Update on Jeremy – Ulcerative Colitis

Wow.  What a long almost 11 months.  For those of you who missed what is going on with my husband Jeremy let me start from the beginning.  

In December 2012 it was decided that my husband would have a MAJOR surgery to remove his entire colon due to severe and active Ulcerative Colitis.  It was a scary decision but it had to be done.

  The surgery took place on January 9th 2013.  We were hopeful that the surgery would bring health and healing in the new year.    

In many ways there has been a ton of healing and health but in other ways we as a family have been dealing with a whole other bag of issues.  The surgery itself went just as planned.  Jeremy has adjusted to the “bag” amazingly…better than I know I could, however there is one LAST wound that just won’t heal!  That wound is the wound on his back end…lovely right?  Because this wound won’t heal he has had to go to the doctor for daily packings since he returned to work and had the home nurse visits cancelled.  This has brought a lot of stress to our family and Jeremy due to him missing work for at least an hour every day and also the daily co-pays we are racking up.  So depressing on so many levels.  

So here we are.  Almost November and he is STILL dealing with this wound.  Now what?  His Ostomy Surgeon is at a loss as to why it won’t heal…there really isn’t any reason for it.  So today we went to a Plastic Surgeon to talk about our options as far as Jeremy having yet another surgery.  This surgery would be a Muscle Flap surgery that would mean removing muscle from either his thigh or his abs.  We are confident that we can have it done from the thigh so that is good.  We liked this surgeon and he gave us a lot of information but before he moves forward he wants to have a conference with Jeremy’s GI docs and his Ostomy Surgeon to get all of Jeremy’s history.  While we are thankful for that we really hoped to have a surgery date today when we left the consult!!  Boo!  BUT it looks like this will happen before the end of the year so we will get this surgery for “FREE” because of our deductible.  That is a relief!! 

SO maybe 2014 is our year?  A year we can start with healing and health?  I am hopeful because lord knows we would love to get back to our normal lives and say goodbye to the doctor’s offices!

If I can ask one thing from my readers it would be for you to send Jeremy thoughts and prayers of healing and health.  We need every thought and prayer out there. 

Once the surgery is scheduled I will update you all.  Thank you for your continuous support through our Ulcerative Colitis journey.