Doctor's follow up visit day! 8am sharp! We arrived there right on time with my list of 14 questions (literally) and the doctor patiently answered all of them, commenting that 2 of them were really good questions (I think the others were a little squirrely). One of the good questions was, "what does long term follow up look like"? He said he might want to send me to a medical oncologist because I've never seen one of those before and he thinks it might be good to establish care with him. I'm thinking, No, I think I'm done here, so we'll say how that plays out. He's not doing anything until after my next follow up, which he said would be in 2 months. He said everything looked good, and then he removed my JP drain (Hallelujah!)! Tim and I were talking about going to breakfast to celebrate when he walked in, so he sent us on our way with "doctor's orders" to go out to breakfast! After breakfast we went on a walk and I noticed I started experiencing really sharp pain in my shoulders, especially my left shoulder. We had to turn around shortly after we started and go home, and the pain didn't relieve until I laid down, but then it went away pretty quickly. That was weird. I also started noticing that my vaginal draining had slowed down a lot - like I think it actually stopped! So, I went from such heavy flow I had to wear a diaper (a pad would just leak) to nothing. That was weird. So I ended up lying around most of the rest of the day - I tried walking 1 more time but had to come back pretty quickly. Such sharp pain! As evening came on I remembered that the homehealth nurse had suggested I clean the stoma every couple of days, so I washed my hands, grabbed some guaze, and unsnapped the urostomy bag from the flange. As I was cleaning the stoma and the stents I realized one of the stents was pulling out as I was cleaning it - yikes! It pulled out like 3 inches! I tried gently pushing it back in, but it was not having it. Ugh - now what do I do? I did call the home health nurse on call and she suggested I text her a picture of it, so I did (see inset). She said she could send someone out but that stents were not something they took care of - only the doctors did. Well, no sense in having a nurse come out who couldn't do anything about it! But you can see the black line on the stent that was pulled out up to the point of that spider looking thing on it, which was the stitch that had evidently come loose from the stoma. Great. So I had just seen the doctor that morning, and now I had 3 pretty significant (in my estimation) concerns.
1. Sharp Shoulder Pain
2. Immediate ceasing of vaginal discharge
3. My stent coming out of my stoma 3 inches
I guess I'll just call my doctor's office in the morning and hope they can either see me or offer me some insight!
1. Sharp Shoulder Pain
2. Immediate ceasing of vaginal discharge
3. My stent coming out of my stoma 3 inches
I guess I'll just call my doctor's office in the morning and hope they can either see me or offer me some insight!
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