Saturday, December 24, 2011

Managing Noah's ileostomy - day 1

I changed Noah's bag just before we left hospital to a special children's bag. Unfortunately I think these are meant for quite young children as it leaked and needed to be changed twice yesterday whereas it should only need changing every three days.
This has been a bit rough for Noah (and for us, although the baptism by fire may have made us a bit more confident), It is quite a process to peel off the backing without hurting him or getting the contents over us or him, then the skin has to be absolutely clean and dry (to prevent skin breakdown) before applying a new bag with the hole cut to the size of his stoma (without cutting the bag itself -leading to leaks) the inside of the hole must be smooth and it must be applied directly over the stoma. All a bit complicated especially if the boy fights - we had Hannah hold his legs, me his arms while Paul peeled the bag off. Luckily applying a new bag doesn't hurt at all so Noah cooperates for that.
Noah did get to have a quick bath before we reapplied the bag, although later I read that's not a great idea, it seems he will have to get used to showers now. He is doing well really. He is getting used to the ileostomy and helps to empty the bag and clean it with toilet paper. He is subjecting it to a few tests that most adults wouldn't - like climbing out of Lily's bedroom window. He even lifted up his t-shirt and said to someone "Look, pooh in a bag!" I hope Paul and I can become so down to earth about it too!

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