Hi - I underwent a total colectomy nearly five years ago for torrential diverticular bleeding. In response to another Medhelp patient I described my experiences in a posting which you can retrieve and study by logging on to:-
http://www.medhelp.org/posts/show/523166
As far as I can remember, after the operation I was moved to a recovery room for about an hour and then back to my hospital bedroom. Of course if your operation has encountered any problems then your surgeon may decide to place you for a spell in ICU. For the first few days I was incontinent because the epidural pain relief meant that I had no feelings in my bowels and the various fluids just "leaked out". Your "middle area" should be enclosed in nappies to catch the escaping bowel fluids and the hospital nurses would normally "clean up" attend to this. After the epidural pain relief is discontinued (~4-5 days) feeling should return to your lower torso and you will be encouraged to make your own way to the toilet. See my posting for my experience regarding the number of toilet visits in the early stages after the operation.
Lastly I suggest that you may want to print off this reply and the posting I mentioned above to show to your surgeon in order to ask him/her whether he/she would expect your own experiences to mirror mine.
This is a big operation and it will take you some weeks to recover partially and a few months to recover fully. By this I mean:-
- if all goes routinely in hospital, discharge after 6-7 days
- then one week at home partially in bed/partially resting/no exertion-lifting etc
- then 2-4 weeks taking it very easy - very light exertion/no lifting
- then gradually back to normal
- I didn't go back on the tennis court for 3-4 months.
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Do come back with any further questions you may have
Good luck
Morecambe