Heeeey Al!
I know it's been awhile. I've been really busy job searching and doing some volunteer work. I guess that means I'm feeling better!
I think the last time I posted was after my 1-week post op appointment. Well, I've had 2 appointments since then. I basically see my CRS every single Friday. She doesn't let me wander too far off.
In general, I've been feeling better every day, with some little quirks here & there. Up until the past day or so, I was still having a tiny bit of brown mucousy, slightly bloody discharge...enough to warrant inserting a piece of gauze between my bum cheeks 24/7.
Something weird started to happen during my 2nd week of recovery. I would have my morning BM, and then a few hours later I would leak watery BM contents. Not a whole lot, but enough to soak the piece of gauze. I would change the gauze and be fine for the rest of the day...a little brown mucous discharge here & there, but no biggie. So at my 2-week post op appt, I let the doc do the exam without telling her about this annoyance...because I just wanted to see if she noticed anything weird. She said I was healing but there was a little pocket forming next to the LIS site which was holding a little stool :roll: . Once she told me that, everything made sense, because the release would only happen once I started moving about my day, driving, walking, etc. BM was getting stuck in there, and then coming out after some pressure and movement. She wasn't TOO concerned, but wanted me stay on the antibiotics just in case because the pocket means it'll take a little longer to heal
. She also wanted me to squirt some water up there with a medicine dropper after BMs. I did the squirting a few times, but I never got a return flow of contents, so I stopped doing it and hoped for the best. My mind starting going to dark places...like infections and abscesses. However, the delayed release of watery BM contents stopped after a few days, so I was hopeful that would be the end of that.
I had my 3rd post op appt this past Friday and she said the pocket was healed over! She told me I no longer needed the antibiotics, and that there was still some healing going on, but I was looking good! What a huge relief!
The very next day, I was doing some manual labor...squatting, picking up boxes, carrying things up stairs...and when I went to the bathroom later that night I noticed BLOOD...like bright red dripping kind of blood.
I freaked out for about 5 minutes, realized there was no pain associated with the bleeding, and kept an eye on it for the next 24 hours. That was 4 days ago, and haven't had any more bloody incidents.
At this point, I'm almost 4 weeks out and I'm having amazingly painless BMs (
), no pain at any other time, and only slight pinkish watery discharge after BMs...enough to insert a piece of gauze for an hour or two after, but then I can go w/o gauze for the rest of the day. The brown mucousy discharge stopped the other day (THANK GOODNESS...I thought that was going to be my personal level of incontinence due to the LIS and was actually content with that). The only real sensation at this point is a little muscle twinge when I cough or laugh really hard. It's hard to explain. It's not pain, but just a realization that *something* is there.
So Al...how is your recovery coming along??? I hope it's been uneventful! :D