The Colon Club

My staples are schedule to come out November 14. Surgery was October 30.

I can't offer any additional surgical advice so I'm going to wish you a successful uncomplicated surgery with a speedy recovery!

Please let us know how you're doing when you feel up to it!

Best wishes!

Shana

Hello Alex,

Hoping that your surgery goes well. I had my hemi colectomy last year. My dr (just a general surgeon since I live in rural Canada) started with a laparoscopic surgery but did have to do a open me up a bit. The tumour was larger than thought and he needed to open me to get clear margins in the backside. I think I was in 5 days. Had a pain pump at the hospital that I just clicked as needed. By the time I was home all I needed was Tylenol. Took the solid foods slowly. And man my system doesn’t like to work away from my comfort areas. I wasn’t passing gas or having bm at the hospital but as soon as I climbed into
My car after being discharged all I did was pass gas! I did get hall walking in after the first day. I didn’t know it would help but I was bored.

Beth

jep wrote:...Also, please don't feel pressure to eat solid foods too soon. I was shocked when I returned to my hubby's room to find a plate of chicken stir fry in front of him. I believe that impeded his recovery. Stick with the liquid diet..

I agree with this completely. Don't let them force you into solid food prematurely. Keep on liquid or low-residue diet as long as you can.

AlexMichelle wrote:...Was your pain moderate or severe? ....

My pain was moderste. I have never had severe pain

Duplicate post

Maggie Nell wrote:Hello AlexMichelle,



I didn't have time to get way anxious but I went into that surgery with full-blown Panic Disorder/Agoraphobia riding shotgun
and I know a thing or five about how to shift focus off the 'last time' and roll into a future experience with trust.

Forget about soldiering on - this aint the Army, it's civvie street.

So.........whatcha packing?

You have panic issues and made it through surgery without freaking?

Of course I made it through surgery without panicking. I was under
general anaesthesia and out for the count.

O Stoma Mia wrote:

jep wrote:...Also, please don't feel pressure to eat solid foods too soon. I was shocked when I returned to my hubby's room to find a plate of chicken stir fry in front of him. I believe that impeded his recovery. Stick with the liquid diet..

I agree with this completely. Don't let them force you into solid food prematurely. Keep on liquid or low-residue diet as long as you can.

A LOW fiber diet is a good idea. I was cut open. Prep on Sunday, surgery on Monday. Nothing from Monday to Thursday morn, not even coffee Liquid diet after I passed gas on Thursday morn (coffee). Soft food Thursday evening. Some real food Friday morn. Was not allowed to leave until I passed a BM, late Friday.

Again best advice, walk, walk, walk those hospital halls. Helps wake everything up. thus I was able to leave Friday night. I was first told I would be in hospital 7-10 days. Walking really helped speed that up.

All the best,

Lee

P.S. When I had my hernia repair, liquid diet 1st day (soup). soft food the next few days. Low Fiber diet for next 2 weeks.

Is your surgeon a board certified colorectal surgeon? If not, I highly recommend you find one to perform your surgery. It is delicate work to operate in the pelvic region and you want an expert doing it.

This was very important to me and my family. I researched the best Colorectal Surgeon in our state for my mom and had to switch her insurance around and in 15 days we found a surgeon. I didn't like the reviews on her recommended surgeon by her Gastro Dr. He had HORRIBLE reviews and he immediately just wanted to do surgery on her/ I am so glad that she did this LAP surgery over the other one cause she is older and much more fragile. She was having a tough recovery due to her getting an abscess which is rare but now doing better with anti-biotics. My mom was staying with me and I was her 24 hour caregiver. I got to see pretty much everything and I will admit that the recovery was tough but she got through it.
We got good news that no lymphs were involved and it looks like they got all of the cancer! Best of luck to you. I have attached a link to my mom's surgery team and their philosophy and speciality. It's very important to find a specialty dr. in this type of surgery. I found her surgeon on Yelp.com, self referral with awesome reviews! http://www.surgery.usc.edu/colorectal/bio-lee_sang.html

http://www.surgery.usc.edu/colorectal/

I wouldn't have chose any other Dr. or hospital for colorectal surgery. Best of luck!

To every single person who has taken time to leave me a note here I say thank you, thank you, thank you! It means so much to have support, advice, and good thoughts. As you all know, you can feel so alone if you don't have others to share with who have been down this scary road. This forum has made me feel much more confident about how to handle this journey. I start the dreaded prep in 12 hours. Just finished mixing it and refrigerating it so it will be very cold when I start.... Key for me is it have to be extremely cold and I have to guzzle it down.

