Happy Heart Day

So I was scheduled for the third (and hopefully last) surgery next week to reconnect my insides and get rid of the delightful external baggage that I had been carrying around with me since last March. I attended the Pre-Admission Clinic, watched the slide show of "What to expect when you're in the hospital" (I felt like I could give the presentation myself), and had all the bloodwork and ECG readings done. I've been feeling pretty good, and I was anxious to have it all over and done with so that I could put it all behind me (literally, I guess).

The last step was to have a special test done, the exact name of which I can't remember. The procedure goes a little something like this: contrast dye is squirted up your rear-end using a thin rubber catheter, and the radiologist takes a number of xrays (I think) of the intestines from rectum to ileostomy. The point of the test is to see whether the new pelvic pouch that the surgeon created last November from the tail end of the small intestine has healed properly. Basically, the surgeon wants to ensure that there are no leaks, especially at the suture sites, which could jeopardize the effectiveness of the pouch or lead to further complications in the future.

So there I was on Monday morning, turned over on my left side, hospital gown pulled up, catheter in my bum, looking at the xrays (were they xrays?) on television screen. I'm straining to make out the images - I see the dye, which seems to be in a tubular squiggly shape, but of course I am not a doctor so I'm not really sure what it is that I am really looking at. About 10 minutes later, it was all over and I took my clothes and what was left of my dignity into the bathroom to change.

I received a call from my surgeon's office later that afternoon asking me to come in the next day to talk about the results. Apparently, there was a leak. A relatively large one. And the surgery next week will not be going ahead.

Where do I go from here? A CT scan has been ordered to take a better look at the area where the leak was found. Then it turns into a waiting game. In three months, I get the pleasure of undergoing the dye-in-the-bum test again. We will see if the leak will heal on its own, or whether further surgical intervention is required. My doctor thinks that I will have to wait at least six months for the third surgery. But it's to early to set a date. Or even a month. Fantastic.

While I am sure that no one really ever gets excited about having surgery, I was looking forward to just being done with it. The waiting makes me feel like I'm in suspended animation and that I can't really get on with life until all of the surgeries are over. On the other hand, I feel somewhat relieved, that I've been given a reprieve and that I should seize this as an opportunity to get healthier and to do the things I've been wanting to do but have been postponing until after the surgery. So today while I've had an incredible burst of energy, I also feel restless and easily frustrated. I guess I just have more to learn about being patient.

And yet, I remind myself of how far I've come. One year ago today, my husband and I "celebrated" our first Valentine's Day as a married couple in the hospital. I couldn't eat anything, I was going to the bathroom at least once every hour, pain and blood and diarrhea. And to really put the icing on the cake, I topped off this romantic evening by blacking out while taking a shower - luckily, my husband caught me before I knocked my head against the tile floor. I'm sure I was a sight to behold - lying in my husband's arms, naked on the floor of the shower stall, not able to control myself, my husband calling for help... it was the first of the lowest points. Any dignity I had completely fled from me that day.

Wow, I really owe him for that. Happy Heart Day.