Reply to: Blam and dast...

[quackhandle]

Wow, Christ on a bike. Or a VFR.

To what you have been through and your descriptions of it all, I doff my cap.

qh

[Lost It]

I just figure if I don't I'll just put on weight, get diabetes, turn into a keyboard warrior or something.

[Gibbon]

I turn 66 on Monday 10th, I'm going to start drawing my pension (because why not) and I'm going to continue working until I can't get out of bed. Or my wife can think of a good reason why I shouldn't go to work.

That's my sentiment too, after surviving (for now) prostate cancer and kidney failure, I somewhere found I actually liked working. Well done you both for surviving and a top mental attitude. May you be working til a 100!

[Zigenare]

Douch bag.

Rather utilitarian in your choice there...

[Lost It]

That is exactly what happened to my MiL when she was over here from Ireland visiting for my son's birthday - she ended up staying with us for the best part of a year! She was treated at Salford Royal by one of the best Stoma Surgeons apparently. She still has a Stoma but seems generally well in herself. Her Stoma is called "Syd", what's yours called?

Douch bag.

[northernladuk]

Having read the continuing story, stubborn barely covers it.

Totally! More Yays to the OP from me

[NotAllThere]

Having read the continuing story, stubborn barely covers it.

[Zigenare]

Well is it time for an update?

Now it's over two years further on so over time I've been able to put together a few salient facts. Apparently the ambulance was outside my house for almost an hour before they moved me to hospital, because of C19 I wasn't allowed into the intensive care bit, the catheter went in just before I went in for what they call and "Intervention" operation which basically means they just cut and dive in to see what is wrong, what was wrong was that my bowel had finally disintegrated and I was filling the cavity with poo. After 4 hours of operation they had to stop because the women trying to keep me alive said iof they don't stop my heart will give out, then it did, they got me back.
they told my family not to expect me to survive that night I was in a really bad position appaently.
Two days later they went in again to complete the jetwashing of my insides I presume, fit me with a Stoma and do whatever they could to seal the bowel off, I still have a "stub" where my backside is but it's only a few inches.

That is exactly what happened to my MiL when she was over here from Ireland visiting for my son's birthday - she ended up staying with us for the best part of a year! She was treated at Salford Royal by one of the best Stoma Surgeons apparently. She still has a Stoma but seems generally well in herself. Her Stoma is called "Syd", what's yours called?

[Lost It]

Well to continue the story...

I asked the surgery team and my GP about going to work and I was told that because I didn't have a bowel now I would be forever struggling to get enough "goodness" out of my food, the two typoes of bowel do two different jobs, the small intesting more or less mashes and prepares the food, the Colon gets all the fluids, vitamins, starches, salts out etc. and of course that's missing now so I had a look online as you do and saw where people had managed to deal with it, one guy in the US runs a car recovery business, OK he's a lot younger than me, some people drive yatchs, there are people getting on with it so I had another look at nutrition.

basically I have to have salt on just about all my meals, I drink like a fish because your bowel removes fluid, I eat lots of multivits and high protein foods, the general thinking seems to be that even though the samll intestine isn't designed for that, if you can slow the flow through it some of the vital bits do get absorbed so I have to take a lot of tabs to ind me up, Loperamol and sometimes Codeine Phosphate and what I have found is that yes, stamina is an issue, if I do a 12 hour shift now I really struggle but I found that if I took things easy and excercised right, well that was another story.

Basically when they cut into me they cut through all the stomach muscle, and at my age that takes a long time to reknit itself, so the first few months I had to be very careful I didn't get ruptures where the stitching was or around the illiostomy and I was very much too aggressive with myself. So I suffered a bit until I learned just how much I was able to do.
I was told cycling was out of the question because the core stomach muscles do lots of other things besides holding your gut in (or not) they are worked continuously for balace, walking, even twisting around, breathing (diaphram is kind of attched) and lots of other stuff too that you might not even consider, like going for a pee... I was also told to forget driving 250kg motorcycles around because that would be way in excess of my abilities.

Well... Get back to work first eh? No. You won't be able to hold a job down unless you can work from home, and I'm a construction site manager.

So I took to walking to build my stamina, kept away from the pushbike, washed the bikes and covered them up... And once I got to a stage where I could walk 10,000 steps in a reasonable time I started looking for work.

My CV isn't bad and I got a job after two weeks, a 15 month stag at Southampton Combined Courts installing new HVAC kit, which I admit was a huge struggle to start with but eventually my guts settled into a "I need to empty at a certain time of day" routine and I went with that.
Started it in March 2021, I changed my vehicle of choice to a tatty old Lexus RX400h so I could open the door and just fall out, and leather seats meant any accidents just wiped up and got on with it.

