Waking up after stoma surgery was not the inspirational moment people might imagine. It was pain, morphine, confusion, trapped wind, hospital noise, surgical wounds and the shock of realising my body had changed forever. After years of ulcerative colitis, my colon was gone and I had an ileostomy. This part of my story covers the first days of stoma surgery recovery — learning to walk again, meeting my stoma, emptying my bag, getting stronger, going home, and slowly realising that I was no longer trapped by the disease.
This follows on from Part Five, where I shared what it was like preparing for stoma surgery with ulcerative colitis — the pre-assessment, Covid rules, steroid tapering, family emotions, accidents, and the night before colon removal.
PART SIX – WAKING UP DIFFERENT
Waking Up After Stoma Surgery
Chapter 32: Pain First
I woke up and everything was a daze.
I woke up in the recovery room and the first thing I remember seeing was the pale peach colour around me. Everything was blurred, heavy and strange, like I was there but not fully connected to what was happening yet. My brain was trying to come round, but my body seemed to get there first.
The pain was immediate. It wasn’t the kind of pain that slowly builds or gives you time to understand it. It was just there, deep across my body, reminding me before anything else could that I had just been through major surgery. My colon was gone. I had an ileostomy. My body had been opened, changed and stitched back together, and even through the fog of anaesthetic, I knew something massive had happened.
There wasn’t a big emotional moment at first. I didn’t wake up thinking deeply about my future or processing the fact I now had a stoma. I was too drugged, too sore and too disorientated for that. All I wanted was pain relief. That was the only clear thought I had.
I asked for something to help, and I was given a morphine button. At that point, that button felt like the most important thing in the world. It gave me a tiny bit of control in a situation where I had none. I couldn’t move properly. I couldn’t fully think straight. I didn’t even know exactly what state my body was in yet. But I could press that button when the pain came forward, and for a while that was enough.
I closed my eyes again and drifted in and out, letting the medication do what it needed to do. Recovery didn’t begin with bravery or inspiration. It began with pain, confusion, morphine, and the simple fact that I had made it through the operation alive.
The First Night in Hospital After Colon Removal
Chapter 33: The First Night
When I woke again, it was dark and I had been moved onto a ward. I was still completely out of it from the morphine, and the whole room felt slightly unreal. I could hear noises around me, but everything seemed to reach me through a haze. I kept pressing the pain button whenever I could because the way the morphine washed over me made the pain easier to cope with, even if it also made my head feel like it wasn’t properly attached to my body.
Then the night became something I can only describe as a nightmare. There was an older man near me who became incontinent, and the smell was overwhelming. I know that might sound harsh, but when you are lying there after major surgery, unable to move properly, drugged up, exhausted and in pain, everything feels amplified. Smells, sounds, lights, movement — it all becomes too much very quickly.
Then a younger man in front of me woke up. I don’t know what condition he had, so I can only describe what it was like from where I was lying. He didn’t really speak as much as scream the same things over and over again, without much of a break. It went on for hours, and I was so tired and off my head on morphine that I couldn’t work out whether I was awake, half-asleep or trapped in some horrible dream.
I remember thinking, “What is going on? Am I in hell?” That sounds dramatic now, but at the time it genuinely felt like that. I had just had my colon removed, I was trying to understand what had happened to my body, and I couldn’t get away from any of it. I couldn’t just stand up, walk out, or reset myself. I was stuck there, trying to cope with the pain and the noise and the smell and the shock of it all.
Eventually, a nurse came over and asked if I wanted a change of scenery. I remember saying yes straight away, as long as it was quieter. At that point, I didn’t need much. I wasn’t asking for luxury or comfort. I just needed somewhere that gave me half a chance of resting, because that first night had completely overwhelmed me.
Managing Pain, Nausea and Trapped Wind After Surgery
Chapter 34: Finding My Head
When I woke up in the new room, it still felt busy, but it was somehow calmer. There were other older gentlemen around me, and because I had been wheeled in tired and not in my right mind, my memory of the room felt slightly distorted. I remember thinking there seemed to be more spaces than there probably were, like my brain was trying to piece the scene together through medication and exhaustion.
The pain around my torso was there, but it was bearable compared with the pain in my chest. That chest pain was immense. It felt like pressure, trapped wind and discomfort all rolled into one, and because it didn’t feel like the surgical pain I had expected, it worried me. Every time I tried to drink, even just a sip of water, it felt like it turned into trapped wind and pushed pressure up into my chest.
