Well, I'm a part of the club.

I had my fistula laid open. Being 22, I was the last on the list and as soon I was done my surgeon and anesthetist had gone home so I never really got any explanation on how things went or anything.

The first question I had asked however was "did I need a seton" chatting to the anesthetist. She knew I was worried as I really wanted to avoid one. It was a great relief hearing from my recovery nurse that I didn't need one, and the surgery was all quite straight forward.

As for my recovery to be perfectly honest I feel fine, zero pain I haven't needed any pain relief at all, even my bowel movement wasn't painful.

However, the packing changes are horrid, not the actual procedure that's fine, painless and usually in and out, it just having to have it done every day.

In a couple of days I was supposed to go skiing, but this was very, very quickly dismissed by my surgeon saying it's not happening. Nothing more gutting for me, he explained there would be a open wound and it's no way happening.

So now I get to travel to France to watch others ski nothing more gutting, especially when it's one of my biggest loves.

My biggest issue is, however, the daily packing changes, and being in France and up a mountain there is no hospital for a nurse to change them. Luckily my Dad is a trained Ambulance Technician through work so it's no big deal for him, but there's still that risk of if anything happens...well, I'm stuck up a mountain, with a hospital a fair few miles away.

I can't even get any insurance, only being out of surgery for a week so the risk is even higher.

How long did you guy's have to wait before you guys got back into normal routine? I had a fairly big cut, to the point where you could easily get a golf ball inside my wound.

Oh well, happy it's all done and over with. I can actually sit a lot more comfortably now the infection has gone even with a giant wound there!

Most importantly, for all of you going through it, I had zero pain from the second I awoke, I even walked out like nothing had happened, ran down the hospital stairs and walked straight out the building.

Try not to be put off. It's well worth having it sorted. I was pretty fed up living off painkillers at work.

Took me 10-12 weeks before the aching settled down the the wound closed up externally. Keep taking sitz bath at least 3x a day and stay on VERY LIGHT DUTIES until the packing is finished you can never be too careful and you don't want to eipnor burst anything open . get this done once....take it easy.