Skip to main content

My first Stoma-less shower

I used to shower once or twice a week (or after a leak) because of the faff. Dont worry I would have lots of washes and Glastonbury showers (see previous post) in between. 

With a Stoma bag I found that there was no jumping in and out of the shower and no such thing as a quick rinse!

Showering with my old Stoma could be a bit like showering with a bomb. You never know when it was going to leak and explode everywhere. Or that's certainly my experiences. I have met people with lovely quiet, well behaved stomas that never leaked but I wasn't blessed with one of those!

I could never just get out of the shower and have a quick dry and go, or equally loll around in my dressing gown getting dressed at my leisure. I would have to get down to the business of changing the soaking wet bag of poo and putting a new bag on (which regular readers will know has proved to be a bit of a challenge for me in the past). A lady in hospital said she used to put a nappy bag over her Stoma bag secured with bull dog clips to stop it from getting really wet if she wanted a quick shower (I will try to get her to send me a picture to add in here!)

But this morning I was disconnected from my TPN feed at 8am as they have reduced the feeding time down from 20 hours to 12 hours- hallelujah!

Being wire free and cannula free I decided it would be good to take a shower. And it was the most liberating experience I have had in years. 

I had a lovely hot shower, washed my hair, scrubbed every inch of my body and shaved my legs. Maybe too much information, but hey, that's what you get when you read this blog. 

I found this picture on the Internet which I think demonstrates the difference between a shower with my Stoma and how it was this morning:



I haven't quite reached these standards...


...but a girls gotta have something to aim for. 

So if you think about how something as simple as a shower can be made difficult by a hidden illness, spare a thought for the battles that some people have every single day.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

New car smell

After everything that’s happened over the last 5 weeks not many days have been good days but today was. I will write a blog post about everything that happened but that’s for another day!  Today I went to pick up my new motability car and got to breathe in that new car smell. I am now the proud lease holder of this lovely Volvo XC40.  To be honest, part of me wasn’t sure whether to write a blog post about getting the new car with everything that’s been going on with the disability benefit reforms. There’s been so much written about motability cars on social media but a lot of it is misinformation and hate and that made me nervous to write this post. But I figured that most people reading it are friends and family and understand my need for the car. But for those that don’t let me explain a bit about how the motability scheme works.  I am lucky enough (or unlucky enough depending on how you look at it) to claim PIP- personal independence payment. This benefit is designed t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The germs have got me 🦠

Being on azathioprine, influximab and prednisone is helping to control this recent Crohns flare up. But unfortunately they work by wiping out my immune system making me more susceptible to all the bugs doing the rounds. I refuse to stay at home and be held hostage by these meds though- for me they are there to give me my life back, not to make me a prisoner in my own house, so the inevitable has happened and I’ve got a cold.  ‘It’s only a cold’ you might think, but with no immune system to fight it off this cold has made me pretty poorly. Yesterday I couldn’t get out of bed and felt so, so ill. I was coughing and struggling to breathe so I’m pretty sure I’ve got a chest infection too. But I can’t confirm that because apparently even being immunocompromised with a suspected chest infection is not enough to see a GP these days!  I spoke to the receptionist at the GP surgery this morning who told me that all the urgent appointments for today were gone (and this was at 8.25am, aft...
Post a Comment
Read more

Disability benefits cuts

So in Rachel Reeves spring statement earlier this week it was confirmed that there will be massive changes to the benefits system including the way that PIP is assessed and changes to the health element of Universal credit.  As someone who is receipt of both PIP and ESA disability benefits I find this whole situation…  🔲 terrifying  🔲 baffling  🔲 rage inducing  🔲 disgusting  🔲 [all of the above] I honestly cannot believe that a LABOUR government is looking to balance the books of the country by taking money from some of the poorest and most vulnerable in our society. This is the sort of thing I would have expected the Tories to do but when I voted Labour I honestly thought that not only would they look after and protect the neediest but they would actually make things in our society better and fairer. How wrong I was. Looks like I’m going to have to get some ‘Fuck Labour’ merch to go along with my ‘Fuck the Tories’ stuff I already own!  Now I do b...
Post a Comment
Read more