Did I Ever Tell You I'm Still Alive

Yes kids, I am still here. Gimme Five...I'm Still Alive. The cancer, according to my doctors, is 100% GONE! History! Memorex! A Scar and a memory! Now I am on preventative chemo for 3 months to make sure it doesn't return. Praise Jeebus!

The ostomy I had was Hell, pure and simple. These last few months have had me in the deepest depression of my life. What I had instead of the classic colostomy was the far more Hellish ileostomy. I cannot NOT recommend one of those enough. Here is the medical jargon on such a nightmare since I really can’t explain that well myself:

“An ileostomy is an opening in your belly wall that is made during surgery.
An ileostomy is used to move waste out of the body when the colon or rectum is not working properly.

The word "ileostomy" comes from the words "ileum" and "stoma." Your ileum is the lowest part of your small intestine. "Stoma" means "opening." Your ileum will pass through a stoma after your surgery.”

Here is the link to me nice and legal: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007378.htm

Basically, to keep things nice and gross, a colostomy collects solid waste where an ileostomy collects liquid and liquid will find any flaw in any system it can. In other words, the ileostomy leaks like a sieve. There are few things that compares to waking up covered in liquid shit I can assure you and it does wonders to your psyche.

The depression I fell into as I said before was darker than any I had ever been in before and I have had some pretty dark depressions as anyone who knows me can attest to. I refused to leave my parents’ house for two months because of not knowing when the damn bag was going to leak next. I felt less than human in many ways. There was no sense of security anywhere to be found and the fear that it would never be reversed really weighed on me. It was pure Hell.

To add to the complications, it appears nobody in Miami-Dade who works in medicine knows anything about ileostomies. We (my parents and I) went from nurse to nurse, hospital to hospital, home care to home care in search of just one person who understood and could set up an ileostomy correctly only to return with a leak and a little less self-confidence. In the end, we (my parents and I) figured out how to jury-rig it so I could have a few days before the great flood returned.

Now I have some pain and the chemo sucks, but it is far better than what I have gone through. I am on the mend and going in the right direction. I have gained 10 pounds and my color has returned. Everyone keeps telling me how great I look which is a new Hell for me as I never have responded to compliments well, but I’ll take it compared to where I have been.

I can’t thank my parents enough…all of them. Be it support mentally, financially, or just being there for me to rage against, they have all stepped up far beyond what I thought was possible. My friends too for your concerns. Thank you all.