Posts by Thomas Hernandez81

Thanks for the posts. I’ll probably end up looking into a transplant myself one day; this gives me a good perspective.

Whatever the outcome ends up being—and I’m betting it’ll be great—you can always go back later to fill in any thin spots in the beard. Over time, the texture changes and starts feeling more like the hair on your head, which makes for a decent filler.

Check out this result:



If you ever feel the need to touch things up while you're in Turkey, you could always just tweak the beard density and call it a day.

Personally, I don't think it's worth flying to Switzerland and paying those kinds of prices; they seem a bit overpriced to me. But then again, when you're in this situation, you just do whatever makes you feel secure, so I get it.

brightgull95 said:That specific section shouldn't cause issues just because of residual stool being trapped there. If there's going to be trouble, it would more likely be due to ischemia—you know, where blood supply gets cut off, leading to necrosis and inflammation—but I don't think that's particularly likely here.

They wouldn't have had to "clean him out" the same way they do before a colonoscopy (at least that's how I remember it); the main thing is just making sure his large intestine wasn't full during the procedure.

Emergency? Wasn't he in the hospital the whole time? Or by "emergency," do you mean something else?

Anything is possible, I guess. But if the bowel is actually the cause, then a functionally "dead" section is probably the least of the concerns compared to the segment leading up to the stoma. Of course, only the doctors can say for sure since they have a direct look at what's happening. It might not even matter exactly what happened during the surgery, because while it's less probable, inflammation could be caused by something entirely different—especially since my father was only home for a short window between those two hospital stays.

He was in the hospital for about ten days, then sent home with antibiotics. We ended up in the ER because he developed a fever after a week on the meds. Most of the time, he's been home.

Now he’s having quite a bit of leakage from his anus, so I really don't know. The stoma itself seems to be working fine. His primary care doctor issued a referral for him to head back to the ER, but he's refusing for now because he's just reached his limit (he's 88, after all). He has a follow-up with the surgeon on Monday, so I'll finally be able to get some real answers.

Thanks for the input.

brightgull95 said:All the waste from the large intestine goes out through the ostomy bag, so if there’s anything left inside distal to the stoma, no intestinal contents will reach it. There isn't really anything left to clean from the outside.
They definitely didn't perform the surgery with full bowels, so there shouldn't be anything left to rot or ferment in there.

Thanks for the input.

I find this whole thing hard to wrap my head around, too. I know the section where the stoma is attached is fine, but the part from the transverse colon down to the anus—which I assume is still tucked away inside (we should get the discharge papers in the mail)—is still there.

I can't quite believe they could operate without any prep, especially since he wasn't cleaned out the day before. I actually called the ward around 2:00 PM that day to ask why he hadn't been prepped, and the nurse just said the doctor ordered no cleansing.

When he had his colonoscopy, they had him cleaning out for two days straight. Maybe there's some kind of rapid prep protocol used on the day of surgery that I'm unaware of, or maybe he's just misremembering if any cleaning happened at all. I don't know.

But after taking Cleveland and Amoxicillin, his fever spiked above 102, so it was an emergency. He got IV Ceftriaxone and Rexocef 2x200 twice a day. He was fever-free for four or five days, then it jumped back up to 100.4+. I honestly have no idea where that fever is coming from despite such heavy antibiotics, so my mind is racing through all sorts of possibilities...

My father just had surgery to remove cancer from his transverse colon, and he’s been fitted with a stoma. He's an elderly man, 87 years old.

I haven't received any of the surgical paperwork yet; they mentioned it would be sent by mail later, but it's been about two and a half weeks now.

He was admitted to the hospital the day before the procedure, and he actually asked me not to clean him at all, despite the fact that he hadn't even used the bathroom for four days prior. When I called the ward, the nurse just told me the doctor had specifically ordered that he shouldn't be cleaned.

Is that even normal? I suppose they didn't remove the entire colon down to the exit, which might mean there's still a section of the colon full of waste just sitting there, fermenting and rotting. They started him on antibiotics while he was still in the hospital, but he developed a fever while taking them. They switched him to a second antibiotic, which brought the fever down for a few days, but now it's back, even though he's still mid-course with the medication.

Is it possible they left behind a dead segment of the colon that's acting as a breeding ground for bacteria and infection?

Thanks.