I was recently contacted via twitter by a group (person? Person trying to form a group?) wondering if I'd be interested, as an ostomate -- well, former ostomate -- in doing some advocacy. I haven't replied because it was a cancer-based group, and my ostomy had nothing to do with cancer. It got me to wondering, though: should I have talked more about ostomy before this reversal operation? I did occasionally, but mostly I didn't feel like constantly seeing myself typing about my stoma.
I did think of posting some photos of it, to be honest. Even took some. Decided that if the world didn't know what a stoma was and what it was for, the world could bloody well google it.
Might it have helped someone if I had talked more about it? There's lots of people out there who do, and there's lots of support for people who want it. I guess for me it went against the grain a bit. For the longest time I kept the blog and my internet self almost as impersonal as you possibly can, because I didn't think it was important to speak out about much of anything. To be honest, I'm still very much that way, and even though I'm around here (on occasion) and on twitter and instagram, I'm certainly not doing it to set the world on fire.
Maybe I should have, though. Maybe I should have posted photos of my stoma and of me wearing a pouch. It's not like it would have bothered me, particularly. I just didn't think it was necessary. Should I post pictures of my surgical scars when things have healed a little more and I'm not a walking ad for steri-strips (most of the staples are out now, thank goodness. Just a few at the former stoma site left)?
We'll see. You're more likely to get flowers and spiders here, I think, but we'll see.
Before I leave you with the flowers part, I'll just end by saying that when I had my initial surgery (for a diverticulitis-related rupture, not colorectal cancer), I was dealing with things well enough that my ET nurse suggested that once I was out of the hospital I should consider volunteering with new stoma patients to offer support and let them know how things work. I thought she was slightly out of her tree at the time because I hadn't yet found out how I was going to deal with things. Well, I lived with it for a year and four-and-a-bit months, and now? I\m honestly thinking about the volunteer idea. I had some bad days, yes, but far more good days. And really, even the bad days could be of some value, right?
I'll keep you posted. Now, though, flowers:
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| Forsythia |
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| More Forsythia |
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| Grape Hyacinth almost ready to open |
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| Early Blue Violet, one of our earliest wildflowers. One of my favourites, too. |
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