Having had surgery in February, I continued to be under the care of the Surgeons until November this year and in November I went for what was my final consultation with my surgeon. This was quite a nerve wracking appointment for me as I had been prepped that they would be looking for an answer as to what I wanted to do moving forward with my stoma. In this blog I will explain in brief what my options were presented as, and I will then write other blogs to describe them more in depth and to provide additional links for people to look at if they would like.
Option 1 – Never Do Anything
This option was an option but not really. Technically I currently have a temporary ileostomy as in theory I could be ‘plumbed back in’ and with this option we would effectively say that I wanted to continue with a temporary ileostomy, not consider other surgical options and not provide any additional interventions. It will become clear as to why this was not really an option soon.
Option 2 – Reversal Surgery
There was an option to have what is seen to be a reversal surgery to create whats called a J-Pouch. this would leave me without a Stoma bag and as such I would be plumbed back in. There are definite disadvantages to this, including a high failure rate for the surgery as well as increased need to go to the toilet. I felt that this wasn’t the option for me due to the possibility of it having serious affects on my quality of life.
Option 3 – Surveillance and Permanent Stoma
Surveillance was the name that my surgeon gave it, not me, I personally think it sounds a little bit weird but hey ho. This is the option that I have currently gone for. A permanent stoma will mean another surgery to eventually remove my rectum and make the stoma a permanent thing. The issue with doing this right now is that I would quite like to have children and the surgery to remove the rectum can seriously reduce a women’s fertility. Due to this, surgeons typically won’t do this surgery for women until they have had the children that they wish to have. Now the issue with waiting is that by waiting increases the chances of getting rectal cancer. This is where surveillance comes in. Every year I will have some sort of camera test to check inside the rectum and ensure that there is nothing that looks of concern in terms of cancer.
There was a lot to consider, and as I write about the different options in future blogs, you will be let into some of the discussions that went on around what was the best option to take, but I did agree with my surgeon on option 3, surveillance and permanent stoma. This could change, it’s the most conservative option right now. It wasn’t an easy decision and I will talk about it more but I did have my surgeons appointment and it was alright. I hate appointments where I feel like I am making big decisions and they cause me a lot of anxiety but we managed it and I came to the best conclusion that I was able to at the time with the information that I had in front of me.