Changing locations

So with a heavy heart I have decided to officially end this blog.  My colon is gone, so I can't really write about it it any more.

Hence forth my writing will be featured to a tumblr site. Join me over at Voice Mails to Courtney. Which will feature, among other things, transcripts of messages I left on Courtney's voice mail while on heavy narcotics in the hospital.

Long overdue - The Last Meal

So this is late, 2 weeks late really.  It was mostly an issue of circumstances really.
I am at home recovering from surgery, with a bag attached to my stomach.

The party was fantastic, the first guests arrived around 5pm, the last guests left around 5am, so much drinking*.  I had planned on taking pictures of everything that was brought, but I started drinking.  I think there was something in the realm of 25-30 people over the course of the night, I'm not sure if there would have been room if everyone who said maybe actually arrived**.
I won't get into too many details as I can't recall much of it. However I did eat avocado#.

The next day I woke up at the crack of noon, and had breakfast at Sneaky Dee's^.

Then didn't really eat until dinner.

Now the actual meal is where things slightly fell apart.

My room mate woke up sick. So I spent part of the day looking after her and cleaning up.
Now my original plans^# were to go to Dangerous Dan's and have the Quadruple C (colossal colon clogging combo), because I was not going to have a colon to clog going forward##.

But the fates transpired against me.

Having already eaten Chicken Fried Steak on the Friday (which was my first choice), and Dangerous Dan's my back up having fallen through I was stuck in a lurch.
Then I thought what do I constantly smell in my neighbourhood, but never actually eat? Smoked meat.

So I went to Caplansky's.
Caplansky's is a couple blocks from my house and fills the air with deliciousness.  I ordered the smoked meat, a plate of dill pickles and a pint of  Duggan's #9 IPA.
The picture doesn't do it justice and I wish I had taken another one to show the magnitude.  It was close to pound of meat, I'd say roughly 4fingers of meat between two slices of rye bread. This sandwich was 2 steps short of a sex act, by the end of it I was tired, my jaw was sore and I was in need of a cigarette.

Now that was the last meal that my colon had. However it was not the last thing to go through it.
The evening was finished off with a slice of chocolate cake and several glasses of Scotch^^,

And that was it, I'm sore and itchy (on account that they shaved my stomach) the staples get removed this week.

I'll update again soon with details of the hospital and why I now love opiates ( I totally understand the appeal of heroin now).


*For the record I can carry $10.80 worth of empties
**As far as Facebook invitations go, "maybe" is the new "no***".
#I was indifferent and can safely go back to actively avoiding it.
^I regret choosing ham.
^# This only became my original plan after having eaten Chicken Fried Steak a couple days prior.
## if I eat it now I will just feel like a poser.
^^ Specifically it was Glenrothes 1994 vintage single malt speyside scotch#^
***No basically means "I hate you, I hope your party sucks and that you die in the middle of it"
#^ It really is a fantastic Scotch, if you are in the Toronto area, let me know, you can come and have some

SO about the surgery date. . .

On Monday I had my pre-surgery appointment.
It was magical, they drew blood. poked at my stomach, took medical history.  They also drew a lovely black spot on my tum. They then covered it with a weird medical tape and told me if the tape falls off and it starts to fade, that I need to draw over top of it.

They also informed me that my surgery has moved.  Instead of it being next Friday, it's now on Tuesday.  Which means I am really running out of time.  I had planned for a leisurely weekend full of gluttony, alcoholism and general debauchery. Followed by a couple days of recovery, and then the last meal, and then surgery.

Now it is all fucked up, because they needed my slot for someone else*. It's not like I'm calling a restaurant for a last minute reservation, I booked this shit back in February.  My wonderful room mate has agreed to run around buying stuff for me, provided that I make a list**.

I need to figure out what the last solid food to go through my colon is. If I'm lucky I'll have an epiphany in a drunken haze and figured out what it will be#*.


*With that said it is for a cancer patient, but I need to assume that there are other patients who aren't as prepared as me.
** I cant make lists, I blank out every morning when I buy my standard breakfast of poptarts milk and cigarettes and the variety store#.
#Because I care about nutrition
#*As opposed to the last time I was in a drunken haze a long time ago^ and had a conversation with my mother, she called the following week and I had no recollection of the conversation ever taking place.
^By "a long time ago" I mean last week.

