Day 16 – ‘Express Delivery’

Do you know what…. I think I’m getting that hang of this whole stoma malarky.

Iv learnt the bedtime routine for little Simon now which involves dinner at 6 or 7, two loperamide at 8 o clock, a bag of ready salted crisps at 9 and his last bottle at 10. He gets a change before bedtime and then he’s good till 6 am. Bless

There was a slight disturbance in the force yesterday as I began to develop stabbing pains in my chest. Without wishing to set the hares racing I nonchalantly mentioned it to Mrs C who in a reciprocal fashion of ‘not wanting to set the hares racing’ Googled the symptoms of a post operative pulmonary embolism (PE) whilst pretending to be looking at a recipe for meat balls.

Her subterfuge was soon ‘sussed’ by me as various legitimate question relating to my tolerance of meat balls would be punctuated with questions such as “are you short of breath?” …. “I could make them without onions”….. “is your pulse racing?”

We both talked ourselves down from ‘let’s ring for an ambulance’ to ‘let’s observe over the next few hours and re-assess’ . This was sensible.

A PE could be possible as a risk factor following this surgery, but I am injecting myself daily with clexain blood thinner, and I am fairly ambulant, so I wound hope this would not be the case. We decided that I probably would make it through the night. I put the insurance policy documents back in the drawer. The new kitchen will have to wait a little bit longer.

I didn’t realise (why would I?) that all the paraphernalia associated with having a stoma is free (every cloud and that)

I had a lovely call on Monday from this delightful lady who took down my vital measurements and ‘voila’ at 8:30 this morning the doorbell rang and by the time I made down the stairs to the door 2 months supply of little Simon Stoma bags were laid on the doorstep, like some stork leaving a baby in a blanket .

I’d already decided that changing the stoma is like some extreme balancing act. It reminded me of changing the children’s nappies (yes I did my fair share) where you attempted to hold up their legs whilst removing soiled nappy at the same time as cleaning bum, talc’ing bum, and putting on new nappy. All the time in one seamless manoeuvre hoping and praying that there are no mishaps mid operation.

This is very similar to changing the stoma bag. An absence of ‘having things to hand’ was severely hindering the operation thus far and a solution to both the storage and changing operation was urgently needed!

Trawling various ‘medical aids’ websites did not yield anything of value, indeed I wasn’t aware that I was incontinent or shortsighted as well as having a stoma. These seem to be a prerequisite for any supportive aid.

Undaunted I went for the ‘designer bathroom tidy’ option from Amazon. Oh yes this thing really does put the ‘slick into Stoma’.

All I need are my elasticated support pants and I’l be happy as a pig in the proverbial.