Sooner or later, most of us arrive at a point where life seems to have become too big to cope with. Most people don’t know this about me, but I hit rock bottom a number of times during my illness, and I struggled to understand and make sen...

KIND GESTURES 7. (keeping going) I’d like now to compile a rhymeto capture this moment in time,when most of us are in lockdownand ‘normal’ things are upside down. I’d like to pay a tribute tothose folks who work to help...

ACCOMPLICES. The Paterson enquiry has   damned the medics this time, whereas,   in the past they’ve covered up  and never really looked close-up.   This profession has been the pits  for ...

My bag bought its challenges. But in reality, it's stopped me from dying several times. That on its own made it absolutely amazing.   It had its off days, but we all do. It's leaked at the worst possible times (during sex, at a funeral), ...

People often ask “where were you when…?” The “when” is typically a disastrous event. During the early part of my five months in the hospital which terminated with my ileostomy surgery, nurses kept piling into my room, not to attend to my personal strife, but because of something on the TV. I was aware that I was hospitalized, but not alert to much else, so out of it that I had no idea what was going on. It was November 22, 1963. My personal pain and diminished capacity prevented me from realizing that JFK had...

On a shelf just above my head sits a brand-new copy of THE INTERPRETATION OF DREAMS by Sigmund Freud. It has rested there for months and I’ve yet to muster the courage necessary to pull it down and start to read it. Of course, some night dreams are fairly obvious. If you’re having dreams of committing acts of deviate sex, or violence against others, then I highly recommend that you see a mental health professional as soon as possible. My dreams are too mundane to warrant any kind of expert analysis. I’m wandering around a...

KIND GESTURES 8. (the cleaner) I wish to tell this tale in rhyme,so it may last beyond my time,illuminating a kindnessthat help me out when in a mess. I suffered with incontinence,which meant that personal effluencewas not that easy to control...

“When did the future switch,” wrote Chuck Palahniuk in Invisible Monsters, “from being a promise to being a threat?” That’s exactly the state of affairs into which the USA has been led by the dishonest, corrupt, incompetent, Twitter-souled Donald Trump. We face today the certainty of chaos in November, attended by rightwing violence, and it appears there is nothing that anyone can do to forestall it. Deranged heads of state always end badly but, unfortunately, the nation falls to its knees with them. It disgus...

So May is National Date Your Mate month. Did you know that? Me neither. Sometimes I look around the web for special holidays, national days, days in history and such for funny, obscure or interesting ideas for date posts. Well in doing this r...

hey Bob I see you have a new hat I like it and that looks like a nice coat for keeping warm taking care of the aminals, Best wishes and stay safe

The year 2020 has been an unpredictable ride through world politics, the pandemic, numerous protests and many more difficulties that had made living life quite hard for most. Let us embrace 2021 with much-needed hope and happiness. Just, K.  

  Many of you on here have peeked into my profile and my photos . Have you ever noticed the change in my profile status ? I have removed seeking a relationship and a travel partner for the reasons below. When I joined this fabulous site, I honestly had no idea that it was also a dating site . I did put relationship , but that didn’t mean to me seeking a mate .To me a relationship also means friends of all types. Although I’m a widow of a 30 yr confusing marriage( that I won’t go into ),I strongly believe that if a...

When this is over may we never take for granted: A handshake with a stranger Full shelves at the store Conversations with neighbors A crowded theatre Friday night out A routine checkup The school or work rush every morning Coffee with a friend The stadium roaring Each deep breath Life itself When this ends may we find: That we have become more like the people We wanted to be We hoped to be And may we stay that way...... Better for each other Because of the worst! Just, K

Hi Gang,   With all the discussions COVID is producing...........such as do masks work (current day Europe would indicate they do not)......who came up with 6' as the correct spacing for social distancing.......so 5'11" is unsafe....but 6' is fine???  Have you seen those ridiculous face shields they're selling that are open on all sides???  If you smoke....inhale and put your mask on in front of a mirror.  Then exhale.  If you see any smoke you just proved wearing a mask is pointless.  But that's just one dis...

Having an ileostomy may militate against such activities as joining nudist colonies or performing belly flops off a high board at public pools, but it certainly is no bar to climbing on a motorcycle and heading out on the highway with Steppenwolf’s “Born to be Wild” blasting in your mind. Four years after my surgery, which had been in July, 1964, I climbed on my Triumph, my new wife got on behind me, and we took our honeymoon riding around the State of Florida. Wearing matching drab green fatigue jackets, we drew a few st...

Greetings All... As a new member to this site I have to say I've been really impressed with all the helpful information, suggestions and encouragement provided by so many of you in this community!Participating on this site will be a rather different experience for me in that I have never got involved in the social media scene, the Facebooks, Twitter's etc. - should be interesting I am sure. A bit about myself...I am a cancer survivor, or so my oncologist tells me - having completed the full regimen of radiation, chemo-X2 and lastly surge...

