Awareness Month

It’s October. Pink ribbon month. But no, that’s not my story.

Are there ribbons for colorectal cancer? I should know, but I don’t. 

Earlier this month, I received an email from a blog I follow, informing me that it was World Ostomy Day. “Yay” I thought. Then my almost-nurse-daughter texts, asking “Did you know it’s Ostomy Awareness Month?” Kind of. 

This is a subject I mostly keep quiet about. It’s often easier to talk openly about my journey with mental illness, and that’s HARD to talk about! Because stigma, still.

So why my reticence for this particular subject? Well, I shared my story once and it was met with a comment of disgust. One person, one time. More recently I attended a half-day seminar relating to gynecological cancers and heard the subject shared by two different individuals, again, with disgust.

Then there are the anti-smoking ads. The ads in the US were rescinded after The United Ostomy Association of America responded with anger and cried “discrimination”; understandably since many of us with ostomies -perhaps most- have not smoked. Therefore, we’d rather not be the literal poster child for anti-smoking campaigns. I believe the ads in Canada are still running, with the hope that a “disgusting” picture of a full ostomy bag will convince the youth of that country to refrain from cigarettes. Maybe it will. And maybe it’s worth it if it does.

But it makes me uncomfortable. It has been suggested to me that my uneasiness about the ads stems directly from my difficulty in accepting my ownership of an osotmy. Perhaps.

Something I’ve learned is, in this culture, we don’t like to talk about poop. It seems the public is much more at ease discussing any other topic about the human body.

Another thing I’ve added to my “things I thought I’d never need to know” collection: people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease (think Crohns and Ulcerative Colitis) willingly accept their ostomies because surgery has, in a large sense, given them their lives back. However, those whose ostomies are placed because of cancer or as the result of an emergency surgery, are known to struggle  accepting this new way of digesting food and doing life. The latter has certainly been true for me.

A struggle. Perhaps in the future I will write more about the challenge of living with an ostomy. Perhaps.

For now (assuming I publish this post), I will continue on this path of sharing my real life (mostly) without glossing over the hard realities therein .

Thank you for reading this. I feel, somehow, apologetic for writing it. The text feels stilted, awkward even. Yet, perhaps what you’ve read here will serve in some way.

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