Beautiful Body

In the first few months after ileostomy surgery, I was rather flabbergasted at how grotesque my body seemed. No amount of education materials had really prepared me to look down and see this big pouch next to a big red scar. Between that and being bloated from surgery, and obsessing with whether I was taking care of it right, and nearly passing out at the terrible smell of the output (something I experienced only in the first couple of weeks, which I attributed to toxins), I was fairly overcome with the notion that my body had become ugly.

Well, no more. Let’s just talk about the pouch itself to begin with. They send you home with the ugliest, biggest translucent pouch they can find, and this does little for your initial feeling about the subject. But I found that once I changed to an opaque pouch that was sized better for my body, the pouch itself isn’t terrible. I will never say my pouch is beautiful, but here’s the thing: Saying that my body is ugly because there is an unattractive pouch, is like focusing on my nostril and deciding my body is ugly because I’ve got hairy nostrils with boogers inside. Pouch does not equal body, and body does not equal pouch. A person wearing an ankle brace doesn’t become ugly, or a person wearing glasses, or even a person with a zit on her chin. It is natural to be obsessed with the pouch because this is the thing that has changed on your body, and because it demands so much attention in general. But I promise you, when you walk through your bedroom naked, your significant other is not likely to be focusing on your pouch.

Now, setting the pouch aside for a sec, there’s the rest of my body. In my opinion, nothing is more beautiful than health. I can tell you what was not beautiful – when I weighed ninety pounds, and my bones were sticking out, and my skin was pale and thin and bluish, and it was dry and cracked and bleeding – even my nipples were peeling and cracked, and my butt was nonexistent, and my breasts were just two little saggy pouches of skin, and my hair was graying and thinning, and I looked like a war victim. Not to mention the perianal disease. Okay, to mention it. But I’ll just mention it and refrain from further detail.

When I look in the mirror now, I see someone who is vibrant, alive. I have muscles and curves! I have color! And I have a smile that emanates from my innermost being, and that is perhaps the most beautiful part of all.