Cancer Articles (Dr. S.N White)

Will I have the colostomy bag on when I return from the operating room?  Usually, patients who have had ileostomies will return from surgery with a temporary ostomy bag in place. A patient who has had a colostomy will not have fecal drainage until he begins to eat again a few days or a week after the operation. He will return from surgery with dressings but with no ostomy bag. When fecal matter begins to be expelled, a temporary colostomy bag will be applied. Because this is a temporary appliance, it may not work as well as the permanent one. Furthermore, the process is more complicated because you have so recently had the operation. Don't be dismayed by the whole procedure. It will become a simple, routine matter for you when you return home. Thousands of people from every walk of life have had colostomies and are able to attend to their businesses and their homes, marry, have babies, play golf or tennis, swim, dance, go to the movies in other words, live perfectly normal live...

The Colostomy No surgeon advises a colostomy if there is an equally effective alternative. Likewise no patient wants this operation if there is a way to avoid it. No other aspect of intestinal surgery is attended by so much misunderstanding, unrealistic fear and dread of the future mechanics of dayto day contact and social survival. This is one operation in which the patient has much to gain by meeting and talking with a person who has had a colostomy for several years. Once he sees how relatively little it interferes with normal habits, he will be more courageous about it. Many surgeons have a whole group of patients who, having overcome the same uncertainties about colostomies, volunteer to meet with new patients and show them how things are managed. Surgeons can arrange these discussions for every patient in whom a colostomy is anticipated. It is interesting, too, that the adequately instructed, frightened patient of today becomes the confident adviser a year later. The patient...