That was when I realised I needed to get my head clear before I could properly start recovering. I couldn’t focus on walking, eating, learning the bag or anything else while my mind was spinning and my body felt like it was working against me. My first goal became simply being able to see straight and understand what was going on around me.
I kept asking for pain relief and anti-sickness because the nausea and motion feeling seemed endless. Some medication came through tablets, some through the cannula, and I was still using the morphine button as well. The problem was that although the morphine helped the pain, it seemed to be making the sickness worse. The stoma team came to see me and said they had heard I’d had a bad night. Usually, they would have wanted me up and starting to learn things, but because I was in such a rough way, they decided to leave it until the next day.
They also noticed I was on morphine and suggested that could be causing the sickness. Eventually, my button was changed to another drug that included anti-sickness. It wasn’t quite as strong as the morphine, but it helped with the surgical pain without making me feel so constantly sick, which felt like progress in itself.
The physiotherapist also came to see me, but once I explained how rough I felt, he agreed to come back the next day. Then the surgical team came to check what was now called my stump, because my bowel was no longer connected in the way it had been before. That meant another uncomfortable examination and another one of those moments where dignity had to step aside because this was now just part of the recovery process.
By the end of that first full day, I still couldn’t eat or drink properly. Every sip of water seemed to create more pain and pressure in my chest, and I kept wondering what it was. Was this normal? Was something wrong? Was this pain connected to the surgery, or was it something else entirely? I had gone into surgery expecting recovery to hurt, but I hadn’t expected this strange chest and trapped wind feeling to become such a barrier.
Taking My First Walk After Stoma Surgery
Chapter 35: The First Walk
After sleeping through so much of the previous day and night, I woke up feeling the tiniest bit better. Not well, not comfortable, and definitely not ready to leap out of bed, but slightly more present than I had been. When you are recovering from major surgery, even feeling a tiny bit better can feel like a victory.
I remember thinking that this might be the day I started to properly recover. Breakfast came, and I tried to take things slowly. I had toast and managed about half a slice with butter. At the time, that felt sensible. Better than nothing. A small step towards eating again.
Unfortunately, my body didn’t seem to agree. The pain that followed was horrible, and it made me question everything again. I was hungry and wanted to get stronger, but every time I tried to take something in, my body seemed to punish me for it.
The physiotherapist arrived shortly afterwards and explained that moving might help with the trapped wind pains. In theory, that made sense. In reality, when you have barely moved since surgery and even sitting up feels like a massive task, the idea of walking feels almost ridiculous.
Getting to the side of the bed was the first battle. I was weak, sore and nervous, and as soon as I sat up, the room started spinning. The physiotherapist told me to take a moment, but my determination kicked in. I grabbed his arm, pulled myself up, and somehow got to my feet.
Then came the first steps. They weren’t proper confident steps. They were tiny, careful, pitter-patter steps while I held onto my magic button machine and tried to convince my body that moving was safe. We walked out of the room, and not only did we make it out, we completed a full lap of the ward.
That was huge.
Before surgery, a lap of a hospital ward would have meant nothing. After surgery, it felt like climbing a mountain. The pain was intense, and even though I burped at one point, hoping it would release some of the pressure, it didn’t really bring the relief I wanted. But I had done it. I had got up, moved, walked and made it back.
Afterwards, I was placed in a chair while they changed my bed. Even sitting upright made me feel dizzy and frail, but there was something important about not being flat on my back. It felt like a small shift from being completely helpless towards being part of my own recovery.
That was when the ward laps started to become a goal. I called them victory laps, because that is what they felt like. Each one was proof that my body, however battered, was still capable of moving forward.
Meeting My Stoma for the First Time
Chapter 36: Meeting My Stoma
Later that day, the stoma nurse came to see me. The nurses had already left a pack by my bed with everything I would need while I was in hospital: stoma bags, wipes, bin bags, adhesive remover spray and all the other bits that were suddenly part of my new normal.
The stoma nurse started going through everything with me and explaining how it all worked. Then he noticed that my bag was full, so before we could go too far into the lesson, it needed emptying. I was still feeling dizzy and rough, and all I could think was that I really hoped I didn’t pass out while this was happening.
