Ostomy is life. There is life after an Ostomy - Testimonials

Me and my Ostomy. OSTOMY IS LIFE.

In May 2017, as I was climbing home by the stairs, I had the feeling that I needed to go to the toilet urgently. I came in, and I went into service thinking I had a lot of diarrhea. When I finished and looked at the presumed diarrhea, I was frightened, for it was not such: it was blood, and it filled the toilet bowl.

Naturally, I got scared. The next day, I was with my family doctor, telling him what had happened to me, and he examined me. What he saw did not seem to please him, and he directed me to the surgery service of the Guadalajara Hospital so that they could see me there.

After having the corresponding tests, they referred me to the Oncology service, where, after some complementary tests, they informed me that I have an adenocarcinoma of the locally advanced rectum, that I have to undergo various chemotherapy and radiotherapy sessions, and that the most possible thing is that they have to operate on me, close my anus and put a fixed ostomy in my stomach, and that from then on, it will be forever.

When they informed me, I was devastated. As a health worker, I know well the fear that the word CANCER implies, and when I imagined myself with a pouch hanging from my gut for the rest of my life and doing my biological needs in a pouch, I felt less than the sand in my cat's sandbox.

I felt like I'd just stopped being a person. After several sessions of chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the time came when I was scheduled to enter and have surgery: November 29, 2017. On that date I entered, and the next day, November 30, I had surgery.

When, after many hours of operation, I woke up at recovery, it was night and I found that I had a slit in my stomach, two drains (one in each buttock), and a pouch in my stomach: my ostomy.

When I saw it, I felt like a failed person, I cried, and I felt terrible.

When the surgeon came to see me, I asked him if he could have avoided the pouch, he said no, that the tumor was too large, and that it was not possible.

A few hours later, I was taken to the room, and there my gradual recovery began, they began to teach me how to take care of my stoma, change the disc, the pouch, and so on.

With the support of my partner, my siblings, cousins, friends, and others, with the encouragement they gave me, listening to other patients who had experienced the same thing, I began to assume that I would have this for the rest of my life, that I had two options: no surgery, metastasis, and eventually losing my life ...or having an ostomy. And of course, considering that, for me the choice was clear: I wanted to go on living.

When I left the hospital, I thought of joining an association of patients like me in Guadalajara, but there wasn't one. Not having one, and after asking the nurse in charge of my Health Center and the nurse at the Ostomy Clinic, they thought it was a very good idea to create one... so I was amazed with the idea and got along with it.

I made a few posters, and slowly people saw them and got in touch.

At some point, we will constitute ourselves and begin to provide support to other patients like us, so that they see that yes, there is life after an Ostomy.

It's not worth getting depressed or undervalued by a little pouch. Life is long and beautiful, and we have much to do. At the end of the day it is not the same for a professional to give you scientific data to encourage you as knowing someone else who has gone through what you are going through and/or what you are going to go through.

Because if that person could and can, so can you. So that if you need support or help because you feel terrible, you are going to meet someone who will understand you.

That you are not alone... that the Ostomy is not the end of your life, but a new beginning.