MOST PEOPLE GO THROUGH LIFE dreading that something bad will happen to them. You and I have had our trauma, and that belly attachment that we wear won’t ever allow us to forget it. We deal with it, since we have no choice. We do battle with the shock of it at first, some kind of foreign creature that has fastened upon us like a barnacle on a turtle’s shell. It may have saved our life, but it did so in a rude, abrasive way, leaving us to figure out an unfamiliar new way of life, something so unthinkable, even unimaginable, that it can take a long number of months for recovery to set us on an even keel again. We bring all our available strength to bear on regaining some sense of normality, to rejoining the human race that, at first, we were afraid that we’d left. We develop a technique, two techniques, actually: one, the physical necessity of tending to our new need; the other, the psychological machinations we go through to insure survival with some acceptable level of dignity. Finally, we arrive at that point where we become acceptable to the one observer who most needs that acceptance: ourselves. Then we realize that we’re going to be okay, that the creature has been tamed, put on a leash, domesticated. The trauma has been overcome, mundane needs reassert themselves, routine regains its rightful place. Life goes on.

This is a remarkable community of 40,916 members.
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Hugo
This site has been a blessing for me in learning how to cope with and navigate this journey as an ostomate. I have a colostomy as a result of a perforation in my colon since May of this year. I don't know yet if it will be permanent or reversible. The people on here have provided me with so much advice and information about living with an ostomy that I don't think I could get anywhere else. You all have given me hope and a place to come to for support. I still struggle with acceptance, but know that it will come if I am patient. Patience has never been my strong suit! Also, I love all the humor, although it really pissed me off when I first came on here. Thanks to all of you.
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