YOU CAN DIVIDE ANYTHING BY THREE. It may not come out even, but that’s not the point. The aim is to separate out different stages, or different places on a chart, or different elements of existence. When you’re young, for example, everything may be new to you but you become aware that it is all normal, it’s the way stuff works. In fact, that becomes your first job, to learn all this everyday stuff. That’s the First Age of Man, up until sometime in your teens. Then, it dawns on you that, if life is about nothing but all this boring normal stuff, you had better get busy looking for something more, and you start hearing about revolutionary new stuff, better or easier of smarter ways to do things, and this is when you begin looking for what ought to be your career. It is the Second Age of Man. Once you’re well into, or perhaps a little past, what we like to refer to as “middle age,” however, the excitement starts to wear off, the novelty ceases to appeal to your sense of adventure. In fact, one morning, you wake up and wonder what the hell happened to your sense of adventure. All that new stuff loses its glow; it even pisses you off when you think about it. You begin to realize that old, normal stuff isn’t so bad after all. This is the Third Age of Man. You’ve come full circle.

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After I got my ostomy I found this site and got a lifetime membership. I have had so much help from the core members, things that even the wound care nurses didn't know. If you haven't been through this journey you don't know - only the people that have experienced this first hand truly understand what your going through. The support is enormously helpful getting through this. Afterwards when you start to learn how to deal with this new normal you can begin to help others. ...mtnman.