By September I decided to get myself back on two wheels, I ought a chinese 125, they weigh next to nothing and a bit of studious "tuning" big ore kit, a silly camshaft and a decent variator later I was whizzing around the countryside at 60mph or thereabouts. Only weighed about 115kg so not a bad move, I suffered a bit with my guts again until I got used to it, then I moved to a Honda 250 scooter, a little heavier but one I could use on the motorway, did 80mph that was enough then finally I bought a Suzuki Bergman 400. Again I struggled a bit with it weight wise, but it was a stepping stone to my VFR which I got back on July 2022. I'm still not using it for work yet, that will take a bit longer but at least I'm back at work.

So no matter what, if you are stubborn enough you can crack it I think.

I turn 66 on Monday 10th, I'm going to start drawing my pension (because why not) and I'm going to continue working until I can't get out of bed. Or my wife can think of a good reason why I shouldn't go to work.

[Whorty]

Words fail me ..... the beers are on me if ever we meet

[jamesbrown]

I'll do the follow up later, I'm at work again you see...

You're more resilient than a cockroach

[ladymuck]

I was just talking about you to someone the other day, about your 'fit to work' assessment. Very glad to see you're still knocking about.

[vetran]

Stubborn git.

Definitely , good job old chap! Hold out for your Grand children.

My FIL was a stubborn old bugger and held on for years pushing him in a wheelchair chattering with delight so he could see his grandchild row into Eton was a moment I won't forget. Same with my Mum she wandered round Moscow in remission with a stoma bag she sadly missed her grandchildren by a whisker though.

[Lost It]

And because C19 was rife at that point I was only allowed one visitor every 4 days for about 20 minutes so my poor wife and daughter couldn't come every day to see me, they had "lost" my phone so I couldnt even text but I had an ipad that I wasnt strong enough to hold up....

I slowly got to the stage where I could hold my head up and move my legs around, still couldn't get out of bed unaided and I had finally realised I had a stoma bag for life now, which I didn't want but I have to be alive to be upset about it right?

they let me out on 8th October 2020, two days before my birthday, I literally had to be carried to my front door and have my foot lifted over the door coaming, helped to my recliner and dumped there. First meal was Egg and Chips and they have never tasted so good, but only a few chips and one egg because apparently your stomach gets smaller too...

Then I had 5 months of watching crap on TV, You tube, eventually got strong enough to hold an X box controller for a n hour or so.

Then we realised we were running out of funds.... Luckily we have good friends and relatives and enough "finance" came in to allow us to eat and stay warm...

I'll do the follow up later, I'm at work again you see...

[Lost It]

So I had a few very strange dreams, my wife going to America, buying a huge 4WD and a gun, Mexicans digging trenches, someone shaving me, conversations with people kind of, being on a pushbike, under some floor tiles looking at statues of WW1 soldiers on the Mall carrying pikes, someone talking about the Police pulling her over in her yellow GTi, being on a motorbike etc. a nurses voice talking to me, she had lovely eyes but I couldn't speak.

I had a period where I was aware of stuff going off and wanted to talk but couldn't, there was a pipe in my mouth, a feeding tube apparently, a nurse every so often would ask me to cough and there were suction noises, I recall seeing a nurse walk towards me fully gowned up and me croaking "tea, tea" at her, her eyes lighting up when she heard me and her rushing out then a load of people who I presume were doctors coming in and asking me things and checking stuff, then I was given a sponge dipped in water... All very strange, after that I had a blood transfusion, Then I had a memory of some guy asking me if I wanted to walk again or was I going to stay bedridden, I had no idea what he was talking about until I looked at my arm and realised I had bingo wings and almost no muscle, they got me oyt of bed, strapped me to some device and tried to get me to walk, I had a shock when I saw my legs, just loose flaps of skin where my muscles used to be.

Apparently I had been in a coma for 24 days. I have no idea, I was asleep. I also now know your body consumes muscle mass at quite a rate when you are comatose, I lost almost 14 kg of mass apparently.

Then my Surgeon and the anaethetist came to see me, the first thing my surgeon said was "Hello Mr Grieve we are about to have a conversation I never expected we would have but I'm very glad we are having it". To which my stunned reply? I have no idea because I was digesting that statement. Probably congratulating him on his skill keeping me alive, but he told me bluntly he didn't think I was going to make it "You must have something special in your makeup, only 1 in 5 survive what you went through". Wow. Just wow..

So bearing in mind I wasn't aware I'd been in a coma, just aware of a lot of strange dreams that was a bit of a shock and another part of the loss of muscle mass is that your rain suffers a bit too, your voice, your lungs, even your heart loses mass so you kind of have to start rebuilding mass again from the point you wake up...