@Maymay941 You wrote, "demands for pain treatment if it was some one I was taking care of." Yep, me too. I have encouraged him several times to go to a pain clinic, as have others. ERs and regular doctors don't care about pain and don't treat it.
Unfortunately, he has also been promised tests he never received and I think it's irresponsible for them to be prescribing the ostomy without doing them. A bowel ostomy is one of the most serious surgeries and things to live with. There will be many and severe infections for the rest of life. They dramatically decrease life expectancy and have a low success rate but once they do them, there is no going back. It is particularly difficult for younger folks like him.
I have a 53-year-old female friend who has *two* Ph.D.s in science and medicine and is super brilliant, as is her husband who has an IT Ph.D. and is a professor at NYU with a phenomenal work history at top IT firms. We are talking about people who know how to take of each other and themselves. She has had health problems forever, including severe bladder incontinence and infections; I don't remember all the details because he is primary friend more so than she, but she was wayyyyyyyy worse than anyone here who I've seen post. Finally last year after 40 years of battling her bladder issues, she had no more choice except to get a bladder ostomy or she was going to die. Multiple physicians came to that conclusion. She did tons and tons and tons of research before making that choice. She has been sick for the past 1.5 years, and that was just a urinary ostomoy, not a fecal ostomy. Imagine how much worse is. My friend, her husband, had to quit his job to care for. They have children. It has been a total nightmare for them.
@ThatFLGuy I think you and your family members need to start planning to live a lot closer to the hospital and ample physicians. You are not going to be able to continue having someone drive you two hours each direction just to see a doctor, once you have an ostomy. It is unlikely you will be physically capable of continuing to live alone. You will probably need an aid 24/7 for a year, if not forever. I think you should demand absolutely everything - every test, no matter how expensive nor complex - be done that can be done BEFORE getting an ostomy. I think you should get with a pain specialist BEFORE you get it, because regular doctors don't prescribe it for more than 5-30 days, and the ER doesn't prescribe it, as you well know. Your life is going to be a lot more complicated after an ostomy and you will never be able to work again, nor to spend much time in public. Something like COVID is going to be a way bigger threat to you after an ostomy.
Please be sure to read people's comments and reviews about ostomies and about the life expectancy rates after having one. Multiorgan failure isn't exactly rare. The survival rates are actually lower if you are younger.
I sincerely hope you *don't* have an ostomy after what I have seen my friend go through!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!