My Colon's Going Away Party

At this point I'm starting to get tense.
I received a call last week from my surgeon's office saying they needed to reschedule.  Apparently they they had to book a cancer patient for that day, which is fine.
The only issue is I don't actually know when my surgery is.  I think it's now on the 22nd as opposed to the 24th, the problem is they never called me back to confirm.

But there are more pressing matters.

My colon's going away party.

I'm now starting to pull things together for it.  It's a hard thing to plan.  The biggest issue is the food. First of all this will be the most people I've had over, so there is the quantity of required, and then there are the food restrictions  Not mine, but the guests.  I'm used to cooking for myself, I'm used to tapering dishes around what I can and cannot eat. But cooking for other people's restrictions is a different issue.  I'm okay if I screw up something for myself an feel terrible, but doing that to someone else is terrifying.

My next update will be soon, right after I decide the menu.

The End of Gluttony

So since I've started this I have learned that I am terrible at keeping a blog, I'm sporadic with my posts, I'm terrible at filler between posts*.
Aside from realising my short comings as a blogger, there have been a lot of changes in my life. I started this shortly before I turned 30, I was in a committed long term relationship. We had lived together for almost a year, and it ended at the end of October.  We weren't always in the great shape and my summer of sickness sped things up.   We lived together for another 6 months, she just recently moved out. She's still my closest friend**.  So I'm in the process of getting things in order, cleaning, moving things, getting ready for my new room mate#.
So there have been some big changes.  But even bigger ones that I hadn't planned for are coming up. I had realised that I will have to greatly reduce the amount that I drink##.  One that I hadn't planned for but is that fact never be able to do is overeat again. It's probably for the best, as I'm a tubby bastard.  But Christmas dinners, drunken 2 am all you can eat pancakes, those massive heart stopping burgers that frat boys eat to be cool.  All of it ends.  It won't matter if I stick with the ostomy bag or get the reversal it will need to stop.

So I've decided that I will need to indulge in various acts of planned gluttony, not including my colon's going away party.

I've been coming up with a list, things that I need to get under my belt before it's all over.
1) The Mandarin - for those few people who aren't from the Toronto area, it is a massive Chinese buffet.
2) AYCE sushi - Which is surprising for some one who doesn't eat fish *#.
3) Dangerous Dan's - Dangerous Dan's is home to the Quadruple C (colossal colon clogger combo).  A 24oz burger served with a quarter pound of cheese, a quarter pound of bacon, and 2 fried eggs, served with a large shake and a small poutine
4) A crave case of White Castles*!.
5) Phil's Original BBQ - it's right down the road, I feel like a slacker for not going already#*.


I'll probably come up with more, but think those are the big ones.


*That does mean everything I write is pure gold
** I can't say best friend, that is a title held by a guy I've known since I was like 6.
#She's a friend from Ottawa who was going to move to Toronto in the fall, but has offered to come down early to ensure that I don't die during my recovery from surgery.
##It's not that I drink often, but it's one of my few talents. I'm really good at it.
*#It used to be because I hated the taste and texture, now I blame the moral high ground of "by catch" seriously look it up, the fishing industry is massively wasteful and destructive
*! -This hinges on my planned trip to Detroit actually coming through.
#* This specific restaurant was specifically mentioned in the conversation regarding the "five months of feasting" that I talked about here.(*)
(*) I was at Sneaky Dee's with a couple of friends just before my trip to England. I was buying British currency off of my friend Nish (who I'm pretty sure is some sort of drug dealer^ because that is the only logical explanation as to why he would have lots of British cash laying around the house)
^ or he might be a vigilante that kills drug dealers, we're still not sure#@.
#@ But he's probably a drug dealer, I don't have much faith in Nish as a human being.

To reattach or not to reattach?

I have the day off, normally I'd head out and grab breakfast, but not today. Today is prep day.  Tomorrow I have an unpleasant procedure scheduled that involves cameras, I won't go any further that than that in the description.  The key issue is I'm not allowed to eat, in fact I've not eaten since Monday night.  I've been on a clear fluid diet for all of yesterday and today.  It's no so bad, as long as you keep drinking you don't really get hungry.  The issue is really about the energy level.  There is no protein, no fat. So while there is a fire going, it's as if I'm just dumping piles of hay on it.  It doesn't last, it just burns really quick.

