That's What I'm Talkin' 'Bout!

A few of my "personalized" ostomy bags.  Life is better when you live it out loud!
Tomorrow is World Ostomy Day and in honor of that I am going to be loud and proud of my ostomy and the quality of life it has given me. So get ready--

A year ago last fall I was in the middle of a horrible flare, the one that said Remicade (my drug of choice) was no longer doing it's job. Time for the colon to leave the body forever.

Now--it's fall time again and I am truckin' right along. Do you know what I did yesterday? I played tennis. Yes, I realize you may thinking "SO?" but, let me set the scene for you:
   
     It's early morning, the wind is howling at 30 mph from the north. The sky is overcast with thick grey clouds. The temperature reads somewhere in the 50's but the actual feel is more like the 30's due to the constant wind.

     After a great night's sleep, I get up, out of bed and stumble to the kitchen for coffee. Looking over my calendar for what the day holds, my eyes land on tennis. Looking out the window, I realize it's going to be a cold morning on the outside tennis court so I start thinking about what to wear.

     9:30 rolls around quickly and I find myself with 3 other ladies brave or maybe, just crazy enough to play in the elements. We play, we chase balls and we laugh for close to 2 hours all while the wind howls around us. The sun never came out from under it's pillowy cloud cover. The temp never seemed to rise above it's frigid state. The wind never gave up it's assault.

Once I was in my car after tennis it dawned on me, pre-ostomy, this would never have happened. I would have gone back to bed after downing a handful of medications laced with a narcotic or two. I would've jacked up the electric blanket and prayed for sleep. (Sleep didn't come easily in those days.) Joint pain and abdominal cramps ruled my life back then, dictating what I couldn't do. Playing tennis on a perfect, gorgeous, windless day was even hard sometimes but throw in a good old northern front coupled with playing outside and I'd be praying for death.

What a difference a year makes.

So, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout. Talkin' 'bout how great and awesome life is with an ileostomy. Thank you Jesus for the miracle of modern medicine and the doctors who are willing to become GIs. (Really, who wants to look at butts all day?)

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