I notice it's been a month. How are you doing now? I have Lynch and did get cancer though luckily it was very early stage. At first I refused the subtotal colectomy (what you had), but my GI doctor finally talked me into it last year. My quality of life is great. I work in a fairly high stress profession that requires me to be without access to a bathroom for long periods of time, and I also participate in outdoor sports where I have access only to a porta potty. I worried a lot for the first week weeks, but it hasn't been a problem. My surgeon told me I would adjust about 6 months, but it was actually faster. After about 4 months I e-mailed my GI doc to apologize for having believed the scary stuff I read on the internet and being such a nudge about it :-)

I totally agree with you when you mention "the scary stuff" on the internet. I would get myself so upset when I read about things that could go wrong with a ileorectal anastomosis, but I'm glad to say I'm doing great. I'm glad to hear you're doing great, too. I live a normal life with just a few changes: I have loose stools about 3 times a day and I'm learning that some foods move through faster than others. The biggest change in my life, though, is happily knowing that 4 feet of colon is gone. I want to tell everyone with lynch syndrome that this operation is something they should seriously consider.

It will get better. I think it took about 2 months before I felt safe experimenting with foods. In fact, I'm amazed you're doing so well already :-) Now I safely eat everything I ate before, which is vegetarian foods, including chocolate & wine (lol). The one thing I worried about was coffee because I love my morning coffee. It turned out it was one of the first things I introduced back into my diet. No problems. My surgeon recommended Metamucil wafers, and they help a lot. I eat two wafers in the morning, and two at night, and I don't have loose stools.

Thank you so much for your input; I'll take anything you got. I'm glad to hear you did okay with coffee. That's one thing I really miss, but I haven't tried it yet. One afternoon I ate quite a bit of sugar ( a large doughnut and a coca cola) and that seemed to cause severe diarrhea. But, fortunately, that's the worst "food reaction" I've had so far. I'm honestly surprised how "normal" my life is without a colon. I have no regrets and plan to spread the word.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences, I'm sure it is helpful information for us all. imsb1