Hey Robert, The zests do come in dehydrated forms in specialites-sp- shops.   Only seen them a couple of time tho-  I would rather zest my lemons and limes and oranges myself.. :-)

Well Marcie there goes that retirement idea ....... Lol . Guess I'll have to think of something else .  ;-) 

Here ya go Marcie

Be humble or you'll stumble

I am more of a coffee drinker myself little French vanilla and half n half 1 cup in the morning and I'm good to go . I can do tea but its a passion tea doctored up on ice in the day time .

I treat myself at infusion with a nice cup of hot coffee and I bring in my own muffin. :-) Gives me a break between the 2 big bags of fluids.. Got to make it work to pass the time huh? IT is so0oo boreing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 days a week!  I could learn a new lanuage but cant have loud talking etc in there..  patients at time want to rest and sleep.  IT is Soooooooooo boreing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am an Irish Tea for breakfast, kind of girl,  (a large part of me is Irish) and a good cup of Market Spice Tea (a specialty of Pike Place Market in Seattle, WA) for a pick me up in the afternoon. (A pick me up that can blast you into the stratisphere!)

Posted by: Marcie

I treat myself at infusion with a nice cup of hot coffee and I bring in my own muffin. :-) Gives me a break between the 2 big bags of fluids.. Got to make it work to pass the time huh? IT is so0oo boreing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 3 days a week!  I could learn a new lanuage but cant have loud talking etc in there..  patients at time want to rest and sleep.  IT is Soooooooooo boreing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Put in some ear buds and you can use phone or iPad/ tablet . Makes time go faster .

Posted by: Barbara

I am an Irish Tea for breakfast, kind of girl,  (a large part of me is Irish) and a good cup of Market Spice Tea (a specialty of Pike Place Market in Seattle, WA) for a pick me up in the afternoon. (A pick me up that can blast you into the stratisphere!)

Hi Barb , so good to see you back here with us . 

Big hugs , Bubbles ???

Coffee for me .. full strength and a lot of it. YUM.  Tea in the PM though.

And hello to  Barb!

Bubbles, but I have to repeat the words..  I tried to just read the words, (Spanish-I like) but the nurse told me to shut up.. :-(   And of course, I am not into the computer/phone areas as well as the rest of you all. Maybe sign language?  I did take a course on that many years ago.  Ya, that is it!! I will do sign !!!!!!!!!!!!!  :-) 

Le us all pray for a safe rescue for those young boys that are left in that cave for a safe home coming!  I am in tears of joy now, that 4 are free now.  God bless them all!! The world have come together..... again...…………….. 

Dona, doesn't coffee go right through you? Do u drink café  or de-café? I like the café, reg straight with a bit of sugar.  And my BIG muffin to soak it up to pass the time.. My treat.  Just wondering.. Thanks. M.

Hi everybody. I am back again finally I have been back in the hospital again or I should say I am in the hospital again probably for another day or so then getting ready to go back to rehab again. Seems that I came down with a 6th round of c-diff. It was supposed to have been cured by the fecal transplant that I had in April however it appears that it didn't work. And the c-dff came back with a vengeance. This time I ended up missing an entire week of my life I have no recollection of Friday the 13th until last Wednesday. I saw people they were at my house my son came over and did some things for me and I ended up having trouble with my pouch and apparently got it all over my clothes and put them in the washer. I staggered back to my room bouncing off walls and doors (abrasions all over .My back and arns ) I then collapsed unconscious on my bed. On Monday morning my caregiver came knocked on the door and could not get in so she called her boss and they called my son. He came over and found me unconscious on my bed with no clothes yes it was an embarrassing situation even more so when the paramedics came to take me out in an ambulance and I had no clothes on. Not a good plan I ended up in the hospital ICU on a ventilator and I was giving them so much trouble that they had to restrain me with a thing called a posi and restraints I guess the positive similar to a small straight jacket. I think I'm glad I don't remember it anyway the fecal transplant didn't work and every bout of c-diff gets worse than the last one this one I just about killed me so I am really fearful of getting another one something needs to be done to cure this stuff and it seems the idea of the top of the list that's going around right now is the removal of the rest of my colon changing me from a colonostomy to an ileostomy so we're going to discuss that. We'll see what happens I personally you in favor of the surgery I've had issues ever since the colonostomy was done a year-and-a-half ago so I'm about ready to make changes. Anyway I'm back among the living just wanted to say hello to everybody and let you know what was happening I'll be back with you later on with more after I read the posts I've missed in the last couple of weeks. More later

