Bowel cancer

MyHappy256

I was in hospital recently, I had to have an operation to remove my bowel cancer and they put in a permanent stoma bag, it has been life changing.

One of the things I struggle with is being overly sensitive to smell and noise, it stems from my childhood trauma, apparently it is from having hyper vigilance, I have never investigated it much since the hyper vigilance seems to have stopped.

But when I went in for my surgery, I was first moved into ICU and then they ran out of space so they moved me to general ward, being on anti rejection medication already and surrounded by infection, it was no great surprise that the wound got infected and I had to spend an extra week in hospital.

The problem with general ward in that particular part of the hospital is the noise, even though there are regulations requiring people to wear headphones when using mobile phones or tv, the staff simply didn't enforce it, so I was going out of my mind with all the noise and the horrible stench of human waste.

Between the Polish gentleman and his friends all watching the football on full blast, him having a loud conversation on his phone and being able to hear both sides in Polish, his friends constantly moving their chairs into my area and banging into my bed and the other English … person who kept listening to his tv and phone on loud with no headphones, I nearly went mad.

But I got through it, thankfully I took some sony headphones in with me and I was able to drown out the noise by playing music loudly through my laptop, not so loudly that is could be heard by other people mind.

Home now and struggling to manage with a stoma, I would be interest if anyone else has a stoma and wants to share?

Bluebell21

Hi @MyHappy256 I am so sorry you have had such a difficult time when a quieter environment would have made all the difference to you.

The following link might be of interest to you with lots of information. There is a section on "Tackling the firsts after stoma surgery" under the heading Information at the top of the page of the link.

https://www.colostomyuk.org

Do you have any support at home?

I do not have a stoma myself so I am unable to offer a first hand experience. Hopefully some others members will be able to.

I hope your recovery goes well.

Please take care of yourself.

StarryEyed

Hi @MyHappy256 and I'm so sorry to hear of your cancer as well as the surgery and horrible inpatient experience. I don't have experience with a stoma. Regardless, I'm sending you a piece of softness to hopefully help a bit. And welcome home. And good luck moving forward. One of my best friends told me today that her cancer came back and she's going to do chemo again. So I hold you in my heart with her.