Hohum

Although I run to the can 14-20X per day life is kinda hohum.  I'm lucid enough to work for myself and start controlling my own financial destiny rather than rely on others.   Its cool to have that control.   My nights are still sleepless and my joints are still achy but all in all, I really am not complaining.

The new plumbing really seems to respond to diet and timing.  Here are the new rules:

-separate water from meals  (the colon used to re-absorb water but when the colon is gone, the water comes through... it seems like 3-5X more water in the stool than before).. So if you separate the food from the water as much as possible, you seem to go less often.
-big meals take a long time to get through, up to 16 hours(!)
-smoothies run through in as little as 3 hours

I'm still trying to figure out just when to eat so that I can sleep that evening without too many bathroom breaks.
As I said, hohum stuff.  It looks like a higher protein, higher density diet is more logical as less stuff runs through the system.  Oh, and lots of yogurt may help (but who knows).

By the way, the running to the can is an exaggeration: there is little urgency and I can "hold it" unlike before.  Basically, life with a JPouch is like like with UC except that the pain and bleeding are gone and there is control/continence.  I think that anatomically that is quite accurate too as the inflamed, pained, crazy perilstasing tissue has been removed, the tenesmus is gone and otherwise everything else is the same as it was with UC: frequent BMs and only a small intestine doing its job.