I'm currently on a hospital ward with a bathroom shared between me and three other lovely ladies. One is a 93 year old, and moves very slowly, so she takes a very long time in the bathroom. One currently has a very upset stomach. The other is doing a prep for a colonoscopy.
I am so glad I have an ileostomy, since when my bag starts filling up, it does so slowly, so I can easily wait an hour or two before emptying, and I can wait without any pain or discomfort; totally different to when I went to the toilet the "normal" way. It takes me all of five minutes to empty; again - so different to the two or three hours I used to take in the bathroom pre-ostomy.
I hate to think how much more unbearable this hospital stay would have been if I didn't already have my stoma. This hospital just didn't take into account how many bathrooms would be needed on a gastro ward!
Even when I had an NG tube which was upsetting my stomach so much that, for the first time with my ileostomy, I had such watery output that I was getting multiple leaks, a leaking stoma bag is far preferable to ordinary diarrhoea (at least, with the rectal problems I had pre-ostomy, a leaking stoma bag is preferable).
I am so glad I have an ileostomy, since when my bag starts filling up, it does so slowly, so I can easily wait an hour or two before emptying, and I can wait without any pain or discomfort; totally different to when I went to the toilet the "normal" way. It takes me all of five minutes to empty; again - so different to the two or three hours I used to take in the bathroom pre-ostomy.
I hate to think how much more unbearable this hospital stay would have been if I didn't already have my stoma. This hospital just didn't take into account how many bathrooms would be needed on a gastro ward!
Even when I had an NG tube which was upsetting my stomach so much that, for the first time with my ileostomy, I had such watery output that I was getting multiple leaks, a leaking stoma bag is far preferable to ordinary diarrhoea (at least, with the rectal problems I had pre-ostomy, a leaking stoma bag is preferable).