On Friday I was having some major déjà vu. However, it wasn’t all in my head. I actually was in a place that I had been before: the outpatient surgery pre-op area of the hospital where I had the colonoscopy that led to me being admitted for a 16-day stay for my final severe UC flare in the autumn of 2010. Except for the fact that I wasn’t feeling sick and hadn’t just been through the worst bowel prep of my life, it felt crazily familiar. The same nurse that had checked me in for that colonoscopy over two years ago checked me in on Friday. He even recognized me! That said, that is where the similarities of the visit ended. Unlike last time, I wasn’t in the outpatient surgery area for anything serious and didn’t even need an IV. I was simply there to have Wilbur, my stoma, biopsied.

In March I wrote about some ulcers on my stoma. After an appointment where I brought some stoma photos showing what had been going on, my IBD nurse prescribed a couple of months of Pentasa to try. Since then, we have been patiently waiting for some ulcers to show up so that they could be biopsied to better determine if I was actually dealing with active IBD. It seemed like every time I would get an ulcer, I couldn’t get in for a biopsy because it was the weekend, I was out-of-town, the ulcers would heal too quickly, or my doctor was not available.

Finally, the perfect chance presented itself. Last Thursday night, I was changing my appliance and spotted a big ulcer that had appeared during the day. The next morning I emailed my IBD nurse and she put things in motion to see if my doctor could squeeze me in for a biopsy. However, my doctor wasn’t working in the GI office that day; she was working at the hospital so I would have to see her there. Within a few hours, everything was set up and I drove from work to the hospital, checked in and was soon on a stretcher in a gown reminiscing about how sick I had been last time I was in that situation.

Once things were ready, I was wheeled down to the room where they do colonoscopies and there I saw my GI doctor for the first time since my UC flare 2.5 years ago. I think my GI doctor is one of the greatest, nicest physicians ever, and I was truly happy to see her again under much better health. We caught up for a bit and talked about the biopsy. She explained the procedure and said she would be using the same tool to remove tissue that she did for intestinal biopsies during routine colonoscopies.

I didn’t even have to take off my wafer. We simply snapped off my pouch, cleaned off the stoma a bit and were set to go. My doctor pinched off a half-dozen tissue samples from my stoma with the tool, including the area of the ulcer. We chatted as she worked and she laughed saying how strange it was to be talking to someone while doing an intestinal biopsy because usually the patients are under sedation. It is pretty handy that stomas have no nerve endings. My stoma bled a little when she plucked off the samples, but the whole procedure was pretty uneventful.

My stoma was completely cooperative and the whole process was mess free until the very end. When the nurse had removed my pouch, she sat it on the table. When we were done, she handed it to me to put back on. It was a fresh pouch from that morning, and I had emptied it before heading to the hospital so it was fairly clean, but there was a bit of output in it from the drive and checking in to pre-op. I had fully intended to put on a clean pouch on after the biopsy and had brought with me.  However, when the nurse handed me the  one we had removed I thought Oh… maybe I can just re-use this since it is fairly clean. Big mistake. Trying to put on the half-full pouch while in a reclined position didn’t go so well and I ended up spilling a small amount of output on my belly. It was a little embarrassing, but the doctor and nurses helped me clean up and were so nice about it that it seemed like no big deal at all. I tossed the old pouch, put on a totally clean one and was good to go.

In the days since the biopsy, Wilbur has started to look like he was attacked by a vicious woodpecker. There are small, circular, ulcer-like depressions in every spot where tissue samples were removed. Though the sores are scary to look at, they should heal in a couple of weeks.

On Tuesday I got the results of the biopsy. It showed non-specific inflammation, but no signs of Crohn’s disease or ischemia (lack of blood flow to tissue). We will keep an eye on things for any changes, but the doctor said that such inflammation could be caused by something as basic as mild surface irritation from my pouch.

It is a relief to know that these ulcers are likely harmless and it feels great to have this and so many other concerns resolved as I head into summer. My shoulder avascular necrosis is feeling great with physical therapy, my hip pain appears to be caused by something pretty benign, and my recent Achilles tendon heel tweak hasn’t been hurting when doing my Rainier training hikes. It definitely feels like the dark cloud that has been hovering over me all winter is finally dissipating. I am really hoping that the sunshine sticks around for a while!