I started off this morning back at UNC hospital for another follow-up appointment with my surgeon. Since I was dealing with a minor infection at my last appointment in June, my doctor wanted to check back in with me today to see how things are healing.
I have to say, I am glad I had this follow-up today. I’ve been a little worried about how things have been healing up since the surgery, as I’ve still been having some pain and discharge and I wasn’t sure if that should still be happening at this point. Plus, I had a little inflammation around one of my incision sites, so it was good to get that checked out, too.
Thankfully, he said everything looks like it is healing up just fine, but it may be coming along a little slow. He gave me some silver nitrate to swab on it every few days. If you don’t know, silver nitrate is actually classified as a “caustic” agent and is used in the cauterization of wounds. Needless to say, it does not feel good. That, plus just having someone poking around there in general does not lead to a pleasant rest of the day. Last time I was able to go home and relax after my appointment. This time, I had to head back to work. For a most of my work day, I am sitting in a chair in front of a computer, so I spent the better part of the day just trying to get comfortable and to not wince too hard. But even by now, the pain is mostly gone.

I will go back again at the end of the month for another check up. It’s kind of funny for me to think that after having such a life-altering surgery as having my colon removed I only had one follow-up visit, but this time, with just removing the final few inches, I’m going to go back at least three times. At this point, I’m just ready to have all of this behind me and, hopefully, never have to worry about it again.
But the highlight of my day happened before I even made it to that appointment. Several months back, I started emailing with Amber, who also has Crohn’s disease and had surgery to get a j-pouch. We realized that we both have the same surgeon at UNC and both have participated in Team Challenge events. We kept in touch and actually back in March when I had to visit my surgeon, she was sitting right across from me in the waiting room and I didn’t even realize it was her until they called her name! But it was too late and we never got to officially meet.
She’s had a rough go of it lately and had to return to an ileostomy. After some more issues, she’s been back at the hospital and had another surgery on her ostomy. I knew I was going to be there this morning, so I asked if she minded if I stopped by beforehand.
It was an absolutely wonderful experience getting to meet her. She is such a beautiful person and even though she’s had a difficult time recently she is so positive and always asks me how I’m doing. We chatted for about half-hour about what was going on for each of us and about Crohn’s and ostomies and all of that. I feel like I’ve known her for a while, even though this was the first time we’ve actually met.
So Amber, I’m so glad we got to hang out for a bit today. I’m hoping and praying that this surgery is going to be the answer and get you back to life and grad school and everything else. Stay strong!