Self Image and the Ostomate
I have been through some tough times recently. Telling you this makes me feel there may have been a purpose for it…something to be shared, a lesson to be learned. In truth, it was just something I had to get through, get passed, “live to fight another day,” as the expression goes. And perhaps the lesson learned is one I heard on television…”tough times don’t last, but tough people do!”
Over two and a half years ago, after 22 abdominal surgeries and countless bowel obstructions, my surgeon and I took a big step…a surgery that resulted in the formation of an ileostomy. Many of you have never heard of this procedure, and so I would like to educate you a bit. There are three types of ostomies or stomas, which divert either stool (a colostomy or ileostomy) or urine (an urostomy) from the organs nature gave us to do so. Without getting too complicated, an ileostomy is created to enable stool from the small intestine, which is the squiggly organ housed within the abdomen, to leave the body into a “bag” or a pouch that adheres to an appliance secured on the belly.
Recently I was out for dinner and ran into a woman I had not seen since college, several decades ago. Naturally, we have both changed in many ways, yet her eyes were so familiar and as we traveled back in time, my mind wandered to what she must remember of me.
I only attended Emerson College in Boston for two years, suffering from a disorder that at that time had no identifiable name. Today it is called anorexia nervosa. If only she knew the hell that I and so many like me have endured, and the long-lasting effects anorexia and its counterpart bulimia have had on so many aspects of my life. Whereas anorexia destroys the body and brain, bulimia destroys the ego, the sense of self-worth, the soul.