This is a story all about how
My life got flipped-turned upside down
And I liked to take a minute
And sit right there
And tell you how I became the owner of a stoma named Pearl.
(Okay, so it doesn’t exactly rhyme but you get the idea.)

September 12, 2010 marked the 5-year anniversary of my emergency surgery and coming close to dying. I have to do a little back story to lead up to what I’m really talking about so I’ll make it fast.

December 2003 – I started having symptoms of my colitis that I had as a child, coming out of remission, but this time it was worse. I went to my doctor to get a reference to a GI doctor…and if I could do it again, I wouldn’t have chosen the GI that they did. My lovely GI doctor used me as a guniea pig for medicine. I spent 90% of 2004 sick because every medicine he put me on, I was allergic to and then he wouldn’t take me off of it until I begged and pleaded. I ended up in the hospital the day after Christmas 2004 because my body just couldn’t take it anymore. I was in there for 2 weeks before they preformed the first ileostomy surgery (because I had to finally cuss my GI doctor out and tell him I wanted nothing else to do with him; he didn’t want me to have the surgery because I was only 22 at the time.) I had my first surgery on January 14, 2005. When they removed all of my large intestine, it was SO BAD that a specialist couldn’t tell it was an intestine or if I had ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s disease. (This was in thanks to my lovely GI doctor for all the medicines he put me on.)

Now, fast forward to September 6, 2005. The day after Labor Day. I went in to have the first stage in ileostomy reversal done. I was supposed to have a J-pouch created and a temporary ileostomy created. Instead, when I woke up, I had a J-Pouch and was totally connected to it. The reason for that was, my WONDERFUL colocrectal surgeon (and yes, I mean that literally, he saved my life TWICE.) didn’t have enough small intestine to create the temporary ileostomy. I was like, “cool, that saves me from having another surgery!” I was happy I could poop out of my butt again. Hell, I even called my parents in the middle of the night when I first farted again! Yes, I was proud of the fact I could fart again. September 6 thru September 11, I was fine. I was recooperating wonderfully, feeling good.

And then came September 12, 2005.

I woke up in EXTREME pain. Like, oh my God, I am in Hell being poked by Satan’s pitch fork, pain. My WONDERFUL surgeon and his PA came in to do rounds and found me crying. I told him what was going on, how I was feeling, etc. I said I thought it was just gas and I was fine. He said, “that is not gas, Jamie. You’re going to have to have surgery.” I started screaming that it was just gas, I didn’t need surgery again, I was fine, give me some Pepto. And that’s when he slapped me with reality:

“If you don’t have this surgery, you will die”

That shut me up and sent me crying some more. I don’t remember if I called my dad or if he just showed up for the day. I remember telling someone to call my mom at work, I WANTED my mom. She got there as they were wheeling me down to the OR.

The next thing I know, I’m waking up in the back of an ambulance with people sitting beside me and tying my arms down. I was trying desperately trying to rip the tubes out my nose and my throat. Then I squeaked out, “why the Hell am I in an ambulance?” They were transporting me to the ICU at the main hospital. (I had had my surgery at the smaller hospital across the street from the main hospital because I was only supposed to be in it for a week.) No one would tell me exactly WHY I was going to the ICU. My parents wouldn’t tell me when we got there. My surgeon wouldn’t.

In the ICU, I was usually knocked the Hell out with morphine. I don’t remember a lot of the ICU. I do remember the bed was kick ass and the mattress moved. I remember the nurses having to monitor me because I kept trying to take the oxygen tube out of my nose in my sleep. I remember the hourly shots of morphine. I remember the breathing treatments I had to do. I remember asking why I had to do the breathing treatments and getting the answer, “oh, um, everybody in the ICU has to do them.” I remember the nurse that tried to kill me – the respiratory therapist had come in for my breathing treatment and then said he would be right back. I had finished the treatment (and I freaking HATE the menthol that was in the treatments) and he hadn’t come back yet. My nurse came in and I don’t know exactly what I said but it was along the lines of, “I’m done, he hasn’t come back, he needs to come get his stuff.” Now, keep in mind I am doped the Hell up on meds so that’s why I don’t know exactly what I said. It must not have set well with the nurse. She started fussing at me for being rude or something. Then she gave me my hourly shot of morphine. Now, I had a central line in my neck, not just a regular IV. And with morphine, you have to SLOWLY push it in, while counting to 30 seconds or something like that. Not that nurse – she pushed it all in AT ONCE. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t move. She just laughed and left. If I hadn’t of been so out of it, I would have said something to someone – because that’s a good way to kill someone.

After a week of being in the ICU, I was finally better enough to be transfered up to the second floor, where the GI unit was, and back to my home away from home.

And I finally got the answer to why I was in the ICU for a week.

During my emergency surgery, that was just 6 days after the planned surgery, my body couldn’t take it and I stopped breathing on my own. My parents said that my surgeon, one of the busiest men in Winston-Salem, NC, stayed with me for over an hour until I started breathing on my own again. And if I hadn’t of started breathing on my own again when I did, I would have been put on a ventilator. Thankfully, I decided to stop being stubborn and breathe again.

Also, while I was in the ICU, I discovered that after the emergency surgery, I was still wide open. They couldn’t staple me up again because there was a big chance I would have gotten an infection. So, that meant that my belly had to be packed. What’s packed you say? I’ll show you an example:

 

My parents had to change my packing daily. My mom is a seriously squeamish person but she did an awesome job. She would get mad at me though, when I would be a smart ass and “yelp” in pain, but I was really playing. Hey, I get silly when I’m doped up on Vicodin!

As well as being packed, I had to have a Jackson-Pratt drain to let the nasty stuff come out. Having to “milk” it daily was kinda nasty. Mine didn’t look like the Wikipedia picture, it looked like this:

It took my belly to “close” all the way about 6 months or so after the surgery.

And now, as of September 14, 2010? I am perfectly fine. The only issues I have to deal with now is I still have the J-Pouch. My surgeon left it just in case I wanted to try reversal again. My answer to that is HELL NO. If was to have any surgery, I would have surgery to remove the J-Pouch. Even tho I don’t use it, it’s still “active” – it produces mucous daily and I have to go to the bathroom to let it out.

I am perfectly fine with my “Pearl.” Pearl is the name of my stoma, hence the name of the post. Of course there are sometimes when I question why I don’t have the reversal again…like when I’m changing my bag and Pearl decides to squirt all over the place. I have no control of Pearl, hence why I have the bag.

This is what I look like now:

On the left is Pearl and my bag, in the middle is my scar (obviously), and on the right is the scar from my first stoma (RIP Earl).

And that, my friends, is the story of why September 12 will always be in my heart.