Of course, positive thinking has great value, many clouds have silver linings, and we should all look at the bright side of things.
But trying to rush the Pollyanna process seldom works. We can't even see the bright side until we've allowed ourselves to really feel our sorrow. Our anger. Our sense of loss. And our fear.
However we may try to kid ourselves, for most of us there's bound to be a sense of outrage when we glimpse our changed bodies after ostomy surgery, and also a nostalgic longing for the way things used to be, before all this happened. Though our bowels or our bladders may have caused us pain, embarrassment, trouble and even isolation for weeks or months or years, we were used to them. They were part of us, long taken for granted systems which had provided us with simple but constant satisfaction for more years than we could remember. Tattered and worn though the afflicted portions of our intestines or our bladders might have been, they were ours.
And now they are gone.
As Richard J. Wells, MD, said: "People still have an inordinate emotional attachment to their own organs of elimination no matter how diseased they become. They will gladly part with a gall bladder, a stomach, 90% of their liver, or even a piece of brain, but suggest removing the bladder or rectum and the red lights begin to blink."
Sometimes that grief is irrational a person with ulcerative colitis doesn't lose control with surgery but regains it - yet that doesn't make the sorrow any smaller. We're not always rational people. However wise and grownup we've managed to become, there's a shadow of a hurt child underneath.
But things aren't the way they used to be, and we have stomas to prove it. And that is sorrow number two. There was a reasonably nice, reasonably slender abdomen and now there is a puffy lump with an incision, plus that thing, all veiled in plastic. It's true the incision is healing, the puffiness is receding, and I'm still healing, but I had this image of myself and now it's changed. There is also a new vocabulary. People from many cultures have been taught to be silent, at least in polite society, about excretory functions. Thus, we may wince at this new necessity of calling a spade a spade, of using blunt words like feces and rectum and anus instead of "the little girls room".
There's something else. We're different now, different from most people we know. And we don't like that. Growing up, we wanted a doll like Sarah's or a bike like Jim's and later, a car like Peter's and a house like the Smiths'. It was safer, not being different. That's a lot of sorrows. If we pretend they're not there, they're apt to fester and grow. However, let out of hiding, our grief and sorrow seem to run their course and dwindle down to a manageable size, so we can begin to savour life again, including the surgery which gave us a second chance. We even begin to see the funny side - sometimes.
But just as we're not always completely rational, we're not always completely honest. And there are temptations. We want medals for bravery (since we can no longer win them for going potty) and so we lie.
"How do you feel?" "Fine and dandy."
Only we don't. We're just putting on (or trying to put on) shining faces for staff and visitors - especially family - and for ourselves. Postponing the mourning, the good cry that's a necessary step in healing. Only after tears can the funny bone become operative again. There's also a strange and ironic emotional peek-a-boo in trying too hard to be brave. Close relatives and friends were also grieving - about me and for me. Their feelings were different from mine, perhaps, but no less strong. "We were sad about the changes that had happened to you and, like you, angry at whatever fate made this surgery necessary. We wanted to reach out and let you know how much we cared. Sometimes we could. Other days, you pushed us away with your smile, your jaunty reassurance that everything was fine." Shared laughter grows but shared grief tends to shrink, exposed to air and sun. If others are grieving with you, don't work too hard to hide your tears, or force them to postpone theirs.
It's a curious thing. We don't have to recount all these sorrows to everyone, and maybe not to anyone but ourselves. What we must do, though, is recognize them. Then, though traces of sadness may continue to surface from time to time, we don't have to cry for very long. I remember with thanks a nurse who not only permitted me to cry through her lunch break but encouraged me to do so.
(Edmonton Editor's note: I have found this to be a very good book, covering many topics. It is available through the UOA of Canada office.)
