One year post-surgery!

It has now been one year since my first surgery (a sub-total colectomy with end ileostomy, followed by a second surgery three months later, to remove the stoma, create and connect my j-pouch).

In the year since losing my colon, I have:
- been totally medication-free,
- regained a healthy weight,
- exercised regularly,
- rediscovered good sleep,
- loved no longer having any urgency (which is a total liberation),
- rediscovered what it feels like not to be ill (i.e. just feeling normal is amazing)
- no longer had to schedule my week around medical appointments, blood tests, infusions, trips to the pharmacy, etc,
- rediscovered the joy of food and drink,
- enjoying doing my job without the burden of UC,
- spent a semester overseas with my family (without any medical issues),
- travelled to a few different parts of the globe with my work (navigating airports and planes is so much less stressful without a colon...),
- finally been able to go anywhere with my wife and kids, without planning everything around toilet access.

It has been a good year! I am so thankful for this surgery.

Just read your post to my husband. So inspiring. Congrats!!

Glad to hear you're living a dream! Congrats! I love hearing success stories

Thanks everyone. I'm in the UK, where we have a wonderful National Health Service (although the Conservative party is doing everything it can to run it into the ground, and replace it with a privatised system) so I never had to worry about the cost of medications, or negotiating whether I could get them with insurers. However, I can imagine that having to bear a burden like UC in a country with a privatised healthcare system would add so many extra layers of stress.

Thanks everyone. Life with a stoma was great, although I think the extra surgery for the j-pouch was definitely worth it. By the time I had mastered my stoma routine, it took about 10 minutes every morning (to change my bag, look after my skin etc), and I ended up emptying my bag around 10 times each day, as I didn't like the feeling of it being too full. That was a minor inconvenience compared to my previous UC life, and if needed I could've emptied the bag less often. The stoma gave me my life back - it was really liberating.

However, with my j-pouch (and I'm aware that my outcome seems to be as good as I could have possibly hoped for, and better than some other j-pouchers) life is much closer to normal. Being free from managing appliances is a bonus. I empty my j-pouch (on average) 4 times every 24 hours, and don't have any issues with urgency or leakage. As long as I take psyllium husk after meals, and (generally) use wet wipes instead of toilet paper, my stool is pretty well formed and doesn't irritate my skin. I can pass wind when sitting or lying down, although not when standing/walking. I've taken imodium a couple of times just to experiment, but find that my normal j-pouch function is so good that I don't really notice much benefit. As long as I empty my j-pouch before I go to bed I'll sleep through the night, even if I've eaten late in the evening. I eat spicy food and drink coffee and alcohol. Beer makes for a less formed stool, although wine and spirits don't seem to affect me. In the first couple of months I was quite aware of gas gurgling around in the j-pouch (although it was never painful). Nine months on, I really don't notice my j-pouch that much, it just does its thing in the background. I recently noticed how I quite often don't need to empty my j-pouch during my working day, which is good.

I'm glad to share my experience. I have two friends with j-pouches. Their j-pouch function isn't quite as good as mine (both have had some pouchitis, although it responded well to antibiotics, and both have a couple of extra BMs a day), but they both love it. They both fought UC for decades before having surgery, and now wish they had chosen surgery far sooner.