Now whenever I find myself in situations where I am not allowed eating, I tend to think about food.  Not so much "oh I'm hungry, I wish I could eat", but more along the lines of  "Man, when this is over, I'm getting chicken fried steak*". But quite frankly what I'm going to have for dinner tomorrow after the scope is not the topic at hand.

I've started thinking about what I will do after the surgery**.  More specifically, I've been thinking about the reconnection.

Now this surgery might be the first of upwards of 3surgeries. Specifically only the first one is required, the one where they remove my dying colon.  The following surgery(s) are for the sole purpose of reconstructing the the remaining segments of the digestive tract to create an internal reservoir to negate the need for an external pouch.  I've decided that I'll already delay the second surgery for at least a year. In theory I can get everything done in the span of a year.

I've been sick for awhile, not nearly as long as some people, but enough to really reflect on all of this.  It started in the summer of  2008.  I spent several months suffering from pneumonia and bronchitis.  that caused me to quit smoking. Apparently the smoking was the only thing keeping the Colitis at bay. The summer 2009, I was flaring they tried new medication which gave me pancreatitis.  Last year was the summer of hospitals.  this year will be the summer of surgery. I don't want to do another year of surgery.

Now from what I've read, stories of people who have an ostomy. Dealing with it becomes second nature, changing the bag, emptying it etc.  Whereas with the reconnection I will have to go to the washroom 10 times a day. It is basically like being in a flare, except no pain, and I'm not limited in what I can eat. There are also a great deal of stories about people that have had surgery to get the bag reattached because they couldn't handle the changes.

I'm undecided. I'll give it at least a year.  I might even wait two so that I can have at least one summer where I don't visit the hospital.  Maybe go back to Cuba.

I don't know yet.

*I've decided to make the "chicken fried steak" a recurring theme.
**I've also been thinking about how I can gain access to baby goats, so that I can lay with them and feed them tin cans.

The demon's egg

Most people have some sort of a love/hate relationship with certain foods.  With IBD those relationships come frequently and often.  For me I've had some long standing ones, some that developed long before developing Ulcerative Colitis.

For me they are few and far between. I love orange soda*, however they are very few I can drink, and even then it's just Fanta that I can drink.  Avocados are similar, except there is no love, only hate.

I've always found avocados inherently creepy.  Visually it looks like a large black leathery egg, if a demon were to hatch from an egg , that egg would look like an avocado. Aside from the visual displeasing nature of its external features,when cut opens it continues to look like an egg.  The seed is presented in a manner that looks like a yolk, and the albumin is represented the squishy green interior. It is basically an egg of demonic standards.

Beyond the appearance they allegedly contain other worldly supernatural culinary abilities.  It is widely believed that if you make guacamole and then place the seed back in the bowl of guac it will magically extend the life of it and it will remain green for an extended period of time**.

That was my reasoning for not eating avocado.  When I was still cooking I joked about it, and even now years later I continue to.

At first I would jokingly not eat avocado, and then I committed to the bit.  It when from passively not eating it to actively avoiding it.  It was no longer about not wanting to eat it, but it became a matter of principle.  Not eating avocado became a lifestyle choice#.

Now here I am approaching surgery, my colon is dying and has never tasted avocado.  I am beginning to reconsider my choices, it's not necessarily that I want to avocado.  I could happily go my life never eating it.  But perhaps that is a selfish choice?

It's a tough decision to make.

Are there recommendations on which form to have it in? A certain dish?

 If I eat it it will be once and only once. Even if I like it will never eat it again.

*I'm also a fan of cherry coke, which is another beverage I can't drink, it gives me wicked heartburn.
**I don't actually believe this any more, although there are legions of chefs and laymen who do.  If anything it's probably because most guacamole recipes contain lime juice or some sort of citrus.  The ascorbic acid is what is probably delaying the oxidation.
#Very similar to not owning an umbrella*# or using heroin##.
*# I also don't own an umbrella, too much of a hassle.
##However I do not use heroin#*
#*Yet^.
^When I say "Yet", I mean eventually I'm going to have to try it^*.
^*I mean when I'm super old and close to death^^.
^^Seriously what else am I going to when I'm 55.
^#There is no reference for this foot note. But the song Prices of the Universe by Queen starts of awesome and half way through it really turns to shit.%
% I'm currently watching season 5 of the Highlander tv series on Netflix, they use the good part of the song for the theme music.

