Ward C7 West – my home for the next week or so. I’m fortunate enough to have been upgraded to a window seat although the view of the rear of the Royal Gwent Hospital wouldn’t warrant an upgrade fee.

Welcome to Bowel Town

It wasn’t long after being admitted to the ward that I discovered I’d entered Bowel Town. My bay features cancer patients, a guy that comes in to be fed overnight and one that’s been waiting 3 weeks for an operation. All have bowel related issues and when bags need changing it doesn’t take long before the clean air is replaced with the long, lingering stench of insides. I feel a little left out but I’ll soon be able to contribute to the stinkiness. 

Bowel Preparation

Bowel surgery requires squeaky clean insides so the night before a couple of sachets of Picolax laxatives were administered at 7 and 10:30pm. With bowels as stubborn as mine, the timings were irrelevant.  My colon always refuses to give up its contents without a fight. 

Apparently Picolax works as quickly as 30 minutes. 4 hours after the last sachet, and 7 hours after the first, my bowel decided that it could no longer hold onto its poop and for 2 hours during the night I had the pleasure of dashing to the toilet. 

Next in Line, Please

And so I find myself sat here in my sexy compression socks waiting to see what position in the queue will be to have the surgery.

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Diagnosed with IBD in 2002, I have experienced the usual ups and downs of having a chronic disease and tried numerous medications but the time finally came in 2018 to elect to have surgery to improve my life. I had the surgery in 2019 and this is my journey having a 'New Bum'.

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  1. Hope all goes well, Rob!!

    The best you’ll see from there is all the commotion about parking. Also, I can give you a wave from my office in Block 9 ?

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