Wow. Taking that much of the colon and NOT having a bag (even a temporary one) afterwards is rare. He is a lucky guy. My wife had 10 inches of colon taken and she was on the bag for six months.
Good luck to him. The whole digestive system can be nasty business.
I went through the bag thing for about 9 months. Diverticulitis was the culprit.
My ordeal could have probably ended sooner but my initial surgeon died about 3 months after the initial emergency surgery. It was national Doctor’s Day to boot.
His partner that I truly regret believing in his reputation as a great surgeon had an excuse every month why he couldn’t reverse me. I didn’t care for the touch of arrogance in his voice.
Long story short I got a line on another surgeon that saw me and got me scheduled and reversed just as he said it would go.
Three funny things about the surgeon who reversed me. One was he was the other surgeon on call when I went into the ER that Jan 4 morning. He was a lot older than the first surgeon and still alive and well last I heard. I met him while drying out from being caught up in a flash flood in 2015.
When I was getting processed out of recovery a couple days later, I was talking to one of the nurses and the name of the do nothing surgeon came up. She had heard similar stories about the guy.
Thanks, I appreciate it. Like your wife, I can attest to digestive system problems myself. In 2010, I ended up in the emergency room with a perforated bowel from diverticulitis...and I had been following the diet religiously. Didn't matter. It happened. I had a temporary colostomy for three months, then the reversal. Had to go back for surgery on a hernia that had developed in the stoma area. They put in mesh, but I've got another big hernia in my lower abdomen. I've had it checked out. Surgeon said unless it bothers me, I won't need surgery, and at 78 years of age, that's the last thing I want. I also had to have my gall bladder removed in 2015. They couldn't do it with laparoscopic surgery because of scar tissue from all the other surgeries.