Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Life After Ileostomy — Part 3

There are more graphic desccriptions of bodily functions coming up, folks, so… if that sort of thing grosses you out, stop reading now.

I’m happy to report that the abscess I had near my stoma is almost completely healed and everything is, apparently, working as it should be. My surgical incisions are healing very well. This morning I was able to sleep on my right side for a while with no discomfort. Hurray! It was getting really REALLY old having to always lay flat on my back. (I became able to lay on my left side a week or two ago but I have bursitis in my left hip so that doesn’t usually work very well for very long.) Anyway — three cheers for the right side!

Yesterday I witnessed one of the freakier things I’ve ever seen: I figured I’d take a quick peak at my ileostomy pouch to see whether it needed emptying and when I glanced down, I could see that my stoma was moving. Yes, MOVING. All by itself. In a very creepy slow-motion snake-like sort of way. Like those underwater movies you’ve seen of moray eels with their heads poking out of some cave. It was like my stoma was debating whether to completely exit my body. It was like it had it’s own intelligence. It’s own will. Whoa!!! Too TOO weird! After I got over the shock of seeing this thing moving around by itself, I figured out that this must be what peristalsis looks like. Peristalsis, if you’re unfamiliar with the term, is the wave-like motion of your intestines that moves food through your digestive system. It’s not something most people will ever get to see! It really is wave-like, though. Truly, truly strange.

I was reminded of that scene in the movie Alien, where the little baby alien pops out of the guy’s gut. Hell…. stick some sharp pointy teeth on the stoma and it would even look a bit like the baby alien!

I went online with the good folks on the UOAA support board and they confirmed that, yes, this is completely normal and YES, it IS really weird to see!