More On Sex

When I considered having an ileostomy, I kept thinking, “When I have sex there’s going to be a bag of pooh between me and my husband.” And you imagine that there’s going to be this huge, disgusting-looking, smelly, obnoxious distraction that is effectively going to end your sex life. For one, there is no smell. The only time you are going to smell anything is when you’re emptying your pouch or changing it, or perhaps if you’re having a big leak but this happens rarely and you usually catch it before you smell it. For two, it just looks like a beige, opaque oval or rectangle of material attached to your abdomen. And it’s not going to be huge, because you’ll probably empty it before you have sex unless the passion makes you forget about it anyway, in which case you’re really not worrying about it.

Initially, I felt like I had to plan when I was going to have sex. I had to empty the pouch, maybe even change it to a smaller, closed pouch. I might put on my heart tie or my hip T (see links on my blog). I think the more comfortable you become with your pouch and the more comfortable you become with your partner, the more sex just happens the way it always did – sometimes planned, sometimes not. Either way, the ileostomy plays a small roll. If the weight of your partner puts uncomfortable pressure on your stoma, you might cover it with your hand (your partner will not likely notice this small gesture), or you might just get on top.

In the first few months after surgery, I was quite alarmed because it seemed that my anatomy had been slightly modified. In stitching up my behind (probably not everyone experiences the exact same surgery here, but I had to have my rectum removed so they had to stitch me up completely), it seemed that they had made my vagina quite a bit smaller. With great embarrassment, I mentioned this to my doctor, telling him that I could not comfortably have sex. He creased his eyebrows in concern, confessed he had never heard of this, and told me to let him know if I was still having trouble in a month. This really made me nervous – maybe they just screwed up with me and this was going to be the terrible tradeoff in having surgery! But no, it just took several months for things adjust. In my case, it took about three months after surgery for it to feel comfortable.

The fact is, I think this post is essentially for those who haven’t had surgery yet. If you’ve already had surgery, you probably already figured this all out. I wish a happy love life to my fellow ostomates!