England (at least what I remember).

As you all know my last post was announcing my surgery date, written in an airport lounge a few hours before leaving for England*. The flight was uneventful with the exception of the Indian family who owned the loudly unruly child that refused to stay in her seat during take off.

Now as much as England was a trip to visit the band Drugstore in the recording studio it was also my big trip before my surgery. The secondary purpose was devoted to my colon and liver**.

 On  the first day I wandered around the N1 area, found a SIM, located a pub with wi-fi and made it my base of operations. Eventually after my friend got off of work we went back to her place, I was able to wash up and change and we headed out to meet up with her friends from work.  There was drinking and then headed out for Indian food afterwards. By the time I went to bed on the first night I had been awake for 38 and a half hours.  Once you've been awake for 24 hours you hit a second wind, if you power through it until bed time there is no jet lag the next day.

The next day was spent with a friend that flew in from Dublin, we wandered around the city drinking.

Sunday was my the first day I was able to knock off one of my suggested meals, a couple of entries back  posted a various suggestions from other people with IBD, one of which was a proper English roast.  My friend from Dublin was heading back on the Sunday so while we initially tried to find a pub for breakfast, we ended up getting Sunday Roast.  It was amazing,  My meal was a tiny whole roast chicken, roasted potatoes, vegetables, kale and bread sauce.  It was the greatest meal that I had eaten in awhile.

There is something very different about food products in the UK. I've heard Brits complain about how long it takes for food to get to them because of the EU and how it's trucked in from across Europe, but it always seems to be better quality than here. The one thing I can never get over is how much I love their dairy products.  The milk is better, the cheese is better, even the yoghurt.  I spent the week indulging myself with dairy products##.

The roast I had there did renew my love for kale. I've not had kale in years. I'm not sure how much the mild paranoia of food that surrounds people with IBD has affected my eating habits. Over the past couple of years my diet has become very meat based.; low fibre and very few vegetables. When we went for Indian food, I studied the menu searching for the mildest thing on the menu I fully understand the dietician's concern when I saw her last month. I tend to shy away from roughage, I've never had major issues with it, but I know so many people that do, so I tended to shy away. I still haven't fully resolved where I stand regarding vegetables.  But soon t won't be an issue

When I was writing this entry I was torn about what to write, on one hand I wanted to write about every aspect of the trip.  Instead I'll just leave a list of things.

Pubs (that I recall):
The Famous Cock
The Barrowboy and Banker
The Eagle
The Spread Eagle
The Shakespeare (this place was terrible)

Beers:
All of them, I drank all the beers.

*I was also drinking my weight in gin.
**Mostly the liver in retrospect
#The only place I could find proper coffee was at Starbucks*#
## and copious amounts of alcohol**#
*# The first time I tried to order from Starbucks the guy behind the counter thought I was retarded, the do not have the same selection
**# as well as my beloved chicken and stuffing sandwiches from Marks and Spencer

Good Night Sweet Prince

For the remainder of this post, please play the song "The Final Countdown" by Europe

So the date has been set.  June 24th 2011.  I'm not sure how I feel about it. On one hand it was inevitable, I've know it was coming for some time now.  But it was always sometime in the future, it was intangible, but now it's defined.  The there is a definitive point in my life where I will no longer have a colon.

In addition to searching for my colon's "last meal", I plan on eating en masse, not particularly mass amounts of food, but with friends, large groups of them. Food by itself is just something to eat, to doesn't become a meal unless you enjoy it with others***.

Last Saturday I was at a bar with a couple of friends, and after I told them the date one of them said something along the lines of "There it is, you have five months of feasting".  As I write this* I'm currently sitting in an airport lounge drinking free alcohol and eating mediocre food.** And it's true there is five months left for my colon to experience all that it can.

