UOAA Discussion Board

Hello everyone, my son is in the hospital receiving treatment for a serious infection and huge pressure sores. A surgeon is recommending he have an Ostomy. Does anyone have any comments they are willing to share. I don't want him to commit to this life-changing surgery without more facts.

He is a T1 Complete for 2.5 years. Emotionally he is not doing well and does not do anything for himself yet. A caregiver does manual extraction of his bowels every morning, gets him showered and dressed. He seldom leaves the house.

Would an Ostomy allow him more freedom? Would it make any change to his current life style?

Does anyone know great doctors in the Riverside/Temecula area? We just moved from Orange County California to Hemet.

Thank you.

Hey Cynamo,
Welcome to the boards. Sorry to hear that your son is struggling. With a complete transection of the T1, he has what is none as a neurogenic bowel. He no longer has any active control of his bowel...which I'm sure you know. Manual extraction of the bowel is basically the only controlled way of removing waste from the body at this point. Without manual extraction, waste would just keep moving to the end without any way to stop it...
A colostomy would allow you to capture the waste into an external pouch on the front of his abdomen, making clean up and removal/replacement significantly easier than what he is doing now. You also avoid having accidental output which leads to embarrassing moments and accidents. Depending on his wheelchair, changing an ostomy pouch could be done while sitting in the chair in just a couple of minutes. Manual extraction requires transferring out of the chair to a horizontal surface, etc., requiring significantly more time to manage.
I always recommend hanging onto your original plumbing as long as you can, but in your son's situation, I agree with the surgeon. I think your son would be well served to get a colostomy. To answer your questions, simply from his diagnosis, yes, I think a colostomy would give him more freedom. It would allow bowel care to happen with more ease and significantly less time. No, I don't think that it would change his current lifestyle. As a father, it were my son, I would encourage him to go ahead with the ostomy surgery...ultimately, it's up to him though.
From your description, it sounds like he is experiencing some depression, which obviously is understandable and expected. I would focus on that too. He made need some counseling, some meds, or a combination of both. He's experienced a lot of the past 2.5 years.
I hope this helped some.

David

Hi,

I am an L3 incomplete paraplegic. I had my colostomy in 2009 and it was life changing. I was injured in 1972 and my only regret is that I waited so long. It may be harder for your son to deal with depending on how good his hand function is. I have several friends who are C5 orC6 quads who are much happier with their colostomy. One has adequate hand function to do everything himself, the others do not.

I am up in San Luis Obispo county and a general surgeon did my ostomy surgery. You might try to reach out to a local UOAA affiliated support group for advice on local surgeons. There is a big ASG in LA.

Good Luck,

Linda