Waiting to Go After Cancer Surgery

After a cancer surgery (or any major surgery), it is not uncommon to be constipated. It takes a while for the bowels to kick back into gear after anesthesia. Add to this the constipation that comes with taking pain pills.

Most of us are either battling cancer or are cancer survivors. We’ve all dealt with this rather taboo issue.

Quite simply, waiting to go is a real pain.

How can we handle the issue of constipation after a surgery so that it does not drive us bonkers?

We can take laxatives and stool softeners and use a little humor to get through the awful experience.

While you’re waiting to go, try the following things:

Rinse your recyclable cans

Throw away single socks

Do sudoku

Call your great aunt

Pull off dead leaves on plants

Straighten pictures on your walls

Google your great aunt’s name

Eat a prune

Research enema bags on the internet

Purge your cupboards of expired food

Clip coupons

Learn to decoupage

Learn how to pronounce “shit” in six languages

They say that all good things come to those who wait. This is true for constipation sufferers.

Finally the day has arrived and you’re defecating to beat the band. You feel as if you have super human strength. What should you do now?

Have a garage sale

Detail your car

Fertilize your lawn

Call your great aunt and tell her you pooped

Paint your kitchen

Take a tap dancing class

Cook a turkey and all the fixings

Train for a triathlon

Enjoy the fact that your body is working again

Constipation is just one of the bugaboos of surviving cancer. It goes with the territory.

Brothers and sisters, survivors of cancer and cancer patients everywhere…Is there nothing better than to be regular?

Regularity is a sign of health.

It is a sign that the storm is ending.

Perhaps the only thing better than regularity after a cancer surgery is being told that the surgeons got it all. Clean margins. What beautiful words.

Oh, the things we must suffer to stay alive.