*I had planned on writing this post a couple of days ago, when it would have actually been 5 months of feasting, but technical difficulties have plagued my connection, i think it's my router.
**While technically not free, I paid $30 to get in, I have 3 hours to kill as my flight to England was delayed, I figured it's either pay a lot of money for okay food, or pay slightly more for okay food and an open bar#.
***By "enjoy it with others" I mean a massive party which will be considered a failure unless some get alcohol poisoning. Everyone is in invited##
#I know for a fact I can drink $30 in 3 hours.
## Everyone except Scott+ (that guys' a dick)
+ Specifically Scott Campbell of Mississauga^
^A group of us were at the Artful Dodger@ for my birthday party 4 years ago, while I was out smoking that asshole made some racists comments, almost got into a fight, and then left leaving me with his bar tab.
@I really recommend the Artful Dodger as a location for a birthday gathering.

Suggestions from other people with dodgy tums

About 6 months ago during one of my hospitals stays* this year I decided to join a forum for people with IBD.  doctor's can only answer so much and only from a specific point of view, whereas the people here have lived through and give tips and provide support that medical practitioners can't.

The people on the board have become friends in addition to being a valuable resource. There are people with Crohn's, Colitis, others who have had the same surgery I'm going to have, people how have had the reversal, some people who went back to the bag after the reversal. The experiences shared have been more than helpful.

Some time ago I asked them for their suggestions, I mentioned in my post about Mike McCready that there are a great deal of people with IBD who suggest very simple things. I received suggestions ranging from vague and depending on the mood at the time to very, very specific. I can't share all of them, I won't post those that have suggested seafood**, I was never going to consider those to begin with.

Kelly suggested the hottest wings at Bernie & The Boys in Drumheller, Alberta. Her reasoning is "If the colon's coming out, you might as well push it to its max first".
I've received this from a few people usually with the phrase "make it pay" attached to it.***
TMos in the same vein gave the suggestion of  "Dude, WRECK IT!!! KFC!", this idea was seconded by 2thFairy with a solid "YES!!"#. 




Lucy stated I "should add a good salad along with it... There are so many of us who miss salad and may never eat it again." ##


There are two that stood out the most.


Astra101 had planned an entire evening for me based around my meal, "for your last supper it should be something British traditional like Roast Beef and Yorkshire Puddings, all the veg, gravy, followed by Apple Pie and Custard and a glass of red wine, followed by cheese and crackers, then After Eight mints, then a lie down in front of the telly!"
I can get behind that meal, I might switch out the roast beef for a turkey breast but she's on the right track.


The other one who had a stand out meal was semicolon306. He has gone through pretty much everything and has a permanent ostomy.  What he share wasn't so much a suggestion for me, but what his colon's last meal was. He had people running all around the town for him.
"as soon as I found out I sent the family to all the places I wanted food from

McDonalds fries
Dairy Queen Hamburger, milk shake, and ice cream
Taco Bell chick burrito x 2
KFC for mash potatoes
Burger King for onion rings"

I sympathise with this. During my third hospital stay I started a list in my head of everything I was going to eat.  I had been in the hospital for a week on a liquid diet (my friend Pollie referred to this as my "kill list").  It was very specific.

It was: pierogies  with cheddar cheese, cabbage rolls, red beans and rice from Popeye's and a chicken fried steak.

I rarely eat any of those things, in fact I've only ever eaten chicken fried steak once###.  But for some reason after spending a week living on only boost and gingerale it seemed like the most perfect food in the world.

I still have yet to finish my kill list.

*I now find hospitals to be rather restful, like a mini vacation. Except it doesn't cost me money, and I'm given morphine (over the course of the summer I was able to watch Top Chef Masters, I highly recommend it)
**Sorry Dusty
**A friend suggested that I take my entire "do not eat list" and have that as my final meal to punish it for the last couple of years.
#I was actually in Kentucky about 6 years ago, the KFC does not taste any better there.  And they have all you can eat KFC buffets.  As it turns out all I can eat is not a whole lot of KFC. 
## I went to a dietician yesterday, as it turns out my avoidance of insoluble fibre has lead to an meat heavy diet lacking almost entirely of proper vegetables.
### Specifically the chicken friend steak was from Shanghai Cowgirl