Remicade bridge to J-pouch

I don't think anyone ever said surgery was a cure. I have always been very honest with people that I would prefer to live without illness than to have surgery. Unfortunately, that's not the choice we are given. The choice is to live with a chronically inflamed colon or have surgery, or if you respond to drugs, to try to stay in remission but spend tons on drugs/doctors/insurance and live with many ups and downs throughout life and the implications of putting substances into your system long-term. I would have never opted for surgery if there were some hope for saving my colon. Life after surgery isn't a picnic. I go more often, I ALWAYS say this and I always admit freely that it's not my favorite thing in the world. On the other hand, I almost never worry about toilets, nor do I worry about whether I can be a productive member of society. With UC I worried about these things constantly. Some people say surgery is trading one set of issues for another and I think that's fairly accurate. I will say, for me, after surgery my issues are much less. My life before surgery was severely impacted. I couldn't hold a job, I couldn't travel, I couldn't eat anything... I couldn't afford anything because I was spending all my money on doctors and drugs. I was spending a lot of time and money on treatments. It was no way to live. I am not "cured", but I do live better. I no longer suffer from UC symptoms like blood, pain, urgency, or 20+ trips to the toilet a day.

nssg at least you're off the meds. I wish I could have that. I will never have that.

That's good! What's KUB?

KUB is the first thing they did for me as soon as I entered the hospital. They wanted to make sure that I didn’t have a blockage or anything else going on (like a toxic mega colon)