Crohn's Disease, Ileostomy, Stoma...

W2b's recent post got me thinking. I go to all the trouble of pouring out all the crap (no pun intended) that I went through with this stinking disease thinking that no matter how hard it was to rake over the coals again, at least other people going through similar things might stumble across my blog and realise that they're not alone.

So I do a Blog search on Crohn's Disease... no sign of my blog. On Ileostomy... nothing. On Stoma... nada. All I get are the same blogs that led me to signing on to Planetostomy.

W2b does a couple of posts in which she mentions that she used to get a bit of a spanking by her Stepdad (who's a lovely guy by the way, I don't recognise him from the man that w2b describes to me of the past) and suddenly she's Madam Whiplash.

So I've tried to go a bit more blatant and put the search words in the title. That'll teach them.

By the way, if you have happened to find yourself here and you were hoping for some tips on living with Crohn's Disease or an Ileostomy, please feel free to read the archives. Truly though, the best things I can tell you are what I've found out:

1. You're not weird for having this bewildering array of feelings about yourself. It's natural even long after your diagnosis to go through strange feelings of guilt at the worry that you've brought on those people who care about you, to have a crushingly low opinion of your worth, to feel like you're somehow different to everyone around you and so on. You're mind's got a big shock to deal with and it'll deal with it in some odd ways sometimes.
2. You may not believe it, but if you meet someone who genuinely loves you they are not going to give two shits (there I go again) about whether or not you have different plumbing to them. Hell, if you're heterosexual then that would have been the case anyway. At least if you fart in bed they won't smell it.
3. Get used to talking about shit. It's gonna form quite a big part of your life from now on. Plus, get used to your shitting habits being the topic of conversation in all kinds of company that you wouldn't have expected.
4. Grow yourself a sense of humour. There's a lot of "there-there" websites and support groups out there. But they can often perpetuate the feelings of you being a patient and not a full member of society. The best thing you can do is grow some balls, try (no matter how hard it seems) to find the humour in what you're going through and if it gets really bad for God's sake get help. Camp out on your GP's doorstep if need be.
5. Don't compare your pain or suffering to other peoples'. Yes, knowing other people are having a hard time can help put things into perspective. But you need to know that other people's pain does not in some way make yours any less or more important.
6. It's not what happens to people that is important, it's how they react to it. Everything we go through helps shape the people we are. If you're lucky, one day you may even feel glad for (or at least have no regrets about) what you've been through as it has made you into who you are.

So anyway, let's see if that works. Come all ye Crohn's sufferers and people who poo out of their bellies.