I’ve been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to blog about much personal lately. To be honest, anything personal is sort of boring. If sleeping were an Olympic sport, I’d be a gold medalist. This is weeks now that I’ve been so amazingly tired. It isn’t tired as if I didn’t get enough sleep the night before. It’s the sort of tired where I get home from work, fall asleep watching the news, and wake up the next morning. I’ve started setting my alarm for the next day when I walk in the door from work, just in case.
I’ve been to the doctor and besides coming off of “that time of the month” and having a slightly low thyroid, nothing much is wrong. Something doesn’t add up, and no one seems as concerned about it as I do. Is it physical or emotional – I suspect it’s both. The only other thing is my joints are acting up and are constantly sore. Usually they only get sore when I’m having, or about to have, GI troubles. But my GI is pretty good, overall. And the joint pain isn’t horrible – just annoying.
Wednesday at work I had a code brown (an ostomy leak). Thankfully that hasn’t happened in months, but when it happens it’s such a disaster!
Luckily it didn’t start until the very end of the day. If it had started 10 minutes sooner, I could have caught the early bus home. Unfortunately, when it started, it sort of exploded. I did the best repair job I could in the bathroom with paper towels and surgical tape – but the problem was so far gone so quickly that the appliance had come completely off.
Talk about something to make you anxious. There was no chit chatting with the boss on the way out the door. I couldn’t risk missing my bus with this mess on my hands. I would have called a cab, but it likely would have taken just as long to get home by the time I waited for the cab to arrive.
It was freezing cold outside waiting for the bus, and by this time the pooh had started working its way down my leg. Yuck! Luckily I had a long coat on. I wondered if anyone would be able to smell it? Oh Lord, get me home! The bus was running late and gravity was not on my side. I called Karen, my ostomy buddy, whimpering. I don’t know what I wanted her to do about it, but I guess it helped relieve my anxiety just to whine to someone who understood.
Finally, I got home. My underwear, which I’d only bought the day before, was beyond being reclaimed.
I stood in the shower, at this point in tears, and all be darned if the little sore with staph on my breast that had been healing so well started bleeding. I don’t know why. Maybe when I took my bra off it took the scab off? So now I had two messes on my hands, and the last thing I wanted was for the staph mess to potentially get into the ostomy mess. The sore by my stoma is all but healed after a year! I didn’t want to get anything going there again!
Talk about an HPS moment. Nothing that bleeds ever stops bleeding easily. It took me a good hour to solve both problems.
To make the sore better by my stoma, my ostomy changing routine has become much more complicated. Not as bad as Karen’s, but it can sometimes be a bit of a challenge trying to do it by myself.
After I get the skin cleaned, which can be a chore if the little stoma is active, I have to cut these Kolstat strips to the size of the sore on the bottom of my stoma. They’re supposed to help it heal etc. Then I have to take stoma adhesive powder and get it around the area without squirting or blowing it everywhere else. Too much and the surgical tape won’t stick. Then I have to take stoma adhesive paste and put it around the stoma, and then take an eakin seal and put it over that – all while controlling Lurch the exploding stoma. And then I can get a pouch on. It takes quite a production, but it has helped.
My new insurance, however, doesn’t cover my ostomy supplies 100 percent. These items are NOT CHEAP! It’s pretty sad when your medical co-pays a month are more than your rent.
I’ve been to the doctor and besides coming off of “that time of the month” and having a slightly low thyroid, nothing much is wrong. Something doesn’t add up, and no one seems as concerned about it as I do. Is it physical or emotional – I suspect it’s both. The only other thing is my joints are acting up and are constantly sore. Usually they only get sore when I’m having, or about to have, GI troubles. But my GI is pretty good, overall. And the joint pain isn’t horrible – just annoying.
Wednesday at work I had a code brown (an ostomy leak). Thankfully that hasn’t happened in months, but when it happens it’s such a disaster!
Luckily it didn’t start until the very end of the day. If it had started 10 minutes sooner, I could have caught the early bus home. Unfortunately, when it started, it sort of exploded. I did the best repair job I could in the bathroom with paper towels and surgical tape – but the problem was so far gone so quickly that the appliance had come completely off.
Talk about something to make you anxious. There was no chit chatting with the boss on the way out the door. I couldn’t risk missing my bus with this mess on my hands. I would have called a cab, but it likely would have taken just as long to get home by the time I waited for the cab to arrive.
It was freezing cold outside waiting for the bus, and by this time the pooh had started working its way down my leg. Yuck! Luckily I had a long coat on. I wondered if anyone would be able to smell it? Oh Lord, get me home! The bus was running late and gravity was not on my side. I called Karen, my ostomy buddy, whimpering. I don’t know what I wanted her to do about it, but I guess it helped relieve my anxiety just to whine to someone who understood.
Finally, I got home. My underwear, which I’d only bought the day before, was beyond being reclaimed.
I stood in the shower, at this point in tears, and all be darned if the little sore with staph on my breast that had been healing so well started bleeding. I don’t know why. Maybe when I took my bra off it took the scab off? So now I had two messes on my hands, and the last thing I wanted was for the staph mess to potentially get into the ostomy mess. The sore by my stoma is all but healed after a year! I didn’t want to get anything going there again!
Talk about an HPS moment. Nothing that bleeds ever stops bleeding easily. It took me a good hour to solve both problems.
To make the sore better by my stoma, my ostomy changing routine has become much more complicated. Not as bad as Karen’s, but it can sometimes be a bit of a challenge trying to do it by myself.
After I get the skin cleaned, which can be a chore if the little stoma is active, I have to cut these Kolstat strips to the size of the sore on the bottom of my stoma. They’re supposed to help it heal etc. Then I have to take stoma adhesive powder and get it around the area without squirting or blowing it everywhere else. Too much and the surgical tape won’t stick. Then I have to take stoma adhesive paste and put it around the stoma, and then take an eakin seal and put it over that – all while controlling Lurch the exploding stoma. And then I can get a pouch on. It takes quite a production, but it has helped.
My new insurance, however, doesn’t cover my ostomy supplies 100 percent. These items are NOT CHEAP! It’s pretty sad when your medical co-pays a month are more than your rent.
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