I was back at Oxford today for a fairly routine update. I say routine because as usual in my bowel transplant world I needed to have my regular bloods done. Thirteen test tubes waiting to be filled with my "blue" blood. Thankfully the wonderful phlebotomist was back from her Sri Lankan holidays and although it took about 30 mins she was successful. Then it was up to the ward to have my usual scope. This time though a potential kidney transplant patient was in the treatment room so after a bit of back and forth my surgeon decided that I could do without a scope today.

We spent a bit of time discussing the options open to me over the coming few weeks. I am very lucky that I have a surgeon who is happy to just chat and outline the plan of action before we move forward. My stomach emptying is still the big problem. In truth I am probably eating less than ever at the moment. My weight has dropped a little but thankfully not too much. So the plan of action is still to have this balloon dilatation to try and stretch the stomach muscles at the bottom of the stomach. We will give that a couple of goes if needs be and keep fingers crossed. if it doesn't work On the other hand if it doesn't work then I'm in line for a bit of cosmetic surgery. Yes you heard it right!! Botox injections in to the stomach. Apparently they can also stretch the muscles and may help. Now I have heard of botox on the forehead on lips but the stomach, well it is a new one for me. There is also a final final solution which is this gastric pacemaker but lets get there first before we go in to too many details.

With options on the stomach front in place I can now start to think more seriously about my stoma reversal. It will still be in May and I suspect that I will be in hospital for about a week. Apparently day 4 will be the key day. They will watch me like a hawk as leakages are possible and it is still earlier than planned for a reversal. As I know more I will tell you but for now that is the plan.

Aside from all of that I am still trying to deal with the emotional side of having the transplant. Generally I am fine but I cannot still help but have what I can only describe as flashbacks over the whole stay in hospital. The team have been great about it with the transplant coordinator offering to sit and chat and now the offer of seeing a counsellor. I am going to take up the offer as I think it will help. It is funny, talking about my emotions has actually caused the biggest reaction of most of my blog posts. It is the first time that I would would say that I have had any sort of emotional response to my surgeries and that can be hard to square off in your head. As a very good friend said to me the pain goes away and the physical heals but sometimes it takes the mind a lot longer to reconcile itself with the body. I think for me it is sometimes hard to explain that although I am out of hospital and actually looking pretty good there is an assumption that all is perfect. It almost is but not quite, not yet at any rate.......

Till the next time Mx

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