Welcome to my day in the life of a j-poucher. This is my typical experience of going through a work day with a J-Pouch following surgery for ulcerative colitis.
I am a long term J-Pouch user, with my pouch now being 15 and a half years old. I will guide you through my day in terms of meals, drinks and how my pouch is doing.
To set the scene, I work in IT so apart from walking around the estate where I work, I am mainly sitting down at a desk working on a computer – no physical lifting and movement. I have written the below blog across the day, adding entries as I have gone.
My Day
So, it’s Friday morning at the end of a long week.
I am coming out the tail end of a heavy cold, and I am feeling more tired than I normally do.
It’s actually been a stressful couple of weeks with various work deadlines, lots of time spent working on Pouch Heals in the evening, as well as not feeling well. The result of that is my Pouch is a bit sore and I think I have the early signs of Pouchitis coming on. Later today I will go to the shop and get some yakult drinks to help with that.
Morning
5:45am wake up. I always set the alarm early so I can get up and use the toilet a couple of times before I leave for work. After the first empty, the J-pouch can fill up again in the morning within 30-60 mins.
I take my loperimide tablet when I wake up before using the toilet so it’s got a few minutes to get into my system before I eat and drink anything.
For breakfast I have a cup of tea, and a chocolate brioche breakfast roll (i like to rest it on the top of my cup of tea to soften and warm up!).
It’s now 6:30am and I am now having my second hot drink of the morning, a cup of coffee. I think the caffeine hit not only helps me wake up and get going, but also helps get my pouch going before I leave the house. If I empty my pouch twice in the morning before I go to work, I am 99% sure I can then last several hours, even an entire day if I needed to in work without worrying about the toilet.
Before I left for work at 7:30 I used the toilet again, and headed off to work.
In the morning at work I have a couple of meetings which involve walking around the estate i work in, which is maybe a 5 minutes walk from place to place. Nothing strenuous that might speed up my pouch.
No issues from my pouch, there are a few gurgles I can feel, but not much else.
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Lunch Time
It’s 12:30pm and time for lunch. Before I eat lunch I take my loperimide. It’s second nature to look at the time and take this – there really is no overhead at all in my routine other than opening my bag and taking out the blister of tablets.
I let 15 minutes pass before I eat. Lunch is a white bread sandwich with peanut butter filling (smooth) and a pack of sweet chilli crisps. I eat this with a cup of coffee, which at this point is my second coffee at work.
Once I have finished I go into our work kitchen area where I store a tub of metamucil powder and mix up a glass of it and drink it down quickly.
About 15 minutes after finishing my lunch I go to the toilet. It’s around 1pm now. This works well for me as it’s several hours now since I have used the toilet at home, and at lunch time the bathroom at work is fairly quiet as people go out for lunch. That makes me more relaxed about using the toilet at work.
This trip to the bathroom is more about being comfortable. I could hold the small amount that was in my pouch if I needed to, but as the toilet is there and easy to use, I do so.
Just after I finish lunch, it’s my routine to start the afternoon with a cup of tea. It’s my personal preference more than anything to do with my pouch, but I drink coffee in the morning, and then switch to tea in the afternoon and evening.
For those of you keeping count, I am now on 3 trips to the bathroom so far today.
Evening
I finished work at 5 and headed home. When I got in I snack on a bag of crips and open a lovely friday cold can of beer from the fridge. I warmed up some chicken curry and ate dinner around 6:30pm.
Then I have a glass of Metamucil and finish my beer whilst working on the website.
I also had another cup of tea (decaf this time) and a couple of biscuits.
I carried on working on the website – I am redesigning the home page and creating hubs so quite a bit of work. It’s now 10:10pm and I am still only on 3 trips to the bathroom.
I will be shutting my laptop down and heading to bed shortly. I will complete the remainder of today in the morning.
Bed Time
11:20pm and into bed. One more trip to the bathroom making a total of 4 that day.
I slept through and laid in bed as it was a Saturday until around 7:40am at which point I used the toilet.
Final Thoughts
So over a normal busy day at work that’s what my day looked like. Even I was surprised to only see 4 trips to the bathroom over the course of the day.
There will be variables though. I can’t remember what I ate for my evening meal on Thursday the day before I recorded this, however whatever it was clearly agreed with me.
Does this number mean much? Not really. When I was at home in the morning and evening, if I had gone to the toilet an extra time at each stage taking me to 6 in total would that really make a big difference?
I have said it before, and I will say it again, the total number in the day isn’t really what counts. It’s whether you have the ability to do the things you want and get on with your life.
On a work day that means getting through the day without stressing over my pouch – and that is totally possible.