A friend of mine with UC had come to the end of treatment and was recently told she will need an ileostomy. Because she considers me an expert, due to personal experience, she asked about the "bags". I told her it might be a good idea to wear one for a few days to get use to it. She wore it and said, when her sister came to take her to the dentist, she removed the bag. She was afraid that if they got into an accident, the emergency room staff would remove the bag... .not seeing a stoma, they would send her to the psychiatric ward because they would think she was a "stoma wanna be"!I recently had j-pouch surgery because of severe Ulcerative Colitis. I had a rectal stump and ileostomy at the time, which was not hard for me to deal with. My father, on the other hand, was a little more uncomfortable about it. He is a truck-driver and mechanic, kind of rough around the edges but sweet at heart. He tried his best to be sensitive one day when he said, "So your surgery went well?" I explained it had and gave him a quick run down on what an ileostomy was and how I still had a functioning rectum. That was when he lost his composure and tried to hide it be being funny, "So now you have dual-exhaust?"
