Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 8.1

Wednesday 28th October:
7am Change bag
11.30am Empty bag
6.45pm Empty bag
9.30pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
None.

Noticeable improvements:
No blood.

Mood:
Good.

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 8.0

Wednesday 21st October:
6.50am Change bag
11.30am Change bag
3.30pm Empty bag
6pm Empty bag
8.45pm Empty bag
11.15pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Paul McKenna Control Stress relaxation therapy, Rewind technique

Noticeable improvements:
A smidgen of blood. Not enough to satisfy a vampire gnat.

Mood:
Unworried

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.9

WDOAT has been a long-running feature on Number Twos since 1952, when it made its first appearance in exactly the same week Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap opened in London’s West End. And like The Mousetrap, WDOAT continues to keep audiences from around the world on the edge of their seats week in, week out. An enduring tradition of WDOAT is that readers are asked not to reveal the surprise ending to anyone, to ensure it isn’t spoiled for future readers.

Wednesday 15th October:
6.45am Change bag
11.20am Empty bag
2pm Empty bag
5.50pm Change bag
7.30pm Empty bag
10.15pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Paul McKenna Control Stress relaxation therapy

Noticeable improvements:
Bit of blood.

Mood:
Disappointed. (Don't tell a soul.)

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.8

Other things WDOAT could stand for:

Worryingly Dire Opinions Are Typical
Words Don’t Offer Any Titillation
Worthless Drivel Obviously All Toss

And my favourite:

Weekly Dose Of Arse Talk

Wednesday 7th October:
7am Change bag
2pm Empty bag
7.30pm Empty bag
11pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Paul McKenna Control Stress relaxation therapy, Rewind, Guy Cohen relaxation therapy, Geoffrey Glassborow relaxation therapy

Noticeable improvements:
Small amount of blood again. (Which technically isn't a 'noticeable improvement' is it?)

Mood:
Very good; but I have decided to pull out of my planned invasion of Andorra. (Apologies for the late notice.)

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.6

On time and with two and half hours to spare, it's...WDOAT!

Wednesday 23rd September:
4.40am Change bag
7am Change bag
9am Empty bag
2.30pm Change bag
10.45pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Paul McKenna Control Stress relaxation therapy*

Noticeable improvements:
A very small amount of blood again. But on the whole I feel great, ticking along quite happily. Don't seem as tired perhaps as I used to.

Mood:
Positive, more relaxed, more confident.

*Paul McKenna has a book and CD called Control Stress, which seems to dovetail quite nicely with Guy Cohen's stuff.

The delayed Wednesday’s diary on a Thursday 7.5

Apologies for the late running of this week’s WDOAT, this is due to my work suddenly going bat shit crazy.

Wednesday 16th September:
6.50am Change bag
8.15am Empty bag
9.30am Empty bag
2pm Empty bag
8pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Geoffrey Glasborow relaxation therapy

Noticeable improvements:
There was a small amount of blood, but these days I'm judging things very strictly - there's either blood or there isn't.

Mood:
Beginning to creak a bit under the pressure of work, but definitely handling it better/more positively than I used to.

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.4

A very promising week and a little blip. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday there was no blood in my daily bowel movements, which can only be a good thing. And then today there was blood. It’s annoying and a bit disappointing, but I’m going to take encouragement from the three days without blood and keep on with the therapies. Talking of which, yesterday I stayed over at my girlfriend’s and stupidly forgot to take a copy of Guy’s recordings with me, so I missed a day. Could that be why the blood returned today? Hmmm.

Wednesday 9th September:
6.50am Change bag
2pm Empty bag
5.30pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Missed a day. (Naughty.)

Noticeable improvements:
Three days in a row without blood in my daily bowel movements. Emptied/changed my bag a lot less???

Mood:
Pretty good. Generally more upbeat.

