... Depending on the type of pouch, you might need to change and clean your stoma a few times a day. That means you're going to be spending a good percentage of your time face-to-face with your own intestines, and that can be jarring, to say the least.
"If I got hungry when the bag was off and I was cleaning the area, I could actually see my intestine wiggling around," Kayleigh says. "It looked like it was alive. In fact, I named it Wiggles in the end."
"It's funny how much you learn about your internal organs when you literally have to look at, touch, and clean your actual intestine every day," Kayleigh continues. "For example, I'd only have to look at a glass of Pepsi, and the colostomy bag gets a deposit. Your intestines get to work when you're hungry, when you see food, and when you're eating. It's bizarre how immediate it is."
The fun doesn't stop there. Watching yourself poop is both an alarming and inconvenient experience:
"I got caught out in the beginning quite a lot, where I'd be out in public and then suddenly the bag starts filling rapidly," Kayleigh says. "Also, it always seemed to happen to me when I was cleaning my intestine (literally, with these special wipes and you dab the actual intestine and the surrounding area). I'd remove the colostomy bag, start cleaning the site, and then bam, my exposed intestine decides to just start pooping. You can't put another bag on if that's happening because you have to make sure everything is super clean beforehand, so I'd just be lying there waiting for it to stop. I was late SO MANY TIMES for appointments -- uni, etc. -- because of that."
To be fair, if you can muster up the courage to throw out a "Sorry I'm late, I was uncontrollably shitting," people don't tend to question you.