#and then the signals weak part doesnt click for me either

[thsx]

ok i SWEAR i'll stop talking shit but what is this new tiny love like what does the stumbled on sublime thing even mean???

they do this in regret me where it feels like they're just jamming words in there that they think sound cool? my friend calls it word salad lol

[bestillmybeefyheart]

My surgery and why you should pay attention to my issue because it could be yours (Note this is going to be gross, TMI and NSFW)

Ive had a few people ask me about my surgery, what it was and why Ihad it. So I thought I'd give a summary without going into detail that freaks people out. However, you should be slightly freaked out as 1 in something like 5 people has Diverticulitis and doenst know it. That was me until mine flaired up.

(Adding a Keep Reading here so you have to click through to read the rest, hope this works. Id prefer that only those who want to see this see it.)

Ok. So, First off lets do a quick Diverticulitis (or Diverticulosis if its not inflamed) summary. This is a condition in which your large colon has weak spots that, under pressure, expand outward like little balloons away from your colon. These little pockets then create a place for waste matter to collect and possibly get infected. The less fiber in your diet, the more easily matter can get into these pockets.

If you have to push or strain when you use the restroom for a #2, your diet needs work. A proper healthy bowel movement should be like a banana in shape and slide right out without effort. You should also not hold your breath when you are "pushing", but instead breathe normally and just let it happen. If it takes work, your diet is not fibrous enough. You should be able to sit down and relax your muscles down there and it should just come out without any or little effort.

Now, what happens is, once these pockets form, they are there and don't go away. Ever. And you may not even know you have them. (Maybe never know.) They usually start in the sigmoid portion of the colon, aka the part where your colon bends near the end to head towards your rectum for its exit. Because they are usually in this corner, they are literally straight ahead of movement of waste material, and if its not fiber filled so its solid, it can get into them and cause infection. This is when Diverticulosis becomes Diverticulitis. You don't want this. Once you have it, it doesn't go away and you have to really watch your diet. Fiber fiber fiber people.

When this starts being a problem, for example for me, I was having attacks/inflammation regularly, they can either give you antibiotics and hope it helps, and tell you to add more fiber to your diet, or if its bad enough, they can do a sigmoid colon resection. This is where this post gets detailed and scary. Hoping that Read More thing above worked so you only read this if you clicked through.

Alright, so, a resection is a nice way of saying they cut out anywhere from 6″-several feet of the 5′ of large colon you have in you. In my case, they cut out a 1′ section. This is cut at the intersection of the sigmoid colon and the rectum, basically where your colon goes from side to side to bending to goto your rectum (middle of your body, right around your genitals behind them). This cut is made at an angle, and the cut where they remove the bad part is also cut at an angle. Then, they carefully slide your entire 5′ or so of large colon around so the two ends meet. And then they sew them back together, by passing the bad spot with a new sewn together section. This operation can be done the old way, where they open you up literally wide open so your guts are exposed, or laparoscopically, where they do a few smaller incisions and do the work with special tools to decrease the amount of cutting outside needed. In my case, they did it laproscopically, leaving me with 3 incisions. Plus the one in side just behind and above my groin, where the two good ends are put together.

As you can imagine, this is not the most fun thing, surgery wise. You now have 3 outside cuts which hurt, 1 inside cut which hurts but since its inside your body doesnt send pain signals the same way as external injuries, and your entire digestive system has to restart and relearn, as does your body. 

These pain signals are the most annoying part. If you cut your finger, you look at your finger, see the cut, feel the paincoming from your finger, and you know its your finger that hurts. When its inside, your body doesn’t send a signal that says “your pain is coming from the intersection of your sigmoid and rectum” instead it just says “theres pain in this area!” And your body then tries to figure out what this means. Since your genitals, the incision, bladder, etc are all in this area AND there’s a cut on your outside in the same spot, your body doens’t quite know what to do, so you feel one or more of the following... 1) general pain in the gut, 2) genital pain, 3) Bladder pain or the urge to pee and 4) Rectal pain or the urge to poop, but you dont know which it is, just that you feel pain and its not fun.

Add to this any sitting, walking, movement, standing, bowel movements, etc all also create pain. My first week or 2, every step I took felt like Godzilla was stomping around and my guts were going slam slam slam downwards. Ironically, walking and movement is actually good for you, it stimulates the muscles that make your colon and digestive system work, so despite the pain, you have to walk, it creates healing by means of reactivating your digestion.

So that is basically what my surgery involved and what I am going through now, minus a lot of details and side effects. Constant day to day nagging pain, walking causing pain, sitting causing pain, and 1′ of my colon being gone leaving me with 1′ less room to “hold it” if I have to go.

As a person who has suffered unknowingly from Diverticulosis (just the pockets) and Diverticulitis (the inflamed version), I urge you to keep your diet in check and to get your GI to have a look inside and check for these pockets once in a while. I went for 5 years with off and on pain and NO idea what it was until Dec of last year when it was finally diagnosed, and the timing was great as I then had 2 attacks, both put me in the ER, one also the hospital for a week. And these two within a month of each other resulted in the surgery. And that doesnt mean I’m doenand will never have this again. It just means that the bad section with the pockets is gone for now. And I have to keep an eye on my diet because the section that took its place can get the same thing too.

Sorry if this was TMI but I do feel that it is very important for everyone to be aware of. I had no clue and now that I know I want to make sure my friends and family all know so they can avoid it. And avoid surgery.

Note that the suergery can also go poorly. Some end results of a poor outcome can include a temporary cholostomy bag (poop out into an external bag) or a permanent one... damage to your urinary tract during the surgery, damage to th bundle of nerves going to your genitals, or worst case, something gets nicked and they have to cut you open and literally clean your guts out and fix the issue and put you back together. I was really scared of these, but was lucky enough not to have to wake to them.

You can also wake to nerve damage from being in a wierd position during surgery for 4-6 hours, or a pinched nerves causing numbness and pain (I had that and am still waiting it out), bed sores, andother complications.

So, take it from me, keep on top of this. I know you may feel fine but you will eventually have an attack if you have the pockets and you may end up like me needing the surgery.

Hope this wasn’t too long and gross and my read through thing works so no one has to read it if they dont want to. If not I’ll see about moving it to a page and linking to that.

Hope you found it useful and I hope at least one of you uses this as motivation to keep your colon and your diet in check so you stay healthy and happy.

ML, beefy