Traveling in England (with an ostomy!) and thinking I’m really funny…
So here we are screaming through January and at the beginning of week #3 already! I want to blog more this year and focus on real life tips and less about anecdotal stories (and random postings as demonstrated with photo above). I’ll likely do a combination of both since I tend to write without too much forethought and enjoy sharing fun photos. When I think about trying to deliver informative content, I lose my momentum. I want to be a resource but also address the everyday kinds of questions I get asked all the time. I also want to be an example of keeping it light. All this is oh so serious most of the time as it is. It’s better for me just to start writing and see what comes. Life continues to toss challenges at me and I’ll continue to share them.
My goal is to write once a week and I think I can do that. I also came across all of my years of journals and my daughter challenged me to write a book about living with an ostomy. The idea of a book is daunting but I do like to tell a good story and I have plenty of funny, sad and challenging ones to share.
I’m starting the year healthy and feeling powerful after shoveling snow! Each time I exert myself in ways that stretch and challenge my abdominal muscles, I have a little concern in the back of my head. That, and a little voice saying, “awe yeah, that’s me with my ostomy – shoveling snow – I can do anything!” It’s become a joke with my daughters that I can do anything even though I have an ostomy. You see, I’ve been showing my girls their whole lives that I can do anything with an ostomy. It’s now taken on a new meaning, as if the ostomy itself has given me the power to do anything. Rather than being able to do things even though I have an ostomy, they joke that I can do all these things because of it. It’s become funnier as the years go by. Today I hauled boxes around as I get ready to move and I could hear my daughter’s voice in my head, “you see Mum, you can even lift heavy boxes with an ostomy!”
I have lots of packing to do and I’ll pull out some journals to share some “Notes From the Hospital Bed”. Stay tuned!
Is there a doctor bag in the house? Let’s turn the tables on our physicians and show up at our next office visit with the latest trend in hand. I carry mykarekit full of ostomy supplies everywhere I go, tucked away in a nice big doctor bag. LOVE it so much I can’t stand it!
Read as “117 over 76 millimeters of mercury”