There is something incredibly humbling about that moment. You are sitting there weak after surgery while someone teaches you how your body now works. It isn’t just medical. It is personal. This was my body, my stoma, my bag, my life from that point onwards, and I had to learn how to manage it.
He used the adhesive remover spray and slowly peeled the bag away from my skin. That was the first time I properly came face to face with my stoma. I don’t know exactly what I expected to feel. I had practised with a fake one before surgery, and I had imagined this moment plenty of times, but imagining it and seeing the real thing are completely different.
Surprisingly, my first thought wasn’t panic. It wasn’t disgust or horror either. It was more like, “It’s not actually that bad. I can live with this.”
That doesn’t mean it was easy, and it doesn’t mean I instantly accepted everything. But I didn’t fall apart, and that mattered. This thing I had feared and prepared for was now actually there. It was swollen, red, strange and new, but it was also doing the job my diseased colon could no longer do.
That first proper look stayed with me. It was the moment the stoma stopped being an idea and became something real. It was part of me now, and whether I was ready or not, I had to start learning how to live with it.
Early Recovery With a New Ileostomy
Chapter 37: New Year, New Me
Recovery Day 3 was New Year’s Day, which felt strange in itself. Most people start a new year with plans, resolutions, hangovers or leftover Christmas food. I started mine in a hospital bed with a new stoma, a body full of pain and a head full of questions.
That day, I started taking Nystan. I was hoping it would help with the horrible pain that seemed to be stopping me from eating and recovering properly. I wanted so badly to eat, build strength and move forward, but every time I tried, something in my body seemed to fight back. I had a couple of doses during the day, and although part of me was convinced it wasn’t going to work, I kept taking it because I needed something to change.
My consultant, Dr Walker, came to check on me, and I explained that the pain I was struggling with didn’t feel like normal surgical pain. It felt separate, like something else was going on alongside the operation recovery. Then the ward doctor came and told me my inflammation markers were still up, which was exactly the kind of thing I didn’t want to hear after having my colon removed.
My immediate thought was, “Great, I’ve just gone through all of this and the colitis is still there.” I know now that inflammation markers after surgery can be complicated, and it doesn’t always mean what your frightened brain thinks it means. But at the time, I needed to believe the disease had gone. I had gone through the surgery because colitis had destroyed my quality of life, so hearing that my markers were still raised hit me hard.
Then came the catheter removal. The healthcare assistant assured me it wouldn’t be painful, which turned out to be a lie. I took a deep breath in, then out, and when it was removed, it stung like hell.
After that, I had to manage three wees in twelve hours, otherwise I would need a bladder scan and potentially risk having the catheter put back in. That was not happening. I didn’t care how weak I felt or how much effort it took to get up and down; I was determined my body was going to work because I absolutely did not want that catheter back.
From that point, I started going to the toilet on my own. It sounds like a basic thing, but in recovery it was another milestone. Every little bit of independence mattered, and on New Year’s Day, in the strangest way possible, it really did feel like new year, new me.
Learning to Empty My Stoma Bag
Chapter 38: Small Victories
Recovery Day 4 was the day I decided I was going to empty my bag on my own, with supervision. That might sound like a small thing from the outside, but it didn’t feel small at all.
Until you have a stoma, you don’t realise how much confidence comes from learning the practical side of it. Accepting that you have a bag is one thing. Knowing you can actually manage it yourself is another. Emptying it for the first time was a huge step towards believing I could cope outside the hospital.
I emptied the contents into a sick bowl, wiped the bottom of the bag, closed it back up and realised it wasn’t as hard as I had built it up to be in my head. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t strange, because it absolutely was, but it was manageable. In that new world I had been thrown into, “manageable” was a very powerful word.
I had started to feel a little better, so I went for two victory laps of the ward. Two laps felt amazing at the time, although I quickly learned that recovery always made you pay for effort. After pushing myself, I slept a lot of the afternoon away because my body clearly needed to recover from recovering.
The surgical team came round and said I was looking fit, healthy and really well. It was strange hearing that while still feeling so weak and battered, but I took it. In hospital, any positive comment becomes something you hold onto. It makes you feel like maybe you are doing better than you think.