Is that all they do is talk in that place?????????????  

Glad your back to us again.  You always wanted this surgery from the start.  So this may be the right thing to do for you.   Let me know what is going to happen.  M.

WOW, Barbara. I am really sorry to hear that you have been hit with c. diff again!  It does look like its time to revisit the possibility of removing the rest of your colon. 

I was tested and had c. diff in my rectum ( of which I still have a few inches) after my colectomy. I never really experienced ill effects from it ( I guess) and its a real eye opener what you have just gone through.

Let us know what you learn. I am pulling for you!

Oh my goodness Barbara, that is crazy what you have been thru.  I have no idea what C-diff is but I am going to read up on it.  I know when a person goes through something like that you have to come out the other end with your sense of humor fully intact!  We can not control things when we are that sick.  Sometimes I think it is better to not remember these things that would cause embarrassment, but also important to realize we came out okay on the other side. Some of us were saying that when we have gone thru so much with our guts, and surgery and adjusting to the pouches and every single thing required in order to get thru this stuff, that we are kind of a, tough people.  You Barbara are the definition of TOUGH! So glad you will be home soon and I hope you continue to recover well, if you figure going from a colostomy to an ileostomy will help, then trust your gut.  What does your doctor say about it?  Is he willing to help you along?  I have been diagnosed with something kind of  strange.  It is called pseudo blockages.  Your gut stops working, like it does when you have stuff in it, but in my case it is mostly on the runny side and a whole lot of air that presses up under my rib cage. Lots of bowel sounds but no action. Very painful. The frustrating thing for me is that they insist that my large bowel is mega dilated. Barbara, My large bowel was removed in 1996!  The whole thing. I have the rectum because of my bladder disease and the treatment for it...mostly morphine and belladonna suppositories for now, but the end result will leave me with another bag, only for urine.  Telling you this, will make it easier than you trying to find it on the computer. If anyone wants to, I have not been diagnosed with the name of it other then pseudo blockages, but it is well described under rare bowel diseases, Ogilvies syndrome.  I get a few blockages a month and they often leave me feeling like I have been badly gut beaten. Oh, the nausea! When things move,  my guts feel as tho they  have been used for a punching bag! They are just as dangerous as the regular kind.  I have gut pain ALL the time.  It rarely goes away.  I do my best to avoid gong to our little hospital, 18 beds, but the nurses just do not get that  this has to be treated differently then the other blockages. They  are awful about it actually. I would rather risk a  perforation than go thru them again. It is impossible to drive when you are in so much pain, and I would prefer to go to the the hospital in Penticton, n hour away, that is where the specialist is. Then at least he would give the orders, not the nurses who know nothing about it and are not willing to learn or listen to the patient, there way or the highway.   I rather hate the pain part of it and have ever only gone to the hospital when I know I need help for the pain control, by then I am dehydrated also, so in goes the IV and I have horrible veins, often leading to more the seven pokes. 

With C-diff, are you in pain from that?  I sure hope not, as you have been through enough.  Your a widow also if I remember right, right?  A fecal transplant...that is  new one to me, I will have to read about that too to understand it.  You said you have a caregiver...is that like the  support ofa nurse comes who comes to the house? Or, home support, someone working for the Gov. that comes and helps you shower and meals and stuff like that?  Sorry, I am curious to understand this whole life we live. Well, I hope you continue to feel better everyday.  Be sure and let us know how things are going. So glad to hear from you here again.

