On a serious note Neil, how does it affect your day to day living? I get my results in 5 weeks and am a tad apprehensive.
I know it sounds horrendous but does not affect me at all. I can still go fishing and do most other things without a moment's thought. Frequency and urgency are two different things for me.
It is a case of emptying my internal pouch whenever the opportunity arises, so taking a P standing up is a rarity when at home. But when out and away from a toilet I can last for many hours. When going for a day's fishing I use a toilet at around 7:30 then don't need to again until I get home and that could be 5 or 6 in the evening.
Since having the operation to remove my colon I have had many holidays and toured Australia for a month. It is a case of retraining the gut in its new configuration to do what you want it to do. Not everyone is as lucky as me. The outcome of the surgery is by no means certain. Some 20% of patients end up with a poor outcome and half of those have to go back to having a stoma. So there is a risk in chosing for this option, and the level of risk is not comfortable for some so they stick with the ileostomy.
Of course things can be a bit more manageable if you have a stoma as the gut empties into the bag without any input from you. So you empty the bag when you can or when it feels full. After that people with a stoma live quite normal lives. I know of a few police officers that have stomas, some people even still play rugby.
And just to name drop, Darren Fletcher, Man U and Scotland player, has had the same surgery as me and returned to top flight football.