colostomy bag-a-poolooza

From dad’s request about colostomy bags, right after today’s exposition on them. Kind of perfect in timing. There are a lot posts, well, the colostomy bag and stoma, outtie asshole, are a major part of my life now as you will see. If you read it all of them posts. Can’t say I’d blame you if you skipped a few or just gave up. But if you always wanted to know about living with a colostomy bag, well then here’s your chance and read up (they’re still pretty raw I imagine, more obsessive clean up later). 

In the hospital

Now they are going to remove the bag. This will be the thing I will have to learn as a prerequisite for getting out of this place. She might explain the steps as she goes along?

She does. 

Here’s what you do, first remove a flap your shirt from that area, then gradually work your way around the pouch, skin shaped, plastic about two or three inches around, with you finger tip, prying up the outer layer and applying droplets of remover (don’t know the proper name yet), gradually dissolving the connection. Then you pull it off. 

To American eyes it probably looks closest to a maraschino cherry, bathed around the edges in what is certainly not chocolate. Then because this removal stuff still on your would make it impossible for you to stick anything on, you apply the soap, rub it all over and wait till the skin is dry again. 

Then come the scissors, or rather then comes the ruler to measure the dimensions of the maraschino cherry, my abdominal asshole, and then cut the same dimensions out of the next pouch. Then apply the pouch. Hold it there for a little while. And as I understand it, that’s how you do it. One nurse was worried about my skin. Trouble kamo, she said. I didn’t like the sound of that. Turns out it was a rash or itchiness they were worried about.

How to change your colostomy bag. Stage 2. First arrange a generous supply of napkins and a sanitary pad around the area, then apply remover from a droplet working your way around the edges with your finger tip, slowly moving in till you have the whole pancake removed. Then apply soap to the sticky area around the colon, it doesn’t matter if the soap slops over because next is wet tissues of hot water and sluicing hot water, which collects in the pad, where you start picking off gelatinous shit from the colon, or outtie asshole, pulling off whole strings of it till it is clean. But that’s not enough because it looks a little red around the edges, so you take a picture of it to confer with doctors and nurses. You go out in the meantime adding a wadding a napkins for a little safety. When you come back you apply a little powder around the afflicted pink read. Then it’s cutting time! First, measure the outtie asshole length and width with calipers and using that draw a circle in black felt tip. Then you give the doofus patient and let him try. And he does, finding it’s easier to cut rubber than paper, you can work your way around the mistakes. But in the end the doofus patent is the doofus patient and he cuts a hole too big. But, because mottainai, you know mottainai? You take out a smaller rubbery circle with stretches into place. Lay it atop outtie asshole then the pad with its too big and ripped looking hole. The bag affixed to it looks like an upside down wine glass. Wonder what vintage I’ll be giving out today.

Removing your shit liquid from your colostomy bag. First you need to prepare the rolls of toilet paper, at least 4. Then, you want to make sure the end of the bag with the fastener is upright. You open the fastener at the edge, a little tiny bulb whose opening and closing I have real difficulty with. Then you carefully let it pour into the jar the nurse provides, trying to get as much out of it as you can. Then you take the first of the tissue rolls and apply to the outside of the bag, gradually working your way inside so the neck if reasonably clean. Then set fastener over end so the double side is under and the bar under. You fold a pinch of neck and squeeze down with the bar. If you do it right it makes a nice satisfying catch. If like me you struggle at it a couple times till you can close it all up and there you are done.

At home

I use a plastic bag stuffed into a bucket lined with a pet sheet or a man pad for catching the urine. An appealing thought huh? Of course for the shit there’s my colostomy bag. Man, I did the worst job of it today, first outside of the hospital. Right now, though these pages are often overrun with shit much I’ll spare you the details. They weren’t that extraordinary either, just everything was so hard and messy. At least it was containable, that’s not the real point. The real point is man, there comes a time when you realize 47 is too old to be an infant. As I get stronger I can do more things for myself, in time little by little, yeah I’m still following that, but the thing is you don’t need strength to empty a colostomy bag. You just need to get good at it, you got to be competent with the things you need to do. 

