My Emergency Pack

When I first got my ileostomy, my ostomy nurse told me that I should carry a set of emergency supplies with me at all times. My “ostomy welcome kit” came with a little black bag which I could use for this purpose. I remember taking that thing with me wherever I went, even if it was for a walk around the block. I didn’t know when I might have an emergency, but I felt that it was an imminent threat at all times. And what did an emergency look like anyway? I worried that my ostomy might just explode off of me at any moment.

I remember experiencing fear, uncertainty, and alienation in the early days of my ostomy. I left my house with trepidation, and felt my pouch every few minutes to see if it was still secured and not leaking. At night, I slept on my back with my hand on my pouch, and I had nightmares of exploding ostomies, missing supplies, and reptilian stomas. I prepared a second, more robust emergency supply bag for the car. I chewed my food slowly, and carefully monitored every change in sensation from my output.

Now it has been two and a half years since my surgery, and … I still carry my emergency bag in my purse, and one in the car, and … no, that’s it, actually. I can’t really claim to chew my food slowly because I really do wolf it down. Rather than trepidation, I leave my house with confidence. I do not expect an emergency, and if I have one, I am prepared. But in the two and a half years since surgery, I have only had one instance when I had to unexpectedly reattach my pouch in a public bathroom, and that was very early on, when I was still learning how to do everything. Since then, I’ve had a few close calls – like times when it was a race to the bathroom after my output turned to water and filled very quickly, or when I did have a leak in the night and had to get up and change my pouch. But I’ve not experienced any exploding pouches or other catastrophic events.

In fact, I’ve grown so confident that recently I’ve forgotten to take my emergency pack with me. Last week, I lost it! I don’t know where I could possibly have mislaid it, but for a week I went without any emergency supplies on me at all. I had nothing in my bag, and several months ago the one I kept in the car came out for some reason and never got put back in. So, essentially if something had happened, it would not have been pretty. Eventually I got it together and created a new emergency pack for me and I don’t know why it took me so long to do this, but I put my supplies in a pretty makeup bag this time. Why in the world did I keep that ugly cheap black thing they gave me at the hospital for two years? I’m glad I lost it, because it was time I put my supplies in a pretty bag anyway.

If you’re new to surgery, and you’re totally freaked out, I hope this post gives you some hope that before long the anxiety will recede. I still check in on my pouch once in a while, but I would describe my relationship to my ostomy now as an ambient awareness. I rarely entirely forget that it is there, but it is certainly not the foremost thing on my mind. Whether I’m out birdwatching early in the morning, or floating on my body board in the ocean and watching the setting sun, my ostomy is taking up just a pinch of space in my mind.