What has a stoma, ostomy given you?
It might seem a strange question but have you really thought about this?
Let’s give it some thought.
Do you regard yourself enabled or disabled? What a question YES!!!
There are two camps on this.
One is enabled, people have the choice to do so much more. Not having the worry or concern on how the bowel will behave. The freedom that it gives you. Plus you have the strength that a poorly bowel had taken away from you in the past.
The other camp is that they are now disabled unable to go out, to do the great things that make life interesting. Yes there is the worry of what might happen?? But how often does the worry actually happen. The noise that the stoma, ostomy can make is louder, that is to be expected as there is not the skin, muscle or in my case the body fat to absorb it all. LOL
It can/ does take time to adjust to having and living with a stoma, ostomy and this is normal. At the end of the day you and your body has gone through surgery/ies. This does have an effect on you both emotionally and physically.
But let’s have a look at what positive activities you can now do for what you don’t need to do now. For me it was the ‘toilet dash’. How cool is that?
Have you created a list of places to go, things to do or just having a normal life.
Or are you able to be more spontaneous and go with the flow?
I remember that in a support meeting where one person came and asked why we chose to make ourselves disabled. At first many of us were stunned, then after the conversation started.Yes it was in the wrong tone but that wasn’t helpful so it changed. In the end the person did have the surgery and was good with it all.
Whether you did choose to have an ostomy, stoma or not. There are still many things to be thankful for, such as waking up every morning, having people around you who care about you, etc.
Are you looking for a safe community where you can learn more hints and tips of living with a stoma, ostomy? Here is a link to Stoma, Ostomy what a bag
