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World Ostomy Day




Today, Saturday 2nd October, is World Ostomy Day. For those that don’t know what an Ostomy is it’s a surgically created opening in your abdomen to allow poo or urine to leave the body.



Ileostomies and Colostomies are also commonly known as stomas and are for poo. Ileostomies come from the small bowel and colostomies from the large. People tend to end up with these as a result of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), cancer or if another surgery goes wrong and damages the bowel. Urostomies are for wee and are made if the bladder is too damaged to work properly or has to be removed. 

I had an Ileostomy for the best part of 5 years following the emergency surgery I had in 2009 to remove my large bowel after it perforated. It came as a huge shock to me and took me a while to get my head round the fact that I had a stoma. However I was still able to do all the things I could do before, including swimming. The reason I no longer have an ileostomy is because I was ‘joined back up’ in a 2 part surgery in 2013/14 where a j-pouch was made out of my small bowel. I opted to have the surgery as I was having problems with my stoma- it would block up and I would end up in A&E on a regular basis.  I blogged about the J-pouch surgery at the time so feel free to go back through the posts to find out more if you’re interested.  

When I (finally) have the surgery I need now there’s a high probability that I could end up with an ileostomy again. Obviously life is easier if you’re able to go to the toilet ‘normally’ but if having a stoma again gives me back some quality of life then it’s a small price to pay. 




 

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