Self Image and the Ostomate
It had been a very rainy summer and the day was equally as threatening as so many over the past several weeks. Our monthly Union County Ostomy Support Group of New Jersey meeting was scheduled for 2:00 and I was thinking out loud to anyone within listening range that I expected very few would be venturing to the meeting. After all, aside from the threatening weather, it was the dead of the summer, and a big vacation week in the middle of August.
As a self-avowed makeup and skin care junkie, I strongly believe that looking good is greatly related to feeling good. In fact, makeup and attention to my skin has helped me to get through the years of misery that led to my eventual ileostomy 4 years ago.
As I reflect back, I remember asking my husband to search my handbag for lip gloss when visiting me in the hospital with peritonitis, as soon as I was brought into my room post-surgeries and the like. As soon as I felt well enough to walk around my house, I was applying my skin care regimen and blush, so everyone knew I was fighting my way back. My suitcase, always at the ready for another surgery, contained my stash of the perfect lip color to brighten my pale face for visitors, including my physicians making early morning rounds. Somewhere along the way, I recognized that my ability to heal had a great deal to do with the colorful smile I could put on my face!
My parents came in two different sizes…my father was extra large and my mother was narrow and slim. While it is not unusual for a daughter to model after her mother, I would say that my modeling was extreme.
My mother not only was very weight conscious, she was very rigid and restricting of food and drink, and binging was a big part of her life, and as I found out later, unnamed bulimia. Her daily guidelines for foods to be consumed had a critique that usually ended with “Remember, Ellyn,” she would repeat, “a moment to the lips, a lifetime to the hips!” Blueberries, watermelon, and oranges were on her DO NOT EAT list since they had too much sugar. Meat, potatoes, breads were all annotated with what could just as easily have been a skull and cross bone. So as long as I followed her dictum, I would be narrow and slim like her, or so I thought.