Hello Everybody

I think I'm one of the worst bloggers out there.  Or maybe in a better light I'm the BEST worst blogger out there.  Either way, I DO get around to blog every few months or so.  Oh well, life's crazy.

Love these crazies.

Okay so updates.  I think my last post was about how all of our immediate plans kind of took a turn for the worst as Taylor got really sick again and we were just waiting for medicines, etc.

We waited...

Photo credit goes to Mercedes on this one.

But in the end the medicines didn't work like we had hoped.

To make a long story short, we, meaning Taylor and I and his doctors have decided that surgery is the next and final step.  With as major as it is, it brings us barrels of hope.  Those we know who have had the surgery live normal lives, meaning zero Ulcerative Colitis symptoms.  Which makes sense because you can't really have Ulcerative Colitis if you no longer have a Colon.  There are some cons to having your colon removed, like having more frequent bowel movements for example because you don't have a colon to absorb water.  There are other little complications that can happen but the good far outweighs the bad at this point.  It would have been great if the medicines did work but we had a lot of other worries about Taylor being on all of those heavy meds for the rest of his life.  We feel like the surgery is the surest way for Taylor to be back to normal health again.

We have so many feelings about the surgery including nervousness, anxiousness, not looking forward to the hospital stays and all of the surgery recovery time but overall we feel like Taylor (and our family as a whole) are getting a life back.  We are very excited and very grateful.

On January 2nd Taylor will check into St. Mark's Hospital in SLC to have his colon removed.  The recovery stay at the hospital will be anywhere between 3-5 days.  Hopefully there will be no complications and he can go home by that point.  He will have an Ileostomy bag while his body recovers for 6-8 weeks at which point he will go back in for a second surgery to have things "reconnected."  I'm not going to go into details about the whole process but if anyone is interested in learning more, just google Colectomy and you can learn loads. ;)

A little visual for some extra understanding. :)

After 6-8 more weeks of recovery, and adjusting to life without a large intestine, he will be symptom-free for the first time in many years.

I can't even tell you how absolutely wonderful that sounds.

Now we're just praying, hoping and praying some more that everything will go smoothly in the weeks and months to come.  Again, the whole idea of the surgery is nerve wracking, especially for Taylor, but we are very anxious and excited to get it all done and over with so that we can move forward in life.  We are so grateful.

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Have a super merry Christmas!