After Surgery Ostomy Care

After Ostomy Surgery: The Work Begins

The patient’s real work begins after ostomy surgery ends and the recovery process begins. Over the next days, weeks, and months, you will work to heal, to strengthen your body, and to care for your stoma. However, not all of your work will be physical. Just as you have to deal with physical changes and physical healing during the recovery process, you also have to deal with self concept changes and emotional healing.

In the Hospital

During the first few days after surgery, your body will start the healing process. You will probably continue to receive pain medication through the IV. You will sit up in bed and even take short walks as soon as possible, because movement helps to get the bowels moving again. Once the doctor hears bowel sounds and the stoma begins to function, you may be able to begin eating clear liquids such as broth and juice. After your body accepts clear liquids, you will begin to add other liquids and solid food.

Barring complications, your hospital stay should last about a week. While in the hospital, you will probably also receive instructions about stoma care, how to change the pouch, and how to care for your body as you heal from surgery. This instruction should also include information about where to purchase medical supplies.

Recovery at Home

Your work continues once you’re home—but you get to continue the recovery process surrounded by your friends, family, and your own things! Expect this phase of recovery to take about six weeks. When you return home, there are a few things you need to remember:

• Continue to follow your doctor’s instructions. Walking, exercises, medications, appropriate diet, and follow-up visits are all crucial to full recovery, so keep them up!
   
• Remember that your primary responsibility is recovery. Don’t let “real life” distract you from taking care of yourself. 
   
• Your activity will be restricted at first—but at home, it’s easy to “cheat” and try to do more than your body is ready to do. Follow your doctor’s instructions and avoid heavy lifting, housework, driving, and other strenuous activity until you receive a medical okay. Remember: pushing too hard before your body is ready can injure your healing wounds and lengthen your recovery.

During your first few weeks at home, you will learn more about your stoma and its care. You will need to keep the skin around the stoma clean. You will need to watch for skin irritations, which can be caused if digestive contents leak onto the skin. You will practice changing the pouch, possibly with the help of your nurse. Contact your physician or ET nurse with any questions or concerns about stoma care.

Finding Support

In the midst of all the physical changes you face after ostomy surgery, it’s easy to forget that you also need to deal with major self concept changes. Physically, ostomy surgery does not interfere with the ability to enjoy satisfying social interactions. Physically, ostomy surgery does not interfere with the ability to have fulfilling sexual relationships. But a person’s social and sexual lives are heavily influenced by his or her self-concept—so dealing self-concept changes is a critical part of the healing process.

Your doctor will probably send you home with checklists of things to do (walk, do your exercises, take your medications) and not to do (heavy lifting, housework, driving.) Unfortunately, no simple checklist exists for “dealing with self-concept changes.” So how do you heal emotionally as well as physically?

1. Find an ostomy support group. This is probably the single best thing you can do to help yourself heal emotionally. An ostomy support group can provide answers to your practical questions, reassurance when the going gets tough, and true understanding of what you are experiencing. An ostomy support group can help you connect with others who have faced—and conquered—the problems you’re facing. You can find both local and online support groups through the United Ostomy Associations of America, Inc. (www.uoaa.org.)

2. Recognize that grief is a normal reaction to any loss—including surgical losses. Accept and express normal grief emotions such as sadness, fear, anger, and denial. Allow yourself to cry, to get angry and pound your pillow, to journal about your fears, because these things help you to work through the emotions rather than getting stuck in them.

3. Educate yourself about the phases of recovery most patients go through after a serious accident or illness: shock, denial, acknowledgment, and adaptation. Different people go through these phases in different orders and at different rates. Understanding the phases of emotional recovery will help you to understand that your feelings are normal and that you can get through them.

If you remember to accept your feelings, take care of yourself, and connect with others, you will progress toward emotional healing. Most important, know that you aren’t alone.