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WHAT DO YOU TELL PEOPLE? via Great Britain Ileo. Assn., Semi-Colon, Ostomy
Spotlight & GB News What do you tell people about your operation? Not officials and employer--they can simply be informed, if necessary, that you suffered at one time from ulcerative colitis (or what ever yours was for) but have been cured by surgery. Not husbands, wives, and fiancees-nothing less than the full facts is fair to them. But what about friends and acquaintances? Many ostomates would argue as follows: “My operation is my affair. I can cope with the results. I need no help. There is no need for anybody outside my home to know. Anyhow, some operations embarrass people. Stoma surgery should be bracketed with those mysterious female operations that are too blushmaking to even mention. Even if my friends weren’t embarrassed, they would be bored; everyone is fed up with people who give dreary, repetitive accounts of ‘my operation’. At best, my stoma has nothing to do with my friends; at worst they will be bored or embarrassed to hear about it. What do I tell them? Nothing.” I am sure this attitude is, in general, a mistake. Some ostomates and their friends, I admit, are embarrassed by the operation, but in the latter half of the 20th century when scientific and medical knowledge is more widespread than ever, most people can talk about their insides without blushing. As for the risk of boring people, that depends on how and why you talk about your situation. The reason for talking fairly freely about it is quite simple. In this field, ignorance means misery. The patient facing stoma surgery often imagines that his ordeal is extremely rare and that it will leave him a social outcast and physical wreck. That this UNSPEAKABLE operation will produce UNMENTIONABLE consequences. It is about time to let the public know that losing your gut doesn’t mean entering a half-way house to your grave. People accept the loss of a gall bladder, kidney, womb, or ovaries --why not removal of a colon? If acquaintances ask me, I usually say simply that I did have ulcers in the colon, rather than ulcers in the stomach, and that they were removed surgically, should they have a friend with ulcerative colitis, they are quite likely to mention to him or her that they have met someone cured by surgery. With most of my friends I am more explicit. Some, I realize, are likely to goggle, gossip, or gloat. The less said to them the better. But usually I explain, “They simply took out my colon--the large intestine.” Sometimes friends respond by referring to a friend who has an operation like that ...colostomy, or some word like that. This may lead to a visit and advice. Sometimes they raise a question about how one disposes of solid waste without a colon. No need to give them the lurid details about plasters, belts, flanges, and skin problems. Simply saying something like, “They brought an end of the small intestine out through the abdominal wall and the contents discharge into a pouch applied to the skin.” It is surprising how often this sort of conversation leads to help for some fearful and bewildered person facing an operation or recovering from one, or coping with the problem of a friend or a relative. It certainly helps to reduce the widespread misunderstanding, ignorance, and anxiety about stoma surgery. And it does not, in my experience, lead to any sort of difficulty. Whereas silence does nobody any good at all. 29 |