March/April 2002
Page 7
The Wonder Of An Ostomy
Modern medicine and surgery have made very dramatic advances in recent years. Many of them are quite dazzling (for example, heart transplants and kidney transplants). But, you can count on your fingers the number of patients with heart transplants who are alive and healthy and productive in the Northern Hemisphere. Contrast this with the one million ostomates in the United States and Canada - men, women and children who are leading active, productive, effective and happy lives. You will see that ostomy surgery really is a successful form of surgery that can cure the underlying disease for which it is designed. There are many diseases that are cured by ostomy surgery: Cancer, polyps, ulcerative colitis, inflammations, precancerous lesions, and so forth. So here is a type of surgery, which has benefits for many disorders and for many different people. Yet, it doesn't create a disability, (except in the minds of some individuals) as amputation or the removal of the vocal cord might, in a sense, it doesn't require the learning of new skills. You don't have to learn how to swallow air and bring it back up to talk without a voice box, as does a person who has had a cancer of the larynx and removal of the larynx. You don't have to learn to walk with crutches or with a new prosthetic device. What you do have to learn is to live with a different form of elimination and learn how to handle this particular task in a mechanical as well as psychological manner.
Source: Marvin M. Schuster MD; via Penny Brown's "Living With An Ostomy", Metro Halifax News, Jan. 2001., via Inside Out On-line Mar/Apr 2002.
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