Tag: IBD

Pacing Yourself After Surgery

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One of the hardest things in recovering from surgery and getting back into outdoor activities is knowing how to pace yourself. There are times in the months after surgery when there are clear lifting restrictions and guidelines, which provide easy-to-understand parameters for your activities. However, once those restrictions are lifted and you are feeling ready to get back to your normal sport routines, the path isn’t as clear.

Though it may seem like I am doing a lot of outdoor activities since surgery, I have paced myself very slowly. I started out with many short walks. When those felt good, I moved on to longer and steeper excursions. On the hike to Mt. Elbert covered in this video, my legs got extremely tired on the hike out, and I thought perhaps I had overdone it. Still, within three days, my sore muscles had completely recovered–a sign to me that the hike, though strenuous, was not at a level that pushed me too hard. By the next weekend, my muscles were feeling great and ready for a new adventure.

The following is a list of additional things that I am doing to prevent injury:

  • I always wear my Nu Hope hernia prevention belt when I do any outdoor activity beyond a short, flat-terrain day hike when I am carrying no significant weight (say 10-15 pounds).
  • I have my husband, Doug, help me lift my heavy backpack on to my shoulders. Once it is resting on my hips, I am better able to handle the weight without straining my abdominal muscles.
  • I use hiking poles to help with my stability as I get stronger.
  • I leave for hikes extra early to allow myself the ability to hike at a slower pace with more frequent breaks.
  • I pay very close attention to my body. So far I haven’t witnessed anything more than normal post-workout muscle aches. However, if I feel something more significant, I will back off and give my body more time to adjust to the next level of activity.
  • I am working with a physical therapist to strengthen my core muscles using very mild and low-impact exercises that are safe for the level of healing I am at.

My goal for the fall is carrying out a week-long backpacking trip with a few peak ascents. Hopefully with my training regime, I will be ready for this challenge.

Back to Biking and Running (feat. new video)

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Today was Bike to Work Day in Denver. I work up in the foothills, and my daily commute is 26 miles round-trip with roughly 2000 feet of elevation gain. Though I did successfully complete this lengthy excursion for this event last summer, I figured it would be a bit too much after surgery when I am not yet at full strength. Instead, I drove to the park-and-ride 5 miles from work, and made a shorter trip on my bike from that starting point. It ended up being perfect. The route had just enough uphill to work my muscles and get my heart rate up without making me too exhausted. As seems to be the case with all outdoor sports I have been trying so far, I had absolutely no issues with my appliance or ostomy. I wore my usual combo of a Nu Hope Cool-Comfort hernia prevention belt under Comfizz briefs to hold it in place. Over this, I wore the same chamois-padded mountain biking shorts I always wore before surgery. This may sound like a lot of layers, but I find it very comfortable, and I love the way my core muscles feel supported.

Actually, the funniest moment of the trip happened before I left the house. I sometimes get phantom urges where it feels like I have to take a BM even though it is physically impossible with my colon gone and everything sewn up. I got these sensations a lot in the first month after surgery; now I only feel them occasionally. Well, this morning as I was making breakfast and packing up when I witnessed one. Forgetting completely about my ostomy, I thought, “I better really try to go the bathroom before I leave, or I will be miserable holding it on the ride with no toilet possibilities on the way.” Then I remembered that this most definitely wouldn’t be an issue and laughed out loud! These are the moments when I really love having my ileostomy instead of ulcerative colitis!

Biking was not my only sport-related accomplishment this week. I also went for my first jog. I hadn’t really planned my grand entrance back into running. I figured my body would tell me when it was time. Well, last Monday, I gazed out the window and got this overwhelming urge to run. And so I did.

As my feet began to rhythmically hit the ground, I paid close attention to my abdomen. One of my silly fears with running was that my insides were going to shake like a maraca with all the space left where my colon once was. But, no, there were no strange sensations in my abdominal cavity. In fact, everything with running felt really natural, as if I had only been away from it for a few weeks and not almost a year. I went at a slow jog and interspersed it with walking as needed. I ended up going three more times during the past week, the last of which is filmed in the following video.

The Nature Nook

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Today I went in for a visit with my stoma nurse for a very minor skin irritation issue. Her office is right next to the hospital where I had my surgery and also next door to my surgeon’s office. As I was pulling into the parking lot, I realized I had not been back to this area of medical establishments since mid-March. Quite a record after driving there every couple of weeks for four months while I was preparing for and healing up from my ileostomy surgery. As I drove by, the tiny park next to the hospital caught my eye.

I had some complications after surgery due to my body being difficult and stubborn in its healing, which required some additional hospital stays. At first, I had no idea this little nature-nook-of-a-park even existed. One day, knowing of my love of the outdoors and my somewhat anxious state during one such hospital visit, my surgeon phoned my room and told me that the weather was gorgeous and that I should head outside to visit this place.

Though it was nice outside, it was a bit chilly and I had left my jacket in the trunk of the car before checking in to the hospital a few days prior. I also had a large drain hanging from my butt cheek. Not the most ideal situation, but I had been given permission to go outdoors!!! Nothing could have stopped me. As I headed through the gate of the park, and situated my sore butt carefully on the bench, peace came over me. It was winter, so there were no leaves on the plants, and I only saw one bird up in the branches. Still, this tiny bit of nature provided just the soothing effect I needed. For the first time since checking in, I found my mind wandering away from the hospital to thoughts of future adventures. I wrote in my journal for a while, soaking in the sunshine and fully enjoying the moment until the cool air finally hastened me back inside. I returned to my room feeling rejuvenated and hopeful.
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Happy to be Trying, Blunders and All (feat. new video)

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There is nothing as satisfying as knowing that you have faced a challenge and succeeded beyond your wildest hopes. That is how my recent four-day backpacking trip to Rocky Mountain National Park over Memorial Day weekend felt. We hiked 3.5 miles from the car and camped for three nights at 10,500 feet, exploring some of the neighboring terrain on day hikes. (The trip is chronicled in a two-part video: Episode 5.)

