Love isn’t always shit free. The complications of dating with an ostomy!

Love rarely goes smoothly, chuck in chronic illness and an ostomy bag and you have this story.

Spoiler Alert: There is a happy ending as today is my five year anniversary to this amazeballs man and the reason I am sharing our adventure with you all again.

Although I wasn’t looking for love in the beginning, since receiving my ostomy at 26 it’s something that played on my mind. My delightful ex had wished me dead on the eve of my first surgery so my faith in the opposite sex was at an all-time low. That and I couldn’t even look at myself let alone love myself, so how could I expect anyone else too. The fear that I would never find someone who could love me like this was real.

Best Laid Plans

Monkey Business

Going back as far as I can remember I always wanted to travel the world, there wasn’t a continent not on my dreams list. As a family we never stayed put in one place for long, first living in an old bus that had been fitted out travelling around Australia getting home-schooled before settling down if you could call it that, moving house every six months to two years until I was old enough to take flight and step out on my own. At 19 I left my rental property, my boyfriend of three years, my job and my family with $50 AUD in my purse, a back pack and a sense of adventure, from that moment I was hooked on travel. I returned just over six months later to finish my accounting and finance degree with the knowledge that I could use those skills, making the world my oyster.

Dating with an ostomy

Dress Up Party

From single to wed, with a few hiccups along the way

This was never my face when I first through about dating with an ostomy.

Although I wasn’t actually looking for love in the beginning, it’s something that played on my mind. My charming ex had wished me dead on the eve of my first surgery so my faith in the opposite sex was at an all-time low and in the beginning I couldn’t even look at myself let alone love myself, so how could I expect anyone else too. The fear that I would never find someone who could love me like this was real and being recently single with a stoma was the most daunting thing ever. My mother tried to keep me positive, even to the point of buying me a wedding dress and a cot, all with that best intentions but it all just reminded me of everything I thought I would never have the chance to have again.