1. Physically - hmm, well I still essentially have a big wound on my tummy, where the dehiscence (stitches coming apart, for the non-medically-vocabularied among us) is still working its magic. At least, from what looked like a bottomless pit around the stoma is now just wobbly, bloody flesh surrounding Mr S. Slightly joking, I asked the stoma nurse at C&W how the body would know when to grow skin. She got all concerned, and now I have to douse myself in 'stoma powder' as well as all my other gubbins. The result has been an increased amount of stinging-type pain - hooray. Sneezing and coughing etc feels like poking yourself in the stomach.
I'm much weaker than I was, still. I went back to work this week, which was mostly fine, though I realised how completely exhausting a simple half-hour commute really can be. Sitting down once you're there - that's fine. Driving, housework, shopping - everything needs a 'nice sit down' afterwards. And the dehydration! Christ, I thought I drank quite a lot of water, but then there are the times when you just forget - when you're on a long drive, or engrossed in something for a few hours - and then suddenly, everything goes a bit wobbly, and I need a 'nice sit down' quite urgently, along with a couple of pints of water and maybe a Dioralyte for good measure.
So that's all good fun.
2. Psychologically. Well, this is a bit trickier. I remember when I first got Ulcerative Colitis, lying in a hospital bed at 2am while a very pleasant doctor said 'I'm sure you'll be fine, but I have to let you know there's a faint possibility we'll have to remove your colon this evening' - and feeling absolutely petrified about it. Or rather, horrified, I suppose, once I learnt the details a bit more - a bag! External bowels! It's rather beyond your frame of reference when you're a 25 year old cool dude.
Anyway, as it turned out, I didn't have to have the big op that time, or again for the next year. For the whole time, the spectre of the op hung over me (well - I say the whole time, I think I only ever thought about it when I was having a bit of a colitis-y patch and started looking at websites etc). People on forums who'd gone for the op seemed quite happy with it, and assured others that 'it's not so bad', 'it's better than having the disease'. But. Somehow doesn't seem very convincing. And besides, it still seemed like the bogeyman option - perhaps to happen far in the future, if at all.
This was never helped by my mother doomily warning 'Oh - OH - you don't want to get a bag - make sure they don't operate on you! How terrible!'. And all the dreadful experiences her friends-of-friends' had had with stomas (stomae?).
I suppose this sets the scene for how I was going to feel about having a stoma. Well - it's not too bad, you know, those people are right. It's a bit of a pain, but it's not too bad. In the first day or two, I could barely look at it, but then it all had a slight air of novelty, and the lovely stoma nurses made it all seem quite bearable. Then, there's been a long period of moving from being basically an invalid smooching around in tracksuits and pyjamas - when having a bag attached to you feels as natural as having a drip or a blood pressure monitor plugged in - to being a real, functioning adult who goes to work, and cooks, and makes love - when to be honest, a bag feels quite alien - an uninvited and rather boorish guest.
So - what do I find difficult? Clothes is one thing - though the fact I've lost about a stone has given me a momentary thrill - but finding clothes that are comfortable, stylish etc is interesting. Especially as I tend to like things relatively close-fitting and sleek. Still, thankfully autumn is tickling at the fingertips, so with plenty of layering, I've done OK so far. I don't exactly feel comfortable or sexy though. And so my sex life has taken a hit. I'm not sure really how to restart it, either. Despite this, my partner's been completely amazing, thankfully. It's me who doesn't feel quite right.
And occasionally it strikes me - that no one else has to deal with this. Well - that's obvious, I suppose. But what I mean is that, occasionally, it feels a bit unfair, to have all these bloody health problems, and to have to spend so much time in and out of hospitals, and to feel so infirm and unwell when I'm really, actually, quite young. But it's the classic thing - if you try not to let it get to you, it usually doesn't. Just glimpses, every so often - when I remember something I used to do with ease, or see someone my age leaping about - or just sometimes, when I catch sight of my sort-of-emaciated body with a little medical appliance attached - I feel a twinge of self-pity. Ho hum.
Still - this is two months out of a whole life. Let's see what the next two months brings me.
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