It has recently come to my attention, on this very website, that some of you – people that I previously assumed were reasonable, serious people – have actually assigned human names to your stomas. Really?? You have named your stoma?? I’ve had this ileostomy since effin 1964, and it has never occurred to me to do such a thing. I must say, with all due respect, that I find this to be perhaps the grossest, most flagrant act of anthropomorphistic nonsense ever. I’m assuming that these are the same ones of you that, upon...

I hate my urostomy.  When I found out the doctor removed my bladder for a little 0.6 superficial nodule without a root and the rest of my bladder was totally clear, I realized he lied to me.  How could a cancer doctor do this.  I ...

I have had several people ask if my ostomy affects my sex life? What they are really asking is does wearing a sh!t bag turn your husband off? I guess it's normal curiosity. But I feel like telling them it's none of their buisness. Of ...

So, we're being pretty quiet and cautious here about what has happened over the past four years and I fear that we have become a bit complacent, always assuming someone else is going to DO SOMETHING.  I have always believed opposing sides are capable of expressing their beliefs WITHOUT anger towards others' opinions.  However these past five years have proven me wrong. There has been NO attempt on the part of our elected officials to bring our country together.  Apparently some Americans are incapable of discussing without d...

Hello All, I love the english language. I love that there are so many different ways to express one thought. I love that the process of putting one's thoughts down can be an art in itself. I can't even pretend to be in the same class as some of the talented and learned wordsmiths who inhabit this site (you know who you are) but you inspire me every day and I have fun with it. To that end I want to express my frustration with what I see as a deterioration in our language. There are always the minor irritants with otherwise smart educated p...

Hello. I'm New to all this. Still working out the forums. I've seen people giving so much advice and I'm reading so many blogs. I have a colostomy bag, permanent new addition to my body. Five weeks and counting. I'm not entirely sure how I'm feeling about it yet cause I'm on my 5th cycle of chemo and my emotions are pretty crappy anyway. ( no pun intended) ... to long a story to share so in short, have bowel cancer, tumour very large, had chemo to shrink tumour before surgery. Surgery success, cancer gone, clean up chemo, 3 cycles left to...

Whatever it was that I did, or failed to do, that brought upon me the ulcerative colitis, determining what it was seemed to mystify the doctors that I saw. It’s psychosomatic, several of them announced. As far as I was concerned, given the pain that I was in, I put that diagnosis on a par with the Monty Python knight who, having just had his arm wacked off, kept insisting that it was “just a flesh wound.” It took me several years after ileostomy surgery in 1964 to throw off the shroud of disability that I’d wrapped ...

Public washrooms are a struggle for many of us at the best of times. Since COVID-19, and with regulations about how many women can be in a washroom at a time (including standing in line), there is added pressure to an already stressful process. ...

BEAUTY. Beauty comes in many formswith very few, if any norms.What may seem beautiful one day may change if viewed another way. Some see the human form as such but I don’t like them very much.Their surface beauty may seem strong but unde...

 Just a brief note to our friends north of the USA.  Happy Canada Day !!!   I join in the celebration of your country and invite you to join with the USA in the celebration of our country this coming Juy 4.  Despite being a different kind of celebration considering the pandemic, considering excessive heat warnings and fire dangers, considering hometown fireworks bans and beach closures, and considering social distancing and face masks, we must remember to appreciate everything we DO have, and we will still celebrat...

GET OFF MY BACK! Bob recently reminded me that folks with disability can fall foul occasionally of those who think judgementally.  These folks are often ignorant  of anything that’s different. So, tend ...

I am considering surgery to have my illestomy removed. I would like to know from others who have done this if it was successful or unsuccessful and problems that may have occurred.  Thank you

Hello all, Do any any of you have the stoma directly across from your belly button? How in this world do you all get rid of the hair around the stoma? I look forward to the information any of you can provide.

Warning: This post may contain political content!    KIND GESTURES 4. (USA) I’ve been seeing what people sayin and around the USA,and thought I ought to write a rhymeto capture these concepts in time. There seems to be a prec...

Hi all,  Soooo, living on the East coast is a bonus most times but due to the Cybercrime on the Colonial Pupeline, there is no gas to be had here. Not sure about the rest of the states on the east coast but I was lucky to be able to fill up last night. Normally would not have gone out on my car but met my husband for dinner so afterwards, seeing I only had 40 or so miles on the tank, I decided to get gas. I usually go to Sam's. It is always the cheapest but decided to whip in Walmart's Murphy Gas station. All the pumps were bagged wi...

The Single Ostomate If you are single, you have a bit more of a challenge. Dating is hard enough when you have little or nothing serious in your past. But now, you have a medical past that has affected your body, mind and spirit. It can take so...

Changing our behavior is difficult. If it was easy, we wouldn’t find ourselves making the same New Year’s resolutions year after year. Starting diets and falling off them within weeks. Picking up our mood and then feeling down the fo...

I just renewed my membership in Ostomates and am starting my fourth year here. This transaction led me to reflect a bit on the value of this community to me personally. I am sure many of you feel, as I do, that we are fortunate&...

TODAY I LOST A STOMA PLUG. For many years I’ve felt quite smug, to wear a simple stoma plug, and skip the inconvenience  of the stoma-bag experience.  Perhaps, for some, I should explain, that I found bags c...