Hoo boy, hospital please?

So the bag empty. Not going to get gory or anything, but this one went alright. The thing is once anything is contaminated throw it away. Talking about the tissues mainly. Use them, wipe off the end, as soon as its sludged, even a little bit, into the bucket. The key is keep your fingers above the pour, use them to flatten out the bag while they are still clean. Let it pour, let it go slowly smoothly don’t force anything. It takes time where you can just pinch it from the sides and let everything drain safely. 

The third bag empty: this one went really well.

It’s cold now, again it’s cold. I must say the nights are really kicking my ass. In the morning I had an eye to recovery and tonight I feel the same as last night, if not weaker. Maybe I’m running a little fever too.

The bag change went well, no mass piling out. There was a moment of me acknowledging that ume-boshi as me. Not a tube or an implant or a piece of stitching. A bulb of my colon popping out easy as you please. Of course it’s me, but its outside is also me now. 

For the rest of my life…

Yeah, there are extras to last night’s bag change. It was kind of this chain of horrible events. I mean I started off with my usual night weakness, felt it more though, but not profoundly worse, still was able to shower, or be showered, sitting on that black pipe chair that would later become so much more significant that I had ever imagined. Showered, my hair washed, all nice feeling after the prev night’s skip, all fine. Then she applied the remover to the seal and we got the bag off, real heavy (so I took a rain check on a change). So far so good. Applied the awa, a soap mixture, lots of foam, soft and gentle on the skin, rub it over the seal area around mr. Stoma, repeat to be sure, and we were ready for bag change—once I could get dressed and lug myself over to the couch for it. So I took my water break before I got up…there began the problems. 

First there was a fart, smelling of nasty. Then the shit began pouring out (and squeezed through the stoma it is a kind of pour, more like the nozzle kind) down my washed belly. I managed to angle it so it would tumble down my crotch much, but that was pretty much all I could do for cleanliness. And now to get up there was more prep to do for said cleanliness. My wife showered off the stoma clogged shit and all around, especially my leg. I think there was even another release first, I mean it had been holding back for a day and a half or maybe longer but now, not. So after we got it cleaned off, again and again and again, I wanted to get to the changing to get this shit over with.

This was the mistake. I needed another break. I thought the other break would do. Had enough water in me I thought. Boy did I think wrong. As soon as I made it to the outer bathroom half I knew it. I had that nausea, that light headed weakness overwhelm me. This is usually the kind of stuff that has me begging my wife for speed oh hurry so I can get to the couch. This time it had me on the floor. 

I don’t even know how it happened. I didn’t land with a bang or hurt myself, I was just on the floor, my legs kind of twisted in an awkward position and of course I released another volume of shit, which my wife swooped up with a pad, maybe that was the time… Time. I spent a lot of it on the floor. My legs started in an awkward position and I never really got them comfortable under me. And then I was weak as hell. I tried my hands on the chair, the washing machine, back to the chair, she brought in my stable cane from upstairs… it wasn’t till she brought that little bucket thing which is actually what Japanese use for sitting on when showering before the bath, or something. Basically I was able to push myself up and she was able to slid it under my butt. Of course it’s not under me perfectly, she was holding me from behind so I wouldn’t fall off. The next thing was to go from there to the chair. Man, that was an enormous leap. Like eyeing the empire state building and thinking, yeah I might be able to make it. I almost didn’t. 

I think one hand was on the chair pushing up while my wife pulled me with the other, and together straining I flopped over to the chair. Safe! I ended up sleeping the night on the couch I ended up so weak from the experience. And with hiccups, which are invading my morning. Most of the time spent on the couch while my wife did the bag change was either sleeping or the hiccups. The hiccups felt like the final “I hate you” fillip from God to make my night. And like I said…

So how about today?