Answered Prayer

It has been a while since my last blog update, and I would like to explain to you the road I've traveled in these past few weeks. I will tell you straight up though.......my takedown surgery has been scheduled for Wednesday, May 12th at 3:30 in the afternoon!! I want to first and foremost give thanks to the Lord who has heard my cry and answered my prayer! (and when I say cry, I mean it literally)

I mentioned last time about the apt I had with my OBGYN. She looked over the results from my MRI and also did an internal exam looking very closely at my ovarian cyst. She concluded that it will eventually take care of itself. She told me that in a sence it would in time "roll over and pop" and the fluids from the cyst would dissolve into my body. She did say that it would be very very painful and wrote me a presciption for Vicaden. So thats that! :)

The problems I talked about last time that I've had with my stoma have only increased in pain and severity. My stoma itself is completely inverted inside now, and is pulling the edges of my skin inward along with it. This problem makes getting any sort of seal around that part of the skin virtually impossilble. David and I are dealing with it at least 2x a day. I really could use to change it more than i do to, but we have learned from trial error that it is just as painful and stressing to change it when I am active. It takes around an hour to change it at night and the skin is so much more irritated and painful and red than it is when we change it early in the morning. David now wakes me up before he goes to work every morning around 6 so we can do a much needed change then. Even then though, my skin get maybe a 30 minute break before the seal is broke once again, and stool is sitting on the infected area of skin. The infected/irritated area keeps growing as well with each day that goes by.

My surgeon told me over 4 weeks ago because of the problems I was having way back then that he would be willing to move the surgery up a month for me. Since then I have kept my eyes on and around week 8 post surgery. But 2 weeks ago I found out my surgery wouldn't be until May 24th which is right at 11 weeks. Only one week early from normal versus one month. I felt like I was hit in the gut when I found out I had to wait 3 weeks longer than I had been planning on. My doctors nurse told me that I would be on the top of the list in case somebody cancels or another day opens. I started praying hard that something would work out, because I really didn't know how I was going to wait another whole month! I found out that there was a possibility that my surgeon may be able to be in town to do it on the 14th. My eye was focused on that date. I prayed and prayed about it, and at one point I really felt peace that everything was going to be fine because it was going to happen. Just 2 days ago on Tuesday, David called the doctor's office and talk to them. He realized they were not very helpful at all, and he also got the confirmation that the 14th was not going to work out. Basically they told him, "Stop calling us, and deal with having the surgery on the24th!" When he told me, I broke down. The rest of that Tuesday was shot. I was very depressed all day long and just couldn't believe it. I asked the Lord over and over "Why?" David also came home from work that day in a bad way. We were not a very good mix on Tuesday night. He ended up staying home with me yesturday. It was then, in the morning, right after we had finished changing my bag that I got a call from my doctor saying that somebody had canceled their surgery, and that they had me scheduled now for May 12th! WOW, in just only one week!

After hanging up with them I started crying and screaming, and I was in utter disbelief. :) I went from crying and asking God why one day, to so happy and thanking Him the next. Thank-you Lord!! Thank-you!

So now, only 6 days away! I am starting to understand some of the things I will be facing for the first few weeks after this surgery. I know it will be hard, but I just have to look at it as one more step to getting better. Hopefully the final step in recovery. This will all include me learning the all the ways of my "new" body. I am ready, bring it on! I am just so very thankful that I don't have to live with an ostomy for the rest of my life!

Well thats all :) 6 more days of living with the pains of this ostomy. I can't wait to wake up from surgery, look down, and it be gone! I don't care about the scar it will leave. Actually I will welcome the scar. It will be a forever imprint of something I endured, something Ive grown through, something I will never forget. So thanks to my stoma....you helped me get to the other side!