Throughout the whole trip, I kept having to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t in some spectacular dream, feeling so strong and healthy. Was it really only four months ago that I was still toting around a wound vac to heal my stubborn abdominal incision? At that time, my wound still hurt too much to even go on the shortest hike. Now here I was in the middle of the remote and snowy mountains, toting a backpack instead of my vac, immersed in the beauty of nature and feeling pretty much unstoppable.

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Loving Life and My New Normal (feat. new video)

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What an amazing week of outdoor adventure it has been. We are still working on the video for our backpacking trip last weekend, as there is a lot of footage to sort through. We hope to get it on the site in the next week.

Until then, we created a short film covering a fun day-hike Doug and I completed along with Doug’s dad and our good friend. Shadow Canyon, leading to South Boulder Peak and Bear Peak in Boulder, Colorado’s famed Flatirons, has always been one of my favorite hikes. It is a challenging ascent that links up two peaks, and has around 3000 feet of elevation gain in a little over 3 miles. I have been day-hiking a bunch to get strong again, and figured I was finally up for something more strenuous. And was I ever! I could not believe how great I felt on the entire hike. Everyday I realize more and more how my diseased colon had held me back. Now that it is gone, I am blissfully getting used to my new “normal” and loving life!

There were a couple of new things to deal with on this excursion. One was scorching temperatures. The high today was 90 degrees–definitely my warmest hike since surgery. I had to really stay on top of hydration and ended up tanking up on water before getting to the trailhead, drinking about 4.5 liters of water on the actual hike and then guzzling another 1.5 liters when I returned home. I am finding that avoiding dehydration on the trail is not that difficult. It just takes planning to make sure you carry enough water, and then some self-discipline to make sure you drink, drink, drink.

Continue reading “Loving Life and My New Normal (feat. new video)” →

A wonderful community of people

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I just returned from a four-day backpacking trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was an amazing adventure with some unique challenges including some extremely cold temperatures, deep snow and National Park Service requirements to pack out our human waste due to the winter conditions. We shot lots of footage for our next film, so stay tuned!

On a separate topic, last week I went to my very first local ostomy association meeting, sponsored by the Ostomy Association of Metro Denver. I had intended to go much sooner, as I am sure it would have been very benecial right after surgery. Unfortunately, during those first couple of months, I had a few healing hiccups and didn’t feel up to it. After that, other scheduling conflicts always seemed to crop up. Finally, things lined up and I headed to my first meeting.

I was a little nervous at first because I didn’t know what to expect, but those fears quickly vanished as I found myself among some of the most welcoming people I have ever met.

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Here’s to 500 views!

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I had to do a double-take when I looked at my Ostomy Outdoors blog counter the other day and saw that it had hit the 500 views mark after only a couple of weeks. I never expected to have so much interest in the site. Thank you to everyone who has read, commented on, or included links on their own websites or Facebook accounts regarding the blog and videos.

I know firsthand the importance of hearing other people’s stories when facing ostomy surgery. The whole experience is a complex stew of hope, fear, excitement and worry. One needs help sorting through these feelings while trying to make sound decisions… usually while feeling very ill on top of it all.

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Back on the slopes: snowboarding with an ostomy (feat. new video)

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I managed to get three days of snowboarding in this season which is more than I ever would have imagined!

Of course, one would hope that post-surgery improvement in sports would occur in a linear fashion, getting better and better each time. Unfortunately, that was not the case for me. My third day of snowboarding on May 8th (closing day at the resort) was the most frustrating.  It had nothing to do with my ostomy, which once again caused no problems at all. The problem was hard-packed snow and not knowing how much beating up my body could handle.

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Welcome: the story of my outdoor adventures as an ileostomate (feat. new video)

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Yesterday was my sixth-month anniversary of my permanent ileostomy surgery, so it seems like a fitting time to start my Ostomy Outdoors blog. I have been active in the outdoors since I was a child, and one of my biggest fears about ostomy surgery was that I would no longer be able to take part in the outdoor adventures that I love, like rock climbing and backpacking. Through writing and short films, this blog will document my return to these activities after having my colon removed due to ulcerative colitis (UC).

My battle with UC began in 1999. It started out very mild but worsened over the years, with 2009 and 2010 bringing my worst symptoms yet. My abdominal pain increased, and I constantly bled, making it hard to keep my iron levels stable, resulting in fatigue. I would sometimes have small accidents and began to put pads in the back of my undies when hiking, just in case. Of course, I was also a little embarrassed about all of this, and except for my husband and parents, never talked to my friends and family about it. I was a master at covering it up. There were a few times my cover was almost blown. I remember once when I was out hiking, my friends got ahead of me on the trail when suddenly I had to go the bathroom. Without any time to inform them of my situation, I ducked behind a boulder to dig an emergency cat hole. They couldn’t see where I had gone, and thought I had disappeared! Needless to say, they were very relieved when they saw me walking towards them again on the trail. Urgency is one thing when you are hiking; it is another matter up on a rock face. Often if I was feeling ill with UC, I would cancel my climbing plans. Still, most of the time I managed to lead an active life with the disease by ignoring the pain and not letting it stop me.

Continue reading “Welcome: the story of my outdoor adventures as an ileostomate (feat. new video)” →