The rest of my hospital stay was split into two halves.
I had been moved to my own room with a shared bathroom and for the first week i was really doing very well- eating,sleeping (when i could),feeling pretty pleased with the state of things. I even managed visitors and was super happy to see my other family brother and sister before they left to go back overseas.i was doing so well they even took my friend Morphine away,although truth be told,i would've liked him  to stay and play for a bit longer.
Then,after about a week i lost my appetite and went quite rapidly downhill.Sweaty,greasy,incredibly thirsty,i couldn't eat and got weaker and weaker. I know the doctors and manchild thought that i wasnt eating and was therefore feeling bad and it took me a long time to convince them that i wasnt eating BECAUSE i was feeling bad. Finally they examined my stomach and realised that it was very swollen and they took me for an ultra sound to check that there was no fluid pooling in the surgery site (which there wasnt). Later the next night i was violently ill (the most physically ill that i remember being in my life!!) and up came food that i had eaten a week ago.
It seems that after trauma like major surgery your body sometimes rebels against what has been done - which is what mine had done. Instead of processing my food and putting it through the new stoma,it was just stacking up and stacking up until it came back out. The nurses changed my bed and gown (it was truely a disgusting mess). I was humiliated and ashamed that i couldnt clean myself. I went back to bed with vomit all through my hair and the smell of it on my skin. In the morning i took myself to the shower (no small feat given that my body hadnt processed any food/energy for the last 11 days) washed and told the doctors (somewhat tearfully) that i wanted to go home TODAY.
I was lonely,depressed,exhausted and i missed manchild and missK more than i would miss my legs. I told them that being in hospital was detramental to my spirit and that if it was just a case of me getting stronger then that would happen much faster at home.
Needless to say,the doctors weren't too thrilled with the idea but (one in particular) saw where i was coming from and as a compromise said that if i ate,the stoma worked and i self catheterised he would discharge me.

So i guess here i have to go back to the bladder issue.Because it had been manhandled during surgery my bladder had no nerves left. That means that it had no feeling whatsoever and that i could not tell when i needed to go to the toilet.It also meant that i couldn't pee when i wanted to ,i would be using catheters (a skinny tube with a funnel at one end.You poke it up your urethra and into the bladder and then the urine drains down the tube) from here on. It also means (although i didnt realise it at the time) that i was now mostly incontenant and would be prone to chronic urinary tract infections.
While i was in the hospital i was on a permanent catheter which filled up a bag - so i had to learn how to do it myself before i could leave.

It took a few more days but  i ate,my stoma pooped, and i went off in my wheelchair (still too weak to  walk) and had one lesson (lying down) on how to use a catheter.Then i got myself discharged.
Looking back i think i must've been crazy thinking that i could cope at home when i couldn't even walk down the hall at the hospital but i do remember how soul crushing it was being in that grey walled cubical of a room on my own 24/7.
It had occured to me that lying down to go to the toilet was not terribly practical but i figured I'd cross that bridge when i got home.
I was also under the impression that my bladder would just hold on until i was ready to empty it....not so,as i found when i peed all over the kitchen floor on my first night back.
I rang the hospital in a panic but it was after hours on a Friday and there was no one that would help me.I rang the nurses,i rang medical centres.I thought that something was wrong with my bladder surgery but i couldnt get an ounce of help.
In the end i sat down and cried,actually from memory i was on the phone trying to get some assistance when i started crying- poor person on the end of the phone. The best i could get was a nurse to come a visit on Monday.
The next morning,after realising how ridiculous it is to try and lie down every time that you pee,i texted my stepmum and she came and made me a cuppa and cleaned my house for me while manchild took the daughter out.she bathed me and listened while i cried and admitted my fears. She didnt judge or offer advise and when she left i thought "right.thats enough of that,lets figure out a more practical way of managing myself."
I taught myself to use the catheter sitting down (but that doesnt effectively empty the bladder so i then taught myself to use them standing up (its now just second nature and a piece of piss (haha!) ).
I'm looking forward to the day that MissK tells her  teachers that mummy pees standing up like daddy.

me and MissK shortly after my hospital discharge,although i had lost another 10kg i stayed puffy like this for months afterwards. I have very few photos of me around this time- mostly because i was in bed or at home most of the time. Pathetic really!

The biggest challenge about using the catheters has definately been the UTI's.They didnt tell me before i came home (or if they did it didnt make much of an impression) that the tract infections can flair up in a matter of hours and that they can come straight after each other.
When you put a catheter into your bladder you are introducing bugs into a previously sterile part of your body. Once the bugs tip the balance an infection starts up. All good and simple until you remember that i have NO (and i really mean NONE) feeling in my bladder and as all of you unfortunate enough to have had a tract infection will know,the first warning sign is pain when you are peeing.
I dont get that pain so i often dont know i have an infection until its full blown,fevers,nausea etc etc. I didnt understand any of this and i was sick in bed for a week and getting worse before my lovely GP made a house call and put me on antibiotics and explained what was going on.
Of course post surgery i was also weak and my body was trying to recover from what had been done to it. I was just one UTI after another for about 6 months after surgery until they put me in an antibiotic in saline solution called Gentimicin. Its quite new in NZ and works a treat. Once a day you put 40ml up your catheter after you have peed. At that time i was having to have it daily (and even then i would still get UTI's at times). It gave me back a level of normality to my life and gave the bladder time to recouperate.

6 weeks after my discharge i was back at the hospital because they were hoping to start chemo. They decided i was still too weak (given the tough nature of the treatment) so they waited another two weeks. When i went back the second time they were still hesitant but i pushed them,i really wanted to get it started.
The sooner it was started,the sooner it was finished.
The idea of having chemo for months and months was overwhelming (6 weeks was bad enough- and i was alot stronger then) but i figured that it would be overwhelming no matter when it was.
My wonderful Oncologist finally agreed and it was back on the chemo i went.