J-pouch Life

I’ve made a new update on my blog, Blood Poop and Tears, about my second surgery out of three, and how I’m struggling to get healthy enough for it even to happen. Ugh. Being fat is stupid. Here’s a preview. “So guess who has set a date for surgery #2? Yea, its me. Shabam! I [...]

I’m so over this colon. Its like a pair of jeans that I’ve had forever that I refuse to get rid of. They were great and useful, but now they have a ton of holes in them. But for some reason, I’m hesitant to throw them out. Granted throwing out my favorite denim is a [...]

Hi I’m Jackie. I’m a 25 year old woman child from my native of Michigan. I have a bit of an interesting UC story so bear with me while I get my intro out of the way. I was officially diagnosed with UC in May of 2009, but had symptoms for easily 10 years. In [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

I’m unsure how things are in other countries, but in Canada (given our universal health care system – yay Canada!) there is always a looming chance that surgery will get bumped. I have been scrambling to get things ready for when I go into surgery and was planning a celebratory weekend after my PhD proposal [...]

There are many questions about what “type” of surgery Mark had.  We will try to explain below, however, there are many options and many reasons for those options. Mark had a two step surgery.  Mark’s Step 1 surgery was a laproscopic total proctocolectomy with ileoanal reservoir reconstruction or in doctor talk Ileal Pouch Anal Anastomosis [...]