Other Funny Things About Ostomies

Note- This was about 2 years ago. I am presently bagless but still very much amused and laugh when I think of how it went:

The funniest thing that ever happened to me, to date, turned out to be something no one wanted to talk about.  I had absolutely no idea what the solution to a bowel blockage was, till I woke up in the hospital to find there was an addition to my regular body.  

On my stomach was a little bag that surrounded a new hole in my midsection. And the hole, well, let’s just say they’d rearranged where the poop comes out.  Well that was convenient.

But having it out there where I could see it – ? Wasn’t that somewhat obsessive? I’d always thought I gave the dog the wrong idea, picking up after him and then carrying the little bag home, as though it were some kind of special trophy. Now here I was, toting mine around all the time.  

Nobody had ever mentioned that such a thing could happen. I found it hilarious – at least until the bag filled up, a nurse came rushing in, grabbed it and WHOOSH! She and I and an Aid were suddenly extremely stinky. Have you ever wanted to crawl out of your skin and get far, far away?

I shared the hilarity I found with several classes of medical students who were rooted past my bed, shortly after the operation. None of their professors seemed to share my point of view.

Actually, ostomy counseling, for the newly-bagged could use a reality check. Living with a temporary anus on your abdomen is no one’s definition of what the hospital booklet called, “a brand new adventure!”

The booklet devoted a page to sexual activity for the bag wearer. It suggested in a vague sort of way that the wearer flick a little cloth daintily over what they call, ‘the appliance,” a sort of out-of-sight, out-of-mind, theory.

“What’s that big fat covered-up lump on your stomach, darling?”

“Oh…nothing.”

Some bags are temporary, only a few months, others permanent. Every bagged individual has a story. The permanent ones could likely publish books on the subject if it weren’t so entirely off limits as regards social conversation.

There are around 100,000 of these operations, called ostomies performed annually in North America, making it a relatively common surgery that no one claims to ever have heard of. The bagged patient is called an ‘ostomate.’

While it isn’t age or gender exclusive, the average age is 68, with 57% of them women. When your bowel gets tied up in knots, narrows or obstructs, medical science uses the bag as an answer.

Within a couple of hours, the diseased part is removed, the distal portion blocked off and the proximal part brought out through an incision in the abdomen to form a temporary anus, called a stoma, located somewhat west of your navel.

Then a doctor slaps a bag on the stoma and melts away. The homecare nurse takes over. “Ostomy bags seem to have designed for someone lying comatose in intensive care,” one of them confided.  Many hospital nurses had never seen someone tootling around to the shops with their new little lump jiggling around their middles.

It turned out my younger brother had one (and of course, never said), several years back. At one point he had to take a liquid laxative, fell asleep and the bag exploded, he warned me.

Something to look forward to. I told him the bag was the solution to fears of being mugged. Instead of self-defence, just open the bag and dribble on the assailant’s feet. In a lineup, he could be picked out by sniff.

By the second week my stoma had herniated, blown up too large to fit the normal range of ostomy supplies. They usually come in two pieces; appliance attached to skin and bag attached to appliance, secured by a belt. “Wow! You’ve got the largest soma I’ve ever seen!” one homecare nurse said, as though I should be phoning Guinness.

My surgeon suggested I keep swimming my three days a week. I was also co-hosting a cablenet show for seniors and going on various gigs with a few women singers. The bags leaked. They fell off.

I swung back and forth from home to the ostomy clinic like a demented yo yo.  Continuing to be vertical, rather than horizontal, seemed to be the problem. The clinic said they could solve any difficulties I might encounter but they didn’t seem to have run across the ones I was having.

Finally the clinician brought me a two piece bag with a paper rather than the standard cloth edging. The new bag seemed to be strong as steel and dried in a few seconds. “But there aren’t any more,” she cautioned as she gave me a single spare in addition to the one she’d affixed to me. “I snuck down to surgery and managed to filch the only appliance in the hospital that would fit a stoma your size. They’ll have to be special ordered and if homecare won’t agree, you’re on your own.”

Having very restrictive insurance and a tiny pension, I had visions of a pair of scissors, a box of sandwich bags and some duct tape. But homecare agreed. They placed the order.