Keep us up to date on things okay. Take a deep breath...your back!

Linda

Barb , 

wow so sorry to hear all you have been through. I pray getting an Ileostomy cures all . Sending you big hugs , Bubbles ????

I have finally begun to surface from The Trial that I have been through this past few weeks. Starting on Friday July 13th a bad day for me episode number 6 of c-diff started. My son came over in the afternoon and helped me do some things in my apartment I have no recollection of what we did or him coming over or any of that at all. He left late in the afternoon and things just went to heck after that. Apparently at some point I had a problem with my colonostomy bag and left a pile of crap outside the bathroom door I must have gotten my clothes dirty because I took them all off and put them in the washing machine. And then I started getting trying to get to my bedroom I don't normally walk I normally use a wheelchair but I was walking and bouncing off the walls and the doors and the corners and all those sharp objects there are around the apartment. Manage to put a whole bunch of worms on my back I made it as far as my bed and I collapsed. I don't know whether this happened on Friday night or sometime on Saturday but no one heard from me until Monday morning. My caregiver came knocked on my door and couldn't get in so she called my son and he came over and found me. It is embarrassing to be found by your child naked unconscious on your bed. They think I was unconscious for about two and a half days and I have no fluids no food no meds no insulin nothing at all. I was severely dehydrated as you can imagine. They got me to the hospital and into intensive care spent the day on a ventilator and they had to restrain me because I became combative and I am not a combative person I try to be gentle. I bet apparently I was trying to hurl myself off the bed to end it all. Anyway they finally started getting back to normal they had to do dialysis to get my electrolytes back under control it managed to work with only one try on it. I moved into Advanced Care and on Wednesday afternoon friend who is a physical therapist that I've worked with for about a year-and-a-half doing Wound Care on my legs came in to see why I was in the hospital and she's first thing that I recognized since sometime the Friday before. So there's nearly a whole week that is gone out of my mind no memory whatsoever. If anybody ever tells you that c-diff is nothing to worry about it kills. They said that this bout came very very close to killing me and they also said that one more about of it would kill me that they get worse every time you have one and the antibiotics to respond less and less all the time. So the solution was a bit of surgery I had been a colostomy. And they had taken about half of my colon with the first surgery a year-and-a-half ago this time they took the rest of my colon and made me an ileostomy. At least this time there were no big surprises when I woke up other than to my ostomy was moved from my left side to my right side. I have read enough on this site about ileostomy is that I think I understand what's going on and I get it and it's no big shock and it's something that I can handle. The first one the colonoscopy was a total surprise. So anyway I am back in rehab I am surfacing into the living and I'm beginning to feel a bit better. I'm just very very very weak I can't stand up on my on. They also think that the poison from the c-diff cross the brain blood barrier on me this time and caused a minor Tia on my left side I'm having a hard time with my left hand I can't feel my little finger at all so that's the thrust of my therapy and Rehab right now is getting that arm and hand working again. Nice to be back among the living sorry this is such a long post but there was a lot to catch up on I'll be back again later on Barbara

Barbara , I am very happy to hear from you. Great that its done and the nasty C-diff is hopefully all gone.  That certainly sounds like the right decision. Let us know how you are recovering.

And you will be one of the few people who can compare having a ileostomy with a colostomy! I hope the rest of the recovery goes great.

Happy to see you back-- But rest much.. Nellie is having  party and you are expected!!  She favors you .. And-you have a job of greeting of sorts my friend. 

But please keep your clothes on!  You even took Stella's dress off !!  Now that the poison is gone- this will no longer be a problem.. Your brain is clearing and now in a straight forward mode of proper attentions to one self.  But then again we all get those leaks..  Don't get upset.. that is normal for us..  It is the talk of the town at times!! Talk to you soon.. :-) /M.