BLOG NO DOWN. HUMAN BAD. HUMAN STOOOPID. (Also, Thankful on Thanksgiving)

Sorry my blog was down for a while--I changed the url and was stupid enough not to realize that hey, maybe people can't find the same blog now that I made the URL DIFFERENT duuhhhh.... (It took me this long to realize my url is "girlgirls" and not "girlygirls". Girl-girls sounds like a lesbian blog site... maybe why I get traffic to begin with?? Heh heh... sweet.

But nah. I'm still here, and hopefully, those of you reading will keep on, occasionally, checking in to see what dumb ideas or suggestions I have. 

Like for the USA Thanskgiving, or as I like to call it "Colonize-the-shit-outta-everything-and-then-give-the friendly-natives-smallpox-blankets-as-thanks giving day". How does one with an Ileostomy combat the wilderness of Turkey and stuffing staples... as many of us, I'd damn near say most of us, would get blockages eating that sort of thing? For those that are better digesters, (ie, not me), I would say bring along a baby grinder and have at it. And drink tons of fluids.
 But for people like me, I just stuck to gravy and mashed potatoes, and walked around talking a lot of pictures of everyone so it wasn't so awkward that I wasn't eating all that they could. Also: DRINK WINE. No one notices if you're not eating as much as they are if you always are drinking something. And wine is good. Wine is fun. Wine is your friend. Because of the drops of Asian blood within me, I get the Asian flush, where our faces go quite red from drinking. But does that deter me? NO. Because of the Russian in me, I have enormous crazy unhealthy amount of Alcohol tolerance, even though I'm 147 cm (4 ft 10) and barely weigh more than a sack of water-softener salt. It's a great party trick, to be able to drink 195 cm dudes (about 6 ft 5 inches) under the table.

ANYWAY.
Off and on I get scared of having Gastro Paresis, and those inflicted go through a fuck lot of worse times when sitting at the dinner table. Literally, they can barely digest anything, therefore, barely eat anything. Sometimes, the same food will sit in their stomachs for days and days on end, undigested. Terrifying. I don't even want to think about it. I am so fucking thankful as shit that I have a little plastic bag attached to my abdomen that collects waste products whenever my body feels generous enough to bestow it upon me. Hard to image for those that are struggling with having too fast of transit, but it's just like the old adage of "you don't thick about it till it hurts".
Like the people around us in our lives, if they ever started having the bleeding or the pain of Crohns, suddenly they would realize their whole lives they should have been thankful for the functioning they DID have. Or like my kidneys. Hey, I think all the time like, "Man, I'm glad I don't need dialysis" or "I sure am glad my copious alcohol consumption hasn't damaged my liver... yet." I mean, I can get out of bed on my own strength every morning, walk on my legs without assistance, breathe without medical intervention, swallow, move my arms and hands, and most of all, I am cognisant without the muddied water of mental illness. I mean, hey. OMG--no way.. I have an ostomy bag!! Who the fuck cares. Whatever. In the grand scheme of life, it is such a small thing, living with an ileostomy. I think the literature written about it makes it a bigger deal than it is because they want to instill fear into you to market their crappy products better. And yeah, it's a damn hassle. I'm moving to Canada in a handful of weeks, and I am nervous and scared about how I'm going to get my ileostomy products.. and they DO have universal healthcare unlike the USA, but in order to get the products you need a doctors RX and in order to get that, you need to get into a Dr, and seeing one is more intensely hard to be set up with than anything my Permanent Resident sister has tried to do in the last 5 or 6 years she''s lived there. So yeah. Ostomy's are a bitch. But they are a devil you know, and one we understand.
I never mean to downplay it or act like another person's misery with their ostomy doesn't matter, but it helps keeps things in perspective for me sometimes, to be like "Whoa man. I am beyond glad that I have all these other things functioning in my body, and I need to be thankful for them."