Those of you who have been following my blogs since I started blogging a year ago with the Demise of Roland Ratso will recognise the theme of this blog as being on one of my favourite subjects – poo. I don’t mean the word poo as some sort of substitute profanity. Poo featured regularly in the Demise blogs – not from a love of it per se but because it became an integral part of my illness which became worse as the treatment progressed. So there we have it and after my operation I thought that I would not need to regale any more poo stories. How wrong I was.
After I had my operation in October Tom-ass behaviour has been exemplary. True, as someone once mentioned, you can turn your mobile phone off but you can’t turn your stoma off. I found myself bagless during a bag change once and just had to sit there while what seemed like yards of poo came issuing forth rather like sausages from a butcher’s sausage machine. Fortunately I caught it in kitchen roll – it’s consistency was perfect for capture.
Again, I awoke one night – I remember one old feller in hospital asking if there was a smell with stoma bags. The nurse said definitely not unless there was a leak and then the wearer would know before anyone else – and my bag was full. The smell woke me up and I got out of bed and watched the top of my bag pulsate and poo started to ooze out of the top. This was soon rectified and a quick clean up and a new bag and I was pristine.
Other than that Tom-ass behaviour has been brilliant. True he did change his shape to oval for a while but now he is perfectly round and is a prim post Christmas size 30 millimetres which means the gasket seals perfectly resulting in a really clean stoma. He did swell up and that caused some seal issues and I did have some sore skin which cleared very quickly after the stoma nurse suggested shaving the area where the bag gasket sticks. So apart from the very small problems outlined I have been really pleased with my stoma and it’s management. The bag companies have been brilliant, the stoma nurses exceptional, Irene as my stoma buddy has been great and the material deposited in my bag was perfect. So little did I expect Tom-ass shenanigans which have prompted this blog.
I have already told you that I had a stomach upset on New Year’s Eve. What I didn’t say that I had had no output in my bag for a week. Alarm bells should have been ringing but to tell you the truth Tom-ass had been so well behaved that I did not consider the events that were to follow. I woke early on Sunday morning with what my aunt Mina would have described as “feeling a smell.” Naively I put my hand down to feel my bag which was rock solid and was being pushed aside as more poo was issuing forth. I managed to get out of bed with one hand and to my bag changing station where I was soon able to rectify the situation. Collateral damage was just my pyjamas.
Last night 8th January and I felt another smell and pulled the quilt back only to see that the bag was full but there was a huge and I mean huge, dodd of poo laying alongside me. The quilt cover was clarted (doesn’t the Scots language have some lovely words to describe these situations?) as were my pyjamas. I lay there paralysed wondering what to do next without making matters worse. I had been dozing and watching Silent Witness and suddenly I was engrossed in the plot. And I do mean the one on the telly!
I grabbed the rubbish bag that I keep at my bedside and got some kitchen roll and deposited the big dodd in the bag. My stoma bag was hanging off so I got some more kitchen roll and got that in the bag and I covered Tom-ass with a sheet of kitchen roll and threw my quilt off and made my way to sitting on the edge of the bed. Tom-ass had done me good style and I was to fill three more kitchen roll pieces before I could make it to the bathroom to look in the mirror to see how much cleaning up I needed.
I cleaned myself up and then sat at my stoma station to get a bag on before the next onslaught. I know stoma station sounds grandiose but all it is is a couple of drawers and a small area to put things. New bag on and it was now time to survey the ruins. I changed my pyjamas and then set about stripping the bed which Irene would have to remake when she got in.
When she got home my bag was fit for bursting again which we changed with due haste and Irene remade my bed and sorted out the wreckage. Tom-ass final parting shot was a dribble of thin liquid which leaked past the gasket and on to the sheet.
So what lessons can be learned? Well when I was evacuating through my derriere I seldom missed a day. Pain killers cause constipation and it is quite obvious that a weeks production cannot be contained in a single bag. Furthermore the muscles in the bowel work on reflex and cannot be either controlled or stopped! Not having gone for a week – nothing at all – Irene gave me two satsumas from my Christmas stocking. Did they do the damage or was my bowel ready to wreak havoc with my serenity? One thing for sure, I am not waiting for a week again!
