The Story Of How I Got An Ostomy
The unfortunate truth to life is that things don’t usually work out the way that you would expect. For me, I realized this truth early on into my adult life as I was working on an oil rig several miles off shore in the pacific ocean. While the money is really good in that business, working on an oil rig is notoriously difficult and dangerous. The work is hard, the hours are long, and you have to be on the ugly, dirty, uncomfortable rig 7 days a week and 24 hours a day. It is totally not a good time, but I did not have many options for myself for work because I decided to drop out of high school and enter the workforce at 17 years old. I don’t totally regret this decision, as I am fine with the amount of money I am making, but this was what ultimately led to my decision to get a job on an oil rig many years down the road. The night that changed my life forever was when I was working on the rig on a dark, rainy night. I mean it was an absolute crap shoot of a shift, and me and all my coworkers were absolutely sick of working that night. This tends to lead to complacency and negligence in the workplace, which is especially dangerous in my line of work.
I ended up getting partially crushed by a steel beam that came unattached to the chain it was on due to the elements as well as improper care by myself and my coworkers. This was an extremely scary time for me, and I was airlifted to the nearest hospital back on the mainland. My intestines were a complete mess due to being crushed to a pulp, and I ended up being barely sewn back together. The doctors said it was a very close call, but obviously I am still here to tell the story today. Consequently, I had to undergo an ostomy and have a stoma put in due to complications from the accident. Before this, I had no idea what an ostomy was – it just sounded like every other type of medical surgery or whatever, so the doctors needed to explain to me what an ostomy meant and how it would impact my life forever.
I would be lying if I said I wasn’t pretty distraught over this news. I did not want to have to wear an ostomy pouch for the rest of my life, and I definitely did not want to have a stoma in my abdomen for the rest of my life either. But, like I mentioned earlier, life has its ups and downs and a weird way of creating events that one would never expect. It took me a long time to accept the fact that my life can continue even with an ostomy pouch, and it took me even longer to feel comfortable in my own skin again. The process of figuring out what ostomy supplies and accessories I needed, coupled with trying to figure out what I can eat again was a really hard time. But I can say that I have fully adjusted to living with an ostomy pouch at this point in my life, and I don’t feel like my stoma limits me in any way now.
My Ostomy Diary 