You know, I'd actually completely forgotten I'd signed up to this or that I'd alrady made one huge blog of an event which seems rather silly now.  Back in January 2011 when I made that first blog, I thought I'd got Irritable Bowel Syndrome.  It turns out I had Bowel Cancer -- otherwise known as Colorectal Cancer.  In fact, I had a ten centimetre tumour growing in my rectum.

Didn't I say at the outset of that former post that I was full of shit?  I did.  Didn't I say I cuss a lot?  I did.

Well, now I'm less full of shit and more covered in shit.  You see, after the foul colonoscopy to find out why I was bleeding from my ass, they discovered a thing called Diverticulosis (posh name for a bowel disease), colonic polyps (lovely) and as I already said, this ten centimetre tumour.

So I panicked.  (Who wouldn't)  Remember though, like I said in the previous blog I blow everything up way out of proportion.  This was bigger than the biggest thing I could imagine or dream up in my worst nightmare and most certainly NOT what I expected.

So the hospital rushed to treat me and I snivelled and grizzled and tried to run away and didn't want their damned treatments but had them anyway -- and nearly died as I was allergic to the chemo drugs -- and had the awful radiotherapy and then ... surgery.  Massive surgery.

I spent Christmas in hospital.  The operation itself was on 22nd December.  They opened me up from breastbone (sternum) to pubis, cut out my rectum and half my sigmoid colon, added an Ileostomy and then stitched me up again.  All this without any bowel prep at all.  (There must have been shit everywhere in that operating room).

Of course I got an infection (even though prior to the operation when I was worried about getting an infection, they said the chances were 'negligible') and then they opened the wound up again.  They kicked me out of hospital on 30th December with a 22cm x 12cm x 5cm deep wound in my abdomen and sent me home to get on with it.  Ileostomy bag hanging off as there was not enough skin to stick to next to the open wound.

I spent four months flat on my back in bed in my living room being attended to daily by nurses, carers and family members.  The wound was massive.  I could see all the deep tension stitches.  One doesn't usually get to see inside one's abdomen and believe me, it's not a pretty sight! 

The Ileostomy leaked with monotonous regularity ... into the wound of course.  Waking up literally covered in shit inside and out is one of the most unpleasant things that can happen to you!  I've had so many courses of antibiotics to counteract the EColi infections in the wound.  It's vile.

Although I'm a bit better now.  At least, the wound is now 10cm x 1cm x 1cm deep, itching, flaking and still too close to the stoma.  The bag leaks less often but because the stoma itself was incorrectly formed I am unable to change my own stoma bag so cannot be independent.  I have a permanent disfigurement so that I appear as if I have an arse on my abdomen now.  I hate it.

Still, as the NHS have pointed out ... the cancer was my own fault (of course it was).  It is not their responsibility and I should not whine as I am still alive!  Hey-ho.  I actually spent the first three months after surgery wishing I had died.  Certainly I wished I had not had the surgery!

Oh yeah, did I mention?  I quit smoking on the day of the operation too.  from forty a day to zero.  Just like that.

The 14 year old oik is now 15, has had all his lovely long hair cut off and lifts weights now.  He is still 15 going on 50, wiser than his years, brave as a lion (after all, he nearly lost his Mum) and I love him to bits.