On August 8th, 2013 my day started out like any other "normal" day since surgery. I picked up a new hernia belt in the morning, had a smoothie on my way home and by night-time I noticed that my stoma looked like it was sticking out more than usual. Knowing what a prolapse looks like, from experiencing rectal prolapse a few months back, I broke down into tears fearing this was just the beginning of a very long road, yet again! To make matters worse, my 20th birthday was the next day and I was SO excited to start a new chapter of my life as a HEALTHY college student. Unfortunately the prolapse continued to rapidly worsen and I spent the whole night Aug. 8th and the whole day of Aug. 9th (my birthday) on bed rest, in excruciating pain! Any time I even switched positions or stood up to use the bathroom, my stoma would continue to prolapse! I was given Valium as an attempt to ease my stoma back in and calm me down, but unfortunately it didn't do much. The prolapse was getting so bad (8 inches), swollen, and painful that I ended up in the hospital later that night! After 4-5 failed attempts to push my stoma back inside in the ER, I was finally taken to the OR where the surgeon was able to get my stoma back in without causing me pain. I spent the next couple of days in the hospital and then returned home (after visiting with the therapy dog at the hospital- pic below). I was given instructions to follow-up with my colorectal surgeon to discuss further surgical options to fix the prolapse. Although the ER surgeon was able to get it back in, she said there is a very good change it will continue to prolapse. Unfortunatley, the colorectal surgeon who formed my ileostomy (@Mayo) did not know what else to do for me, so she referred me to a local colorectal surgeon. At the time, I was extremely upset and disappointed that she just left me with such an issue and had no solution, but the switch to a new surgeon ended up being a REALLY good decision! I will discuss that experience in my next post...
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