That Vicki…she’s a real jokester. Its a good thing I have a sense of humor otherwise I would call her a flaming bitch instead of a funny lady…
Ok so my sense of humor is not THAT great. Vicki told me a month ago that I had to have an “x-ray” at my post-op visit to make sure that my j-pouch was healing right before my takedown in June. Oh an X-ray, sure. No Problem. So last Tues I venture to Cleveland to get my “x-ray” and have my post-op appointment. I get to the radiology department, check in, get a wrist band and wait for my name to be called. About 5 minutes later, I get called and taken to a changing room. Sign #1 something is weird. Normal x-rays don’t require you to get nekkid. I looked at the wrist band and it says Colon Barium Enema. Ha jokes on them no colon. Wait a minute…Enema. Sign #2 something is weird. X-rays don’t involve enemas. Damn it. So I wait…and wait… and I swear a 12 year old boy comes to take me to the xray. No name, just 12 yr old boy with a Justin Bieber hair cut. SWEAR TO GOD.
12 yr old takes me to the room, on the way there he asks if I know what I’m having done. I said that I wasn’t sure, but I was pretty confident that it would probably suck. Justin Bieber told me it wasn’t that bad. I told Justin Bieber when he hits puberty to call me.
So they tell me to climb on the table and they take a few real x-rays, then they put what looks like a tiny little baby pool under by bum. “In case any comes out” Awesome. Then they explain they are going to shove a tube up my butt, shoot up some barium, and take some xrays. As pleasant as this sounds, I still wasn’t paying much attention. More focused on the fact that Justin Bieber was shoving a tube up my butt. Hah… nice one Vicki, jokes on me.
The x-ray tech comes in, and tells me it might be cold (great), it might be uncomfortable (super), and it might go in the bag (weird). So he shoots it on up there and it was in fact cold, uncomfortable and did go into my bag. Winner! At this point it hit me…my poop chute is being used in reverse. WEIRD. What goes up…came out in to my bag. So I’m rolling around at different angles so they can take x-rays of my junky junk. It was almost like a photo shoot…except I’m pretty sure most models don’t have a tube of barium taped to their asses. So we’re done and I get ready to get up and I realize my bag is FULL of barium…to the point where I’m pretty sure when I empty its gonna go everywhere. But because I’m a master emptier (empty-er?) I did not spill. But it was heavy…really heavy. Stupid.
So I go to my post op appointment and guess what…Vicki doesn’t come in. Guess what else…Remzi didn’t show up. Right when I had totally had it with the serious lack of patient education…there wasn’t even anyone around to yell at. Its getting ridiculous.
So yea…when they say x-ray…double check that.
First let me say… I feel your pain!! Secondly, let me say shame on your surgeon’s nurse and shame on appointment setters for not confirming with you what you were having done…kind of goes against procedure doesn’t it? Now let me say… HAHAHAHAHA & thanks for the laugh first thing in the am. Brought back memories of my j-pouch pre-takedown surgery!! I had been having some bad stomach pain, so solution was to throw me in hospital for a day. ER had planned to do a CT so I drank a bunch of junk, bag got full and all I got was an X-Ray. Then the next day, I am up at the butt crack of dawn – damn teaching hospitals – and the residents let me know that I will be having my ‘special’ study done. Apparently my doc likes to do the exam through the stoma!! I kid you not. No one down in radiology knew how to do it, so I spent the day on iv fluids & thank God IV pain meds, until they could understand how to do it from the ostomy nurse b/c apparently my surgeon was at another hospital for the day. When she comes to check on me and see that my ‘study’ isn’t done, she chops off the head of resident #1 (I get resident #2 fired several months later). Within 10 minutes of her arrival back on campus, I am taken down to radiology and I can tell that the flurry of people is different from the normal activity… I have not only my SURGEON but the head of radiology helping out on this one so they can learn how it should be done for my surgeon’s ass 2.0 patients (she got this technique from CC in FL). She puts the tube down the stoma into the pouch. This seems to work on most patients but of course doesn’t work on me, so I have suffered the humiliation of a room full of doctors, nurses and tech staring at my ostomy with the wafer still attached but flowing with stuff and when study through stoma doesn’t work I get the study up the butt (by my surgeon)! Now that was an awesome day!!
I really need to do a tally of all the people that have gotten fired by coming into contact with me… it isn’t pretty!
I am so glad all looks good and I am crossing my fingers for your take down! Pooping is an awesome thing & it is like riding a bike! How was your j-pouch made lapro or robotic?
Hah…yea right. I’ve been gutted like a fish 3 times.
What??? You did not like your barium pouch study? Mine rocked. It gets better. Trust me. It has been two years since my take-down, and nobody has tried to shove anything up my ass in a while.
OMG – you’re so funny. I’m sorry they didn’t prepare you better for this ordeal… Geez – get a clue people!
OK – so how in the world did the barium get into the bag? And where is the J-pouch located in this beautiful x-ray? So interesting – I’ve never seen an x-ray of someone with no colon! It’s amazing!
