Having my brother with me to go see the surgeon was very comforting, and thank God he drove. Even though this office is outside Boston, it's a hell of a drive.

The appointment went very well. She is sooooo nice! She spent about an hour with me (I felt bad for my poor brother sitting in the waiting room tho). She showed me the images from the gross defecography study, and now it makes sense why I feel the way I do, and am having some of the problems I've been having.

Just removing my herniated sigmoid colon wouldn't provide me any relief because I have severe motility problems from the MS, so I'm going to have a subtotal colectomy, which means she's going to remove almost all of my colon, except for a small piece- not so big that I won't still be too constipated, and not so small that I'll have too much diarrhea. There's no way to know where I'll end up, but it HAS TO BE BETTER than what I'm dealing with now.

She's not going to address the other two problems now. They may not even need to be surgically repaired. To simplify things, I won't even go there.

She's concerned about my nutritional status because I haven't been eating well, and if someone's nutrition's poor, it can impede healing. She had me have a lot of blood work done, and is going to call me this week.

I'm sure I will have another appointment with her before the surgery is scheduled. I don't know when that will be. I bet I will have to go into Boston at some point to have some tests done, and I know I will have to go there to meet with the anesthesiologists before surgery, too.
The surgery usually takes 5-6hrs, and the expected hospital stay is 3 days to a week.

More than anything, I feel relieved. Especially after yesterday. I would go in and have it done today if I could.