Coping With Fistulotomy

i guess i was having a lot of strange and bloody bm’s for quite some time over the past year, but one day i noticed that i had a bleeding bump on the side of my anus. this was probably about 4 months ago.

i went to my doc and he said he didn’t know what it was, and referred me to a colon/rectal surgeon. when i went to see him, he immediately identified it as a fistula. he said that in young people fistulas can close by themselves, so he put me on antibiotics for a week and told me to come back.

the antibiotics cleared up my infection, so the bump went away, and when i went back to see him, he seemed fairly happy with the result. he put me on 2 more weeks of antibiotics to see if that would help.

well, 2 weeks later, i still had the fistula, and the drainage that comes along with it.

we finally scheduled my surgery, which i just had yesterday am.

the surgery itself was not bad at all. i got an iv with anesthesia and awoke to no pain. i had this wrapping around my butt which made me feel like i had a diaper on.

when i got home, i just relaxed and kept the wrapping on that night.

this morning i took the wrapping off, and i guess there was some dressing that was plugged into my anus. i didn’t want to pull it out because i’ve heard that that is the most excrutiating pain ever. i showered and had a sitz bath, but left some of the gauze that was in my anus.

later on today, i felt like i needed to have a bm, so when i was on the toilet, the gauze dressing came out, which i was happy about.

had another sitz bath tonight, and then i had a bm, which resulted in a lot of blood, but was definitely a relief to my stomach.

so, onto day 3…hopefully this thing heals quickly and never comes back!