That night, my stoma area started itching where I couldn’t scratch, which was a very specific kind of frustration. I could feel it, but I couldn’t properly do anything about it. I ended up watching Netflix until it settled down, and that became another reminder that recovery wasn’t just about pain going away. It was about learning all these new sensations and working out what was normal for this changed body.
Showering, Family Visits and Hospital Recovery Milestones
Chapter 39: The Best Day
Recovery Day 5 was the first day I had enough energy to take a shower. That might sound gross, but after days in a hospital bed, sweating, being checked, taking medication, being attached to things and feeling completely unlike yourself, a shower feels like a proper milestone.
It wasn’t relaxing in the way a normal shower is. It was tiring, awkward and took effort, but it made me feel more human. Hospitals have a way of reducing you down to being a patient, and something as simple as washing yourself gives a little piece of your identity back.
Afterwards, I rested in the chair and managed to finish reading the Justice League comic my daughter had got me for Christmas. That little bit of normality meant a lot. I wasn’t just the man in the hospital bed with the new stoma. I was still Dad. Still Chris. Still someone who could sit and read a comic from his daughter and feel connected to life outside the ward.
That day, I emptied my bag twice on my own, with a healthcare assistant holding the bowl. My shoulder pain had started to die down, and the cannula was removed, which felt like another little piece of freedom. Every tube or line that came out made me feel slightly less like I belonged to the hospital and slightly more like I might be heading home.
The best part of the day was seeing my fiancée and my two youngest kids. Because of Covid, they weren’t allowed onto the ward, but I was able to meet them outside for ten minutes. Ten minutes doesn’t sound like much, but after major surgery, no visitors and days of hospital walls, those ten minutes meant everything.
Seeing them gave me even more determination to get well again. It reminded me why I had gone through the surgery and why I needed to keep pushing through the difficult bits. I managed five victory laps in total that day, which felt amazing. My strength was definitely starting to return, and for the first time, going home didn’t feel like a distant idea. It felt possible.
I got to sleep at around ten, although I woke again after observations and the itchy stoma site returned. Even on a good day, recovery still liked to remind me it was in charge. But compared with where I had been a few days earlier, this really did feel like the best day so far.
Going Home After Stoma Surgery
Chapter 40: Going Home
Recovery Day 6 started with a feeling that it was going to be a good day. I woke up, went to the toilet, managed two victory laps before eight in the morning and had breakfast. After everything that had happened, that felt like a strong start.
Then the registrar came to see me and asked, “Do you want to go home?” I don’t think there are many sentences that sound better than that when you have been in hospital recovering from major surgery.
She said Dr Mitchell would come and see me, but she was happy for me to go home that day. She also explained that my inflammation markers were back down, which gave me a massive sigh of relief. After worrying that the colitis was somehow still there, hearing that things were settling finally allowed me to breathe a bit easier.
Dr Mitchell came round next, checked me over and explained that the glue would go after about two weeks. He said I was recovering really well. The final step was getting the all-clear from the stoma team.
That meant changing the bag by myself while they watched. It wasn’t just a practical test; it felt like a confidence test. Could I manage this without someone stepping in? Could I go home and look after this new part of my body? Could I trust myself enough to leave the safety of the ward?
I changed the bag completely unaided, and I did it properly. The stoma nurse was happy to send me home, and that moment felt massive. It wasn’t just about getting a medical sign-off. It was proof that I could do the thing I had been so scared of. I could manage the bag. I could learn this new routine. I could start taking care of myself again.
After that, I waited for my medication to take home, and then I was sent on my merry way. I had woken up thinking it was going to be a good day, and for once, I was right. I was going home.
The First Week at Home With a Stoma
Chapter 41: The Quiet Realisation
Leaving hospital felt strange because I wasn’t leaving as the same person who had gone in. I had walked into that building with a diseased colon that had controlled years of my life. I was leaving without it, with a stoma, a bag, surgical wounds, weakness, pain and a body I now had to relearn.
Going home wasn’t the end of recovery. It was the beginning of a new kind of recovery, one without nurses nearby, without buzzers, without regular observations, and without someone there to step in if I panicked. Hospital had been hard, but it had also been a safety net. Home meant I had to start trusting myself.
