Armour he mentioned again about the tube into my stomach but I just couldn't do it so as a last ditch attempt before taking me back to surgery he decided to try a surpositry........ sounds so simple doesn't it..... and hey presto it worked I was literally back from deaths door in less than an hour..... Now wouldn't it have been nice if someone had just listened to me 38 hours earlier!! Since then Ernest and I have gotten on pretty well he has his moments and the mattress isnt a big fan but now we have the flange extenders I have to admit we do pretty well :-) Ok so this part of the blog has been mostly about Ernest but i don't feel enough is said about them else where so there it is in all its horrifying glory my first 2 weeks with a stoma. I will get back on track with the Cancer part of my Story next time :-). Hope its not been to bad of a read I am pretty passionate about the treatment I received or didn't receive in hospital so it tends to mean I type fast and babble lol see you next time. Oh and please dont forget I'm also currently doing a weight loss fundraiser for the charity Beating Bowel cancer so feel free to visit my fund raising page http://bit.ly/zuEzUf or Text RLFP74 £1 to 70070 to sponsor me today. Leyanne.

Well hello :-)

So I've never blogged before which is probably going to become pretty apparent.

Anyway I'm Leyanne I'm 31 and currently in remission from Rectal/Bowel cancer.... Again.... As you'd probably guessed from the title this isn't my first fight with Bowel cancer I also had it in 1998 when I was just 18 I will probably reference back to that at times but this blog is about my current fight mainly as I don't remember enough from that first battle to really help anyone.

I was diagnosed this 2nd time around in September of 2010. I'd been having pain for around 6 months and I was pretty sure it was cancer, I know I was stupid to leave it so long but because I knew what was coming I needed to be in the right place mentally to be able to handle it... However I DO NOT recommend it to anyone to ignore it "DON'T SIT ON YOUR SYMPTOMS!". It turned out that I had a very low down Rectal carcinoma I then went on on to have the CT scan MRI scan and the ever delightful Colonoscopy. It showed on my CT scan that there was also another mass in my colon (I had already had a right hemiectomy in 1998) which had some how been missed in my Colonoscopy but never the less there it was so with that and the fact that my Retal carcinoma was so low the decision was made to remove the lot.... And I mean THE LOT rectum and all! I can't say I was over joyed at the thought of having a permenent ileostomy but the no more Colonoscopies prospect sofened the blow. The good news was that the scans had shown no sign of it in my lymph nodes so Ileostomy aside it all seemed pretty positive considering how long I'd ignored my symptoms.

So in November 2010 I had my operation and from there things got pretty messy including lymph nodes, vomiting feaces and bursting wounds but I will tell you more next time.

Thanks for reading :-) hope you come back for the next installment. I'm also currently doing a weight loss fundraiser for the charity Beating Bowel cancer so feel free to visit my fund raising page http://bit.ly/zuEzUf or Text RLFP74 £1 to 70070 to sponsor me today.

Leyanne Bunting.