I hope everyone had a very nice holiday season, and best wishes for 2017. Sara has recovered well from her big surgery in the fall, aside from a blockage scare right before Christmas (which was resolved quickly at the hospital, phew!). In fact lately she has been doing some “test runs” of half-day teaching at Black Diamond Elementary School (combination 1st – 2nd grades) as she was planning to return to work on a part-time basis in early 2017. When she is feeling well, she does her own Facebook updates, so that is why the blog has been quiet for the last couple of months.

However, following a clean MRI on December 9, Sara’s surgeon surprised her with the proposal of reversing the ileostomy. There was a condition, of course – that her previous surgeries had healed up with no leakages, including closing up the original colostomy. The procedure to check on the healing status is called a “double contrast gastrophy” – a scan of the colon is done after administering first barium, and then forced air, which took place on December 19. Unlike a colonoscopy, you are awake for this procedure! As usual Sara toughed it out and was rewarded with the good news that her previous surgeries had healed properly.

Tomorrow’s surgery will close up a hole for once, instead of adding a new one 🙂 . Sara’s ileostomy will be reversed and all of her internal plumbing will be connected again, after just over 1 year of living with two consecutive ostomies. Although the surgery is not as extensive as the fall operation, Sara is understandably a bit anxious about going under anesthesia again and the adjustment process her body will go through getting used to the “new” normal. Her chemo port has been acting up a bit lately so it will also be tested while she is in the hospital and may be removed (this would be a separate surgery). So she would definitely appreciate all of the good thoughts and zen you can send her way! She will probably be in the hospital for about 5 days. I will update the blog tomorrow morning as soon as I hear from Eric.

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