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.3

You may notice one or two changes to this week’s WDOAT. From now on there’ll be a slight shift in focus. Rather than just recording the same old stuff week in week out, I hope to now use WDOAT to chart any significant progress I’m making with my new goal, which quite simply is to be fully healthy again – UC free in other words. Since having surgery I no longer have any of the obvious symptoms of ulcerative colitis. But it’s still there. The colonoscopy I had back in June revealed I have mild disease in my remaining section of colon and in the bit near my rectum. Now there’s no way I can tell what’s going on inside my colon week by week. A tribe of nomadic shit mining pixies could have set up camp in there and I wouldn’t know a thing about it. But there is one way I think I’ll be able to see if things are improving. Most days I still have one normalish bowel movement. This produces a putty-mucus-milky-Weetabix type substance. Over the months since the op, blood has crept into these bowel movements. At first it was just a pale pink blush on the toilet paper, but more recently it’s been a definite crimson. This I believe is caused by the UC still in my rectum area. If the blood from my back passage reduces, then I think it’s fair to assume I’m heading in the right direction. So I’ll be keeping an eye on that. Also I’m going to try and comment on my general mental wellbeing, my mood, vibe, spirit, whatever you want to call it. This then, is the new and improved WDOAT.

Wednesday 2nd September:
7am Change bag
8.15am Empty bag
1040am Empty bag
2pm Change bag
6.15pm Empty bag
9.30pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Therapies:
Geoffrey Glasborow* relaxation download

Noticeable improvements:
Consistently healthier thinking. Less dwelling on negatives. More energy.

Mood:
Positive. Bit excited really.

*Guy Cohen's original recording of a session with Geoffrey Glasborow in 1995.

Wenshday's diary on a Thurshday 7.2

Got a masshive ulsher on my tongue. Oooh, isht’s a big one. Isht’s making me schpeak funny. Imagshin the Eleshphant Man after he’sh had schpeach therapy and he’sh making shome progresh – thash what I shound like.

Wenshday 12th Augush:
7.05am Chanshe bag
11.30am Empshy bag
1pm Empshy bag
3.30pm Empshy bag
7pm Empshy bag

Meshicashion:
Brekshfasht 6 x meshalashine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azashfioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x meshalashine 400mg

Commensh:
Ulshers are back with a vengeansh. Owsh.

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.1

You’ll see below that I empty my bag a few times a day. It occurred to me that it might lead people to think my bag is constantly filling up, so I thought it worth mentioning that I never wait for it to fill right to the brim before emptying it. I usually empty it when it’s about a quarter full, just when it’s starting to get a bit of weight to it. I could hold on longer for a good old load of poo to build up, but I prefer to keep the bag as close to empty as possible. Psychologically it’s somehow better. I’m more relaxed if my bag is empty. And the less plump it is, the less of a bulge it makes under my clothes. And the less it feels like it’s going to burst. Or drop off like a mushy overripe pear. So I let out a little more often, if that makes sense.

Wednesday 5th August:
6.45am Change bag
9.30am Empty bag
11.55am Empty bag
5.30pm Empty bag
10pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Comments:
The ulcers cleared up.

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 7.0

This week I've got mouth ulcers. I showed them to my girlfriend yesterday and she made a face. You know ulcers are bad when you show them to someone and they make a face. It hurts when I drink coffee. I can't not drink coffee. It's all I have left.

Wednesday 29th July:
6.20am Change bag
10am Empty bag
2.40pm Empty bag
6.30pm Empty bag
10pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Comments:
Did I mention mouth ulcers?

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 6.9

Sometimes I have this recurring nightmare that a computer virus will somehow delete everything I have ever written on this blog, except the WDOAT entries. All that will remain of Number Twos, drifting around on the internet forever, are rather a lot of really quite dull accounts of my bowel movements. Shudder. What a terrifying thought.

Wednesday 22nd July:
6.30am Change bag
9.50pm Empty bag
2.45pm Change bag
8.50pm Change bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Comments:
If you’re reading this in the year 2466 and all that’s left are a load of WDOAT’s, then my nightmare has come true, but I’d just like to say, for the record, that I did write more interesting stuff than this. Fractionally.

Wednesday's diary on a Thursday 6.8

Wednesday 15th July:
6.30am Change bag
11am Change bag
5.15pm Empty bag
8.55pm Empty bag

Medication:
Breakfast 6 x mesalazine 400mg
Dinner 4 x azathioprine 50mg
Bedtime 6 x mesalazine 400mg

Comments:
Nothing to report.