and rebuilding. This complex process of digestion takes place in the long—28 ft. (8 m) or longer in an adult— twisting channel that starts at the mouth and ends at the anus.
By the time food reaches the colon—the last 6 ft. (2 m) of the channel—most of the nourishment has been absorbed. Here the major tasks are absorbing water and some mineral salts in the first portion of the colon, then transporting and storing the indigestible remains of the food in the rest of the colon and the rectum. At the far end is the anus, a ring-like sphincter muscle that opens to release feces.
The body adjusts quite nicely to a shortened digestive tract. If your ostomy occurs near the end of the colon, as it does in many colostomies, you've lost only a storage area and a sphincter to release feces. If your ostomy is higher up in the digestive tract, you may lose part of the ability to absorb water so the discharge will tend to be less formed, more liquid. (This is much more of a problem for the person with an ileostomy , who has no colon and may have a problem absorbing mineral salts also. But ileostomy surgery is rare for cancer.) The remaining intestine eventually takes over some of the water-absorbing function. The kidneys, the major regulators of water and mineral salts, handle the rest of the adjustment.
Temporary and Permanent Colostomies With new surgical techniques available, surgeons are performing fewer "permanent" colostomies—in which the rectum and anus are removed—than they did several years ago.