I have a question. Everyone keeps telling me to walk, walk, walk and I am a person who enjoys walking. Last time I was in the hospital, the only place I could see to walk was the hallway which is filled with nurses going back-and-forth trying to get quickly from room to room. I felt like I was in the way and I also hated walking the hallways because you could see and hear all of the sad and sick people. It was very depressing. Where did you all walk? Is there someplace else besides the hallway outside of your room? Are we able to leave our floor of the hospital and walk other places?

Lee, any suggestions on what you consumed on the liquid diet and the low residue diet? Food is not all that important to me so I will have no problem at all following that. Would love to hear what you consumed the most on both diets. Also did you lose much weight during that time you were in the hospital? Do you remember how much you lost from prep day until you recovered? I can only afford to lose about five or six pounds without people starting to think that I look sick. I am already on the thin side. For the low residue diet that I am on right now, I'm drinking several Ensure Plus per day so that I will not lose weight. Would love some insight from you.

I have another question for anybody who wants to answer it. Isn't it embarrassing when you have visitors or your roommate has visitors and you start passing gas? How is that handled? It is certainly too bad that patients with this condition do not get to have their own room. I just cannot imagine going through this with other people in the room? Do I just have to get over it? Oh geeze.

AlexMichelle wrote:Lee, any suggestions on what you consumed on the liquid diet and the low residue diet? ...

http://www.gwh.nhs.uk/media/140811/low-residue_diet.pdf
.
http://www.nmh.org/ccurl/84/948/lowfiber-diet07.pdf

AlexMichelle wrote: The surgeon is doing "open" surgery because the 4 cm cancer is in the lower colon and upper rectum and he thinks with the open surgery it will give me a better chance to avoid a colostomy. If any one here has had the open surgery, could you please share your experience in terms of recovery the day of surgery and going forward.

It took me 4 months from the time I saw blood in my stool to get a colonoscopy -- the gastroenterologist I saw is a busy man. But it's my understanding that cancers down there grow quite slowly, so a few days delay shouldn't make any difference for you.

After I had my LAR surgery for the rectal cancer (no ileostmy), I was in the hospital for 10 days, catheterized (since my ureter had been slightly damaged after the operation) and with nothing at all to eat or drink for 9 days. There was a nasogastric tube up through my nose to suck gastric juices out of my stomach. so my colon could be kept inactive while it healed, and there were feeding tubes attached at my throat. It was awkward getting around, but I was never in any pain. It was a boring time, but also relaxing.

After going home, I took it easy for a couple of weeks, I had been given a prescription for pain medication, but I had no discomfort at all, so there was no need to fill the prescription.

Starting after about a month, I commenced a 6 week course of radiation and 5fu chemotherapy. I had gone back to work and just stopped by the hospital on weekdays for the treatments. The radiation treatments themselves produced no sensation, but they did irritate my bowel, which was no fun.

This was all over 10 years ago. There has been no sign of a recurrence of the cancer.

AlexMichelle wrote:To every single person who has taken time to leave me a note here I say thank you, thank you, thank you! It means so much to have support, advice, and good thoughts. As you all know, you can feel so alone if you don't have others to share with who have been down this scary road. This forum has made me feel much more confident about how to handle this journey. I start the dreaded prep in 12 hours. Just finished mixing it and refrigerating it so it will be very cold when I start.... Key for me is it have to be extremely cold and I have to guzzle it down.

I have a question. Everyone keeps telling me to walk, walk, walk and I am a person who enjoys walking. Last time I was in the hospital, the only place I could see to walk was the hallway which is filled with nurses going back-and-forth trying to get quickly from room to room. I felt like I was in the way and I also hated walking the hallways because you could see and hear all of the sad and sick people. It was very depressing. Where did you all walk? Is there someplace else besides the hallway outside of your room? Are we able to leave our floor of the hospital and walk other places?

You have to take the walking pretty slowly after open surgery. My step counts for the first few days was well under 100 and I think that the max was probably under 500. Aches and pain may limit the number of steps and certainly your speed. I was probably walking around 2 MPH in the hospital and and am walking maybe 3 MPH eight days after surgery and I'm still getting some soreness from that speed. For reference, my top walking speed is about 4.5 MPH, top running speed 12 MPH. There were a couple of days in October where I had 20,000 steps. Yesterday I got in 3,000 steps. And that produced some soreness. There are a lot of different kinds of surgery, some Laparoscopic-only and some open. I think that we need to know what kind of surgery someone had when they make recommendations to do a lot of walking as I've heard people caution against walking too much or too fast as they or their spouses had hernias as a result.