Sounds like you’re healing up quite well though and you’ll be ready for surgery #4 – yay! I bet you’re excited.
thanks for the updates! happy cinco de mayo!!!
So the barium goes up the butt, up the intestine and empties into the bag. A loop ileo actually has two holes. One for the connection to your mouth…another to connect to your butt. Which is why sometimes I’m actually pooping out of my ass…its weird dude.
Also you can’t really see the jpouch, because this is the front view…but I asked the same thing. They swore it was in there somewhere.
I just had my pouch created last week and on saturday the rod ripped through my loop stoma and tore it in half. Dr doesn’t want to re-do surgery so their just gonna watch it so it doesnt spill into me until I can get my reversal done. I was told my test would require the barium to be put into my stoma to come out my bottom.
I wondered if I would have rather had it go down the stoma into the butt….but I think I was happier with the way it went this way. That way I wasn’t peeing barium outta my ass.
Jackie, I am waiting for my takedown surgery also. I also had UC. It should be done in June.(knocks on wood) My first was Oct 7 2010(3 days admitted) by Dr. Geisler and I was supposed to have the jpouch created but it didn’t happen. I was also told to lose some weight. Just my colon/rectum was removed. Then the day before my post surgery follow up I got a call from Cleveland Clinic telling me that Dr. Geisler was no longer with the Clinic. (WTF!!!) That I would be meeting with Dr. Dietz. He didn’t know anything about my surgery. I think they handed him my chart when he walked in the room. He said next surgery should be 6 months cause he didn’t even know I had laparoscopic. I told him a had some pain in my right side of my stoma and he dismissed it and left the room. Luckily he was not my new doctor. I was then introduced to Dr. Megan Costedio and that Kim Bova, Geisler’s nurse was staying and that she would be Costedio’s nurse now. I must say I really didn’t get to know Dr. Gielser but I am really happy that it worked out this way cause Dr. Costedio is an awesome Dr. in my opinion and with Kim they are an even greater team together. I love them!!! Any ways Im rambling now….Remember the pain I told Deitz that I had that he dismissed. Yep it was an abscess the size of a baseball. I was admitted(2 days) for it a couple of weeks later and Radiology drained it for me after Dr. whats his name tried to kill me in the ER trying to jam a tube through my gut to get to the abscess.
2nd surgery jpouch created was jan 31st 2011(7 days admitted) and it was hell. I cant even compare it to the first. The first was a walk in the park. My bowels wouldn’t wake up for a couple of days. The stoma nurses stuck a foley into my stoma. Don’t know why cause that shit didn’t work. Almost had to have the ng tube shoved down my throat but thankfully they woke up. Dehydration was a big factor the first couple of weeks at home too. A couple of weeks went by and I had this pain in my ass but wasn’t sure if it was surgery pain still. We called Kim and told here and the next thing I know I was on the table too with the kiddie pool under me. Yep I was being admitted(3 days) again for a small hole that some how appeared in my jpouch and a cavity of puss formed outside of that. Dr Costedio performed a small scope up on H50/51 and confirmed it. The next day I was in the O.R. getting put to sleep. They stuck a real small tube up my ass through the hole in my jpouch to drain the cavity. The tube stuck out of my butthole and was stitched to my butthole muscle and drained into some gauze jammed up my butt checks. A month later I was back on the table again with the kiddie pool under me again to see if the cavity was gone. Radiology didn’t have a tube small enough to connect to the tube coming out of my ass. What a mess!!! I kid you not they tried fucking tape!!! I even joked with them that duck tape does not fix everything!!! They failed!!! So I get out of there and head up to building A to see Dr. Costedio. She wants to leave it in a little longer but wants to pull the tube down to the bottom of the cavity. While she was doing that she pulls it completely out. So no more tube sticking out of my butthole. Yay!!! She said if I feel anything that resembles the cavity is not gone to head to ER so they would readmit me again to have the same procedure/surgery again with the tube. Luckily the cavity was gone but now I have to wait 3 months for the small hole to heal over so I can have my takedown. I cant win!!! This crap was March 17th 2011. I head back up May 20th to radiology again. I do miss the kiddie pool anyways! Not!!! Hopefully everything will be OK to proceed to my 3rd/4th(depends on how you view the procedure with the butt tube) takedown surgery. All of this was suppose to be over in Dec 2010/Jan 2011 when it was all discussed at the beginning.(3 months) and this is month number 8.
I am 34 from Columbus, Ohio. If you ever need anyone to talk to about this stuff on a personal level I would love that. Just let me know. It seems like we are living the same life right now.
Here is my FB profile too https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1362878805
Michael I have so much to say in response to this. I’m sorry that you’ve had some disasters, but in a sick shitty way it makes me feel better because it always seems like the shit that happens to me, doesn’t happen to anyone else.
I requested a surgeon change to costidio, but she wont be in town either. I also friend requested you on facebook…lets chat I’ve got questions.
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