IT WAS 32 DEGREES YESTERDAY MORNING when I left on my walk at 5 AM. I live in Florida! Well, it’s NORTH Florida, which is totally different from south Florida and somewhat different than central Florida. Okay, it really is three states in one. In any event, I had so many layers of clothing on, I felt as if I was waddling down the street. Fortunately, having kept some of my winter clothing from my years in Utah, I have a wonderfully warm coat that keeps me comfortable, but I have to get used to carrying all that padded weight. I also have a great leather flight jacket with a sheepskin lining, which itself likely weighs about 15 pounds, but I can’t wear it since I’ve gained just enough weight around my midriff that I can’t zip the damn thing up without it being too tight across exactly where my stoma is. But cold or not, out I go, and by the time I return an hour or so later, my whiskers are dripping with condensation from my breath as if I’d walked through a sprinkler. Drying that off, I fix my post-walk reward: a hot bowl of thick cream of wheat with fresh blueberries and two cups of freshly ground Columbian java. As Cassandra Clare wrote in ‘City of Ashes’: “As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?”

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Before making the trip from your hospital bed to your home, it's important to review some essential care tips and precautions with your stoma care nurse.
Follow our 9-point hospital discharge checklist.
Follow our 9-point hospital discharge checklist.