Thursday, October 16, 2014

How to Excuse yourself Politely when your Ileo's burpin up shit

Apparently, I have had a lot of Drafts here I've never posted. So... I suppose that is why I haven't updated in a while. I'm so SMRT that I didn't realize they were going into drafts.
Dar dar dar, I know wrds and hw to type on compooters. :/

Anywoozles,
With trousers, it's often quite easy to mask or hide a bag. An ileostomy bag ain't that big--depending on the brand you're going with. But against your right leg, you are totally aware of that thing and like "Omg--they are totally looking at it right now, freaking out, wondering if it's gonna burst liquid shit on them."

TRUST. Ain't no one care about your bag. They forgot about it the moment you told them. It's interesting, but not THAT interesting.
Unless it fills up with air (like mine does in the morning) or shit, it isn't noticeable at all.
It if starts to get uncomfortable or you think it might be noticeable, you could direct the attention to something else "Ah! I think I have something my eye! Excuse me!" (then run to the Water Closet) or "Pardon--I'm embarrassed to say I have something stuck in my teeth". These are good excuses, and then you can make an elegant exit without making it about "My ileostomy is shitin out lotsa stuff and it's goan go all ova da place if I don get to a terlet".

The worst is in a restaurant.

For years, I avoided eating with people or going out to the point that my in-laws wondered if I had an eating disorder. It wasn't surprising. I mean... I weigh like 3 lbs and look like a hairless baby chick or like Gollum with eyeliner.  But every time I eat, or am just moving around, or am just sitting there... my bag fills up. And my stoma is like a bratty child. I swear to Jeebus it has an incarnation of some spoiled little shit kid who is always plotting and planning, biding its time, being silent when I'm alone, and then as soon as I'm with people:


Thanks MacBook Pro Paintbrush. You are a piece of shit and NOTHING as easy to use as Windows Paint >:(

I have found for me this is inevitable. As I have no shame, decorum, delicate elegance and usually make the Britishly self-deprecating jokes regarding myself,  I have found it is much easier to just say at a polite pause in the meal--or at the end of it-- "I have to wash my hands and dump my bag. I'll be right back."

I mean--you got an ileostomy. It's just a part of your life. It's better if someone's head explodes from this announcement than your bag.
Man--I've had that trouble a lot. The exploding bag, I mean.

Many times when I am sleeping, the darn stupid NOT STICKY AT ALL wafer bends and leaks shit all over my blankets, my clothing, and my soul. Yes, my SOUL.
There's no way to act all cute in the morning with your loved one, waking up to Vivadli's Four Season's as you adorably prance out of your room clutching bedsheets covered in brown feces.
:D

It's dehumanizing to sleep on towels or a bed covered in plastic like you are an incontinent 4-year old. 
Just... just no.


I have a very valid concern that my wafer will crack in public, and I will be left with no way to change it, fix it, or escape. It just isn't practical to carry alllll of your ostomy supplies with you wherever you go. A tote-bag is too large to haul around constantly! 
But, even though I have the supposedly "useful" sticky liquid, I have found masking tape around the edges of the wafer do assist in keeping the leaking feces at bay if you are wearing your bag for more than a day or 2.
(For monetary reasons of making them last, I do this quite frequently. I do not recommend it. :/ )

Then again, this is just a personal experience. Most ileostomates I have connected with were able to resume their normal diet after surgery, avoiding the usual suspects of mushrooms and globs of things that would cause a blockage... and their transit time was normal-to-fast, unlike my slow slow slow 8-hour speed. :''(

I am an unusual example.
 Doctors being mystified over my many health problems has long since lost the quirky sort of curiosity one experiences from continuous confused frowns, muttering with other doctors whilst you are still in the room, and the inevitable non-diagnosis of" idiopathic"--which basically means they don't know why and there is no reason for it.

As a last comfort to those newly branded with a rosebud stoma (heh. I named my small intestine stub 'Rosebud'. Orson Welles 1941 Citizen Kane, yall), I have a 40-something Degree and 75 degree curvature of my spine--both upper back and lower. Somehow my body looks normal...normal-ish... but my X-rays make me look like a cool awesome monster being that Marvel Comics should totally make into an evil villain.
For long years, it has been speculated by many that the pinched nerves and messed-up things in my dinosaur spine were causing me problems with my intestines, my nerve-endings in my face and legs, and other problems all across my withered little form.
So lucky you, dude! You probably wont have the horror-story experience I do, but perhaps maybe you can gather a bit of information and hints from these rambles.

At least... I hope it's a bit informative and entertaining.

<3

Un-Related to Ileostomies, but a broken-face part of life

Unrelated...

When I was 17 I entered a relationship with a boy that I thought I would marry. Yeah yeah.. young love and all that happy crappy.
It was mostly an entirely unsexual bonding, and the guy was more like a really best friend. Our conversations rocked, but whenever i wasn't physically in front of him, he forgot me. Forgot my birthday numerous times, forgot ot call me, or I'd wait all day for a time we were supposed ot have together, but.. he forot and was playign World of Warcraft with his buddies. :/
Nice.
Anyway, not bitching, I'm over it, but one of my birthdays, the last I spent with him, we got into a fight, and well, my ratty hair got grabbed by the back of my skull, and my lover face and jaw were delightfully smashed against a cement windowsill. I blacked out there on the kitchen floor, and when I woke, there was blood everywhere and I was crying out "where's my tooth?" 

With my mother's angry urging, he paid the not-insurance-covered coin to replace my tooth with a ceramic cap.
but about 6 years later, when my husband & I returned to MN, it broke off as we were riding in the car to get groceries.
YAY!



So that's without the crown. My little stub. Aint it just cute?
Now that we're on foodstamps (yay :( ) and dont make no money without no jobs, we were able to cover some of the enormous cost with some deal my husband did because it involved numbers and research and that's HIS bag--I do the stuff that doesn't require math. That's our deal, that's our teamwork. 

So after many times of a temporary cap thing falling off while I'm drinking my morning coffee or sipping Butternut Squash soup, I finally got my 'permanent' crown on once again.
In direct sunlight, it's a bit off-coloured compared to my other teeth, but it'll do, right?


Nice patch of sunlight there right on that fucker.

Unforch for my time as a young 20's -something, that birthday present from my X-boyfriend (Happy birthday! I forgot it was your birthday again--but here's a broken face!) also included a broken jaw.



So there's a bulge on my jaw there where the bone healed all weird... and damn, one day when I have money I'm gonna get it shaved smooth or something.

Yay for depressing update!

Gonna work on some more blog posts related to ileostomies now. Sorry for all that!

<3

My top lip was also busted open, and I have a faint scar there I can cover with some old theatre makeup that's awesomely cake-y, but I can't whistle anymore. That fucking sucks. I used to whistle like, crazy good and that pisses me off more than the broken jaw.