I had severe yeast throughout my alimentary canal when they went to reconnect and sew the stoma shut and my tissue was too weak to hold the stitches, so weirdly, they just left it to heal on its own (even after the yeast was treated) and put me on total parenteral nutrition for a while.  The stoma wasn't infected, but it still leaked goo for quite a while, and I just had gauze taped over it which I had to change frequently.  It was quite surreal.  It did heal up eventually, but I'm not sure how long it took. I'm estimating it was less than 2 months because it was healed up before I went back to work in mid to late September and the surgery was in late July or early August.  I was on lots of weird drugs during that time so the memory has always been hazy...and it was almost 20 years ago.

The parenteral nutrition was received through a port I had in my chest that they had installed for chemotherapy.  The colon was removed due to colon cancer, which I was at high risk for because of UC.  My colon worked better than the j-pouch because the UC was well-controlled with sulfasalazine.  I probably should have just had the tumor removed and not the whole colon, but I was freaked out.  I certainly had better nutrient absorption with the colon. 

I think alot of us wish we did things differently. Because my dysplasia was in my rectum, they insisted that I have a total procto colectomy. I said why not a low resection? No no they said as the UC/dysplasia would migrate to that area and  I would be back the same issue in a few years.

but given I had a fistula at the stoma site that  leaked and almost killed me, I wished I never had any surgery and just monitored the dysplasia.  But the doctors were so afraid of cancer I submitted.

btw, the pathology of my colon showed no cancer and no dysplasia after surgery.

Yes, my doctors assured me that the cancer would come back if I didn't remove the whole colon, but they didn't really know that.  They were just trying to be authoritative, and were doing the best they could with the limited knowledge and experience they had.