The first week back was tough. There were so many basic things I had taken for granted that I suddenly couldn’t do properly. Sitting up was difficult because my stomach muscles were so weak. Sleeping on my side wasn’t happening, which was frustrating because I have always found it hard to sleep on my back. I couldn’t lift anything heavier than the kettle, and because I suffer with OCD, not being able to clean the house properly drove me mad. With seven of us in the house, it doesn’t stay tidy for long, and having to just sit there looking at things I couldn’t sort out was difficult.
Even bending down to pick things up from the floor became impossible, and you don’t realise how often you do something that simple until it is taken away from you. The stairs became one of my biggest challenges and eventually one of my biggest triumphs. At first, getting up and down them was a slow pitter-patter process, one foot at a time, either holding onto my fiancée or clutching the bannister like my life depended on it. I avoided them unless I absolutely had to use them.
Then, little by little, I improved. I went from barely managing the stairs to walking up and down with one foot on each step, only holding on with my fingertips. That kind of progress gives you pride in a way you don’t expect. Before surgery, stairs were just stairs. After surgery, they became proof that I was getting stronger.
There were still frustrations, awkward moments and plenty of learning to do, but underneath all of that, one truth started to settle in. The disease had gone. For the first time in years, my bowel wasn’t controlling every decision. I wasn’t planning toilet routes, having accidents, bleeding, living on steroids or carrying the same fear everywhere I went.
I wasn’t fully healed, and I wasn’t suddenly confident with everything. I still had to learn how to live with the bag properly, how to trust my body again and how to rebuild strength. But I wasn’t trapped anymore.
And after years of ulcerative colitis taking more and more from me, that was the first real glimpse of freedom.
Contact your GP or medical team
This is my personal experience of recovering after stoma surgery for ulcerative colitis, including hospital recovery, pain relief, learning to walk, meeting my stoma, emptying my bag and going home. It is not medical advice. Recovery is different for everyone, so always speak to your surgeon, stoma nurse, consultant or IBD team about your own recovery and care.
You can also read NHS guidance on recovering after an ileostomy.
Crohn’s & Colitis UK specifically covers surgery options for UC, including subtotal colectomy with ileostomy and pouch surgery.
Continue the story:
After hospital came the harder emotional work of building confidence, learning routines, and working out who I was now. Read Part Seven – Learning Who I Am Now: adjusting to life with a stoma.
Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you. I only include things that genuinely connect to my own experience.
Things That Helped Me During Stoma Surgery Recovery
By this stage, I wasn’t dealing with early symptoms anymore. I was dealing with a severe flare, urgency, accidents, hospital appointments, exhaustion and the reality that treatment options were running out.
These are a few practical things that helped me feel slightly more prepared during one of the hardest stages of my UC journey.
Comfortable Loungewear or Pyjamas
Comfortable clothing matters when your body already feels uncomfortable and you are preparing for hospital, surgery or recovery.
Why it helped:
✔ Softer and easier to wear when bloated, sore or tired
✔ More comfortable for resting, hospital packing or recovery days
✔ Helped me feel a little more human during a difficult stage
👉 View Comfortable Loungewear on Amazon
🔋 Portable Charger
Hospital waiting rooms, emergency toilet trips, and long appointments meant my phone battery was always dying at the worst times.
Why it helped:
✔ Kept my phone charged for messages, calls and updates with family
✔ Useful during long waits, appointments and hospital stays
✔ Helped me feel less cut off when I was away from home
👉 Find Portable Chargers on Amazon
Toiletry Bag for Hospital
A toiletry bag sounds basic, but when you are going into hospital, having your personal items together can make a big difference.
Why it helped:
✔ Kept essentials like toothbrush, deodorant and shower items organised
✔ Made hospital packing quicker and less stressful
✔ Helped me keep a small sense of normal routine while away from home
👉 View Toiletry Bags on Amazon
Hospital Bag Organiser
When surgery is booked, having your hospital things organised in one place can make the whole process feel slightly less overwhelming.
Why it helped:
✔ Kept important items together instead of scattered everywhere
✔ Made packing for hospital feel more manageable
✔ Helped me feel a bit more prepared when everything else felt uncertain
👉 View Hospital Bag Organisers on Amazon
💊 Pill Organiser
Once medications became part of daily life, keeping track of everything became surprisingly stressful — especially with fatigue and brain fog.
Why it helped:
✔ Helped me stay consistent with medication
✔ Reduced stress and missed doses
✔ Simple but genuinely useful
👉 Shop Pill Organisers on Amazon