surgery time?

Airica83,
I had the 2 step j pouch procedure done laparoscopically and from start to finish it took me 4 months to recover. Recovery time can vary person to person. My life is back to normal although its a new normal. I was pretty fortunate and had no major complications with the surgery....just an abscess that had to be drained after the first step. I wish I had the surgery a lot sooner than I did. I would have saved myself a lot of pain and aggravation. But the old saying holds true: hindsight is 20/20.

I also wanted to add that we just got back from a fantastic cruise. We had 3 days of excursions in port and I had no problems any of the days. In fact, we went cavetubing and had no access to a bathroom for hours. I didn't need it, and didn't need a bathroom during the excursions any of the days. I took my fiber, a couple of immodium and I was fine. I would not have been able to consider this with UC.

I was terrified, too, but quite quickly after surgery I realized that my existence was really living.

I'm not saying to rush into surgery...just don't look at it as giving up. I felt like I was taking charge of this disease when I had the surgery.