Following on from my last post I thought I would share our adventure on the way home from WEGO Health’s Rookie of the Year Awards which were held in Washington DC. We had to fly home via LAX, if you have ever been through LAX, it’s my nightmare airport, so much so that rather than endure the stress of a transferring between flights I decided to do a stopover.
Long story short last year I won Convatec’s Great Comebacks Award and this year they wanted me to tell my story and hand the award on to the next worthy recipient. My husband and son were not allowed to join me due to adoption laws within Australia, which lead me to ask my amazeballs sister to come to Brisbane with me.
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.
I got as naked as you can safely get with an ostomy and ventured out onto the deck. Having an ostomy ensures you are never truly naked except possibly in the shower if you are willing to play chicken with your output. Many of us also have scars so this is an experience that never entered my mind post ostomy surgery and pre ostomy I would have been too self conscious about stretch marks and cellulite to consider it. So in my wildest dreams I never thought I would experience this let alone be writing about it. But, without it I don’t think I would have been brave enough to be as open as I am now. Also we just booked our second clothing optional cruise on The Big Nude Boat in 2019, so I thought I’d share the first experience with you.
Travel has always been a huge thing for me, I love visiting new places, meeting new people and getting a sense of new cultures. My husband has said on more than one occasion we would be rich if I could just curb my passion for travel but where’s the fun in being rich if you couldn’t enjoy it. Pre ostomy I had spent six months in the UK working and partying and three months in Thailand backpacking and again partying. I had planned to travel until I was thirty and then settle down with the man of my dreams and start a family. Unfortunately, my body had other ideas and I spent my mid to late twenties in and out of hospitals enduring twelve surgeries which ended with permanent ileostomy bag just before my thirtieth birthday.
I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis (UC) in 2006 after continuously being run down, losing weight, having poor appetite and mood. It was kept at bay with a myriad of tablets for about a year before I started getting severe abdomen pains and continued to lose weight. After three visits to the hospital, weeks of IV steroids, 13 days awake straight and 20 kilogrammes dropped in less than a month, late 2007 I ended up in emergency surgery and received a temporary ileostomy I called Squish. This was one of the most challenging times of my life. Before UC I considered myself to be an outgoing active person and used to pride myself on being the life of the party. Now I was severely depressed and couldn’t look at myself in the mirror without crying, let alone leave the house and be social. Luckily I had some amazing friends that stood by my side (sometimes literally holding me up) even when I was pushing them away.