Waiting, waiting

I feel a little bit like a fraud staying here in the hospital at the moment.  I feel well enough to be at home, it is just that the stoma is so problematic.  Even the stoma nurse has not been able to control the leaking - the stoma is shrinking as it heals and is too small.  One of the nurses has hit on a solution to the leaking - excessively bandaging the area and using heaps of water proof tape. It lasted very well for twelve hours, but unfortunately it is at a cost - my skin is starting to breakdown.  All of this will be fine as soon as I can have the reversal surgery- hopefully tomorrow.

A big post-surgery change is diet and fluid related.  Food wise, I have to eat low-protein, high salt food.  This is a little trickier than you might think.  White bread, mashed potato and cheesy salty crackers are my new friends.  I also need to take electrolyte replacement - the equivalent of two or three sports drinks a day (sports drinks don't actually have that much salt in them, they aren't as good as the advertising has you believe).  My Mum found some good stuff at the supermarket.  I do need to drink round the clock though.  I no longer feel thirst - I go from fine to genuinely dehydrated in a snap.  It can be hard to talk because my mouth is so dry.  Because I don't feel like eating much at the moment/ can't take that great a volume getting all the fluid down is challenging.  Bleurgh.  I think that the water/ salt requirements will remain, but over time I should be able to introduce more foods.

Being nil by mouth today was therefore not fun.  I don't care about the food but not being able to drink is quite hard for me at the moment.  I asked for some IV fluids but my veins have become rather sick of IVs and the hand quite literally spat out the cannula.  I got an awesome swollen lump of fluid on my hand as it went.  The house surgeons continue having difficulty cannulating my arm.  They have asked me to get the anaesthetists during surgery to add an extra line just in case!

I was told that I could eat around 3.30 which turned out to be a mistake.  At 7.30pm the nurse came and told me that the surgeon had just finished his elective list and couldn't fit me in.  I wonder how impressed he would have been to call me to theatre to learn that I was eating?

Anyway, fingers crossed surgery tomorrow.  While I'm waiting I'm watching heaps of episodes of Homeland.  It just got very good!

Thank you all again for your emails, visits, Facebook messages, practical help and good wishes.  They all help to keep our family functioning at the moment.