Specifically, don't assume that the pain/twinge/symptom is automatically associated with the pouch, stoma, disease, whatever. I know we can't be running to the doctor for every little thing, but something more severe should be checked out without assuming it automatically has to be associated with our normal stuff.

You'd think I would have learned this after years of suffering through random "scar tissue/trapped nerve" pain only to discover that my gall bladder was shot; once that was removed, the debilitating pain was gone. But no, I repeated the mistake again -- this time, thankfully, it was short-lived and nothing bad happened. But it reminded me once again that we all are susceptible to OTHER sorts of medical issues as well!

About 2 months ago I began having a sharp, pulling pain at the site of my old ileostomy scar. Sometimes it was so bad it would literally take my breath away. Usually massaging and pushing it would relieve the pain; a few times I ended up in bed for the rest of the day. I assumed it was adhesion pain and did nothing about it, seeing as I had the stoma surgery coming up.

Well, thankfully the surgery was bumped up (after 6 months of waiting) because when they opened me up they found a massive cyst on my ovary, about ready to explode. No harm done, they pulled in a gyno specialist and removed it -- but had they known that was there, my surgery would have been marked urgent and I could have had it much earlier. And I am very lucky that the cyst was benign and didn't explode or do permanent damage.

Lesson learned. Again.

Gin