J-pouch Life

Well, the first surgery is Monday, May 11th. The next time you hear from me I’ll be colon-free, equipped with a j-pouch, carrying a concealed ileostomy bag, and hell, while I’m at it, I might as well go with calf implants and a nose job. Never mind, scratch the last two bright ideas, although I’m [...]

Having medically induced insomnia is unpleasant (you’re a jerk, Prednisone). Sitting there on the couch, wide-eyed at 2 in the morning, you can’t help but think of random, stupid things. I wrote some of them down, mostly to remind myself that people shouldn’t make serious decisions that early in the morning: – I must wear [...]

May 11th. That’s my surgery date. Now I know what you are thinking: “But Brevin, you accredited rocket scientist slash professional gunslinger, isn’t the Lost Season 5 Finale on May 13th?” Why yes, yes it is, but my priorities are shifting around. May 11th also gives me enough time to plan everything I need to [...]

Time flies. Back on February 6th, I posted on this site about how long the wait was to see the GI at UCSF, and then, in a desperate attempt at optimism, threw out some possible perks to having UC. In your face, optimism! Turns out all I needed was a billion distractions and BAM! I [...]

I had the pleasure of meeting fellow jpouch.net contributor Jamie and her husband Avery this past weekend for lunch. Wow. What nice people. Not only were they friendly and informative, but Jamie even brought me samples of different ileostomy bags, some reading material clearly meant for the exclusive cool crowd (J-Pouchers), and helped describe more [...]

Fellow JPouch.net contributor Jamie gave me the head’s up that sometimes the referrals take a while. No kidding. I just got my UCSF consultation scheduled today and it’s on March 23rd. I obviously didn’t take Calculus in college, but March 23rd is what, 40 years away? That’s a long time to wait, and, in all [...]

My latest colonoscopy results are in. Prior to the colonoscopy, I was still in the decision making process and trying to overcome my fear of surgery. Well, the colonoscopy made the decision for me. After seven years of maximum dosage for my ulcerative colitis, I’m not improving. While I could suck it up and keep [...]

I just had a colonoscopy (explained by Mayo Clinic). While in the waiting room I thought of my UC in general and came up with this list. If you have Ulcerative Colitis, you know exactly what a “Colitis Incident” is. I just didn’t know what to call it. It’s when you get that urge to [...]

Intro Thank you all at jpouch.net for providing a source of insight and sense of community to these conditions I thought were non-existent outside of my own experience. Knowing there are people who can relate to your circumstances is a much needed relief. And I mean exact circumstances, not ball-park figure guesstimates like “oh, sometimes [...]