Getting out of hospital was such a wonderful feeling. Getting my two hospital wrist bands cut off felt a bit like Aladdin's genie getting his forever freedom, and now I'm home I can just take it easy chilling in the place I'm most comfortable!
Yes, that might sound a little dramatic - after all I was only in for 9 days, and the care I've received has been outstanding. But I wasn't sleeping well, I was getting restless, and just longing for bed and home.
Getting home was more tiring than I thought. Climbing the stairs makes my legs tremble, and after tea and bath I was really exhausted. And THEN, the stoma leaks started.
For some reason my little loop stoma has decided to wage war on my tiredness and so far today I've changed the thing a grand total of 9 TIMES. 9. With each leak, my hopes were getting that bit more bashed and my skin had begun to break and sting. After an end Stoma for 17 months, I thought the loop would be child's play and underestimated just how different the little bugger really is. It's flat to the skin, it's very watery, and it flows absolutely constantly, meaning you have about 0.5 seconds to whip on a new bag before it starts complaining!
By this 9th bag however, I was feeling pretty demoralised. My skin hurt really badly. I can't get help until tomorrow when the helpline is open. Would I actually have skin left by the morning?
Then I remembered something. 6 months ago, one of our neighbours very tragically lost his wife to bowel cancer. Knowing I had a stoma, he asked if I would take her old unused supplies off his hands, because it hurt too much to see them around the house. I did, but found that they were convex bags (with a curved shape base), and unsuitable for my end stoma, so kept them in my wardrobe hoping to send them to a medical charity.
And tonight it dawned on me - convexity might just solve this new issue. I dashed to put one on and for the first time today, my skin feels protected, itch free and doesn't sting!
I feel like it's our neighbour smiling down from somewhere up there and helping me out, looking after me when I'm at my wits end.
And now, I'm gonna crash out. Night folks!
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