I was marginally better off, though the bag was becoming a major concern. It would inflate with gas to the size and shape of a small chicken, half a loaf of bread, two pounds of hamburger (‘Stop that shoplifter. She’s obviously concealing MERCHANDISE beneath her dress!”)

The booklet warns bag-wearing airline passengers to bring along descriptive paperwork or expect an immediate strip search.

“I feel so conspicuous with this lump in my bathing suit,” I complained one day to a friend at the pool. “I feel like everyone is staring at it.”

“That’s easy to fix,” she said. “Stick a helium-filled balloon under there with it. Then you’ll have TWO lumps and no one will know which one’s the bag.”

“How will that help?” I said

“If anyone asks, tell them you’re wearing a bag. Then say, “Oh, I’m so TIRED of this,” and stick a pin in the balloon. BLAM!  No one will ever ask you again, if you do it publicly enough. Be sure, of course,” she added, “to poke the right lump.”

Needless to say, she is a thoroughly outgoing individual.

Full of gas, at the most inopportune times, the bag makes odd noises. During an interview I was conducting with university students, for the show, my bag began to emit sounds that resembled a duck quacking.

“What’s that?” one of the students asked, looking around though the noise was clearly coming from me.

“I wear an ostomy bag,” I sighed.

“Oh you poor thing! Does it hurt?” she asked, jumping up as though she could do something, meanwhile reassessing her judgment on me from competent professional to needy person.  Now I could look forward to it quacking on the show while I was miked.

The specially-ordered bags were taking awhile. My last paper-rimmed operating room bag wore out. “We told you, there AREN’T any more,” the clinic said. Flailing around wildly they came up with a one-piece putty-like wafer that attached to a foot long transparent bag that reached to my crotch and swayed back and forth as I walked.

One of these lasted a maximum of two days. At the least little thing it slithered off, which fact I discovered, at the studio when it become completely detached and slithered all the way down my stomach. (See why nobody ever talks about this stuff??)

          Fortunately I had nipped into the ladies room to check.  So I grabbed the bin liner from the wastebasket, thanking my lucky stars we were in the middle of a Canadian winter, which meant I was wearing more than one layer of clothes.

          As I started to strip down to the bag, two other hosts came in and identified me by my feet under the stall. They settled down to discuss how the show was going, the cozy way women do in washrooms.

          I was down to my underwear which I took off, rolling it and the bag into the bin liner while chat flew merrily back and forth over the stall door. I made a mental note about wearing more cologne, maybe industrial strength.

          I didn’t manage to get out before they left. Had it finally dawned on them that my non-emergence and our over-the-stall chatting, was peculiar? Or did they get a whiff of me? What had the situation done to my on-camera career?

          Wearing the bag was driving me compulsively towards a better class of lingerie, maybe in defense. That horrible day in the studio, I had on a designer-labeled pink silk camisole with hand-sewn pearls on the bodice.

          While I am everlastingly grateful mine was temporary, rather than  permanent, I constantly wished there was more information around about the whole procedure. To the end it both amused and exasperated me, a wild giddy ride that the most imaginative comedian couldn’t begin to invent.

          My aging strategy has always been to hang on till the 78 million baby boomers hit whatever obstacle I’ve encountered and smooth things out. Designer-quality bags, jazzier brochures., maybe even making them popular in mass culture, citing how convenient they are. (Your very own personal little port-a-pot!)  Yeah, I can hardly wait till they discover ostomies! But with an annual 100,000 going on every year, they’d better get a move on!

Sidebar:

There are Ostomy Support Chapters in all ten provinces and a magazine called, Ostomy Canada, though I never saw a copy. It doesn’t seem the sort of thing you display on the coffee table.

          The United Ostomy Association of Canada (P0 box 825 – 50Charles St E, Toronto On M4Y 2N7), holds annual conferences and also links to the international association whose last conference was held in Portugal. Just imagine wearing your lumpy bathing suit with all those other ostomates. Or maybe nude beaches! And all those bags, swaying merrily on the hairy stomachs across the sand!

          Another link is Friends Of Ostomates Worldwide- Canada, a registered Canadian charity. Astrid Graham, Treasurer. 19 Stonehedge Park, Ottawa K2H 8Z3