DNGILB: Trust me, I'm a doctor.

I remember back to when my wife had her colectomy (Summer 2019).   I was with her prior to the operation. I was holding her hand in the pre-operative room. She was scared. Rightfully so. A colectomy is irreversible. How will things go? What will life be like? Will she be able to have a BM on a toilet like normal again? Will there be complications? What will the pain be like? Will She be able to manage this ostomy... for however long? Let me mention to you now, I worship my wife's comfort and happiness. I struggle to feel even moderately okay unless she is content and comfortable. Yet standing at the threshold of all those scary "What ifs" she is not comfortable or happy. She is in pain, she has been in pain for 4 months. All her hopes for living a normal life and her fear of living a irreversibly abnormal life are tied up in this day. I kissed her... repeatedly. I told her I love her... repeatedly. Like we were going to be apart for years. Like we may never see one anothe

  Journal (Written from the surgical waiting room.) Vanessa’s ulcerative colitis flare started in February 2019. Since then, life hasn’t been the same. Her flare didn’t resolve with medications and ultimately needed a colectomy. Normally a two part surgery with temporary ostomy, then you heal and go on with life. Inconvenienced with frequent bowel movements, but that’s usually the extent of it.  Unfortunately, my wife wasn’t so lucky. Her body just hasn't cooperated. She developed a resistant cuffitis (residual inflammation in the very end of the rectum from ulcerative colitis. Happens in a very small number of ulcerative colitis patients after colectomy). After medical failure, this ultimately needed more surgery. She had a surgical mucosectomy for the cuffitis. After this surgery, there is a risk of severe narrowing of the anus from scar tissue, “anal stenosis”. Of course, her body didn’t cooperate. She wound up developing this anal stenosis. This required yet  more surgery. Then