My Faith Is In the Middle of My Ostomy Struggle

Where do I start with this one? My statement to you and the world is my faith is in the middle of my ostomy story.

My faith is everything to me. I walk in faith every day. I know that I exist today, I live today because He lives in me.

It says in the Bible “Now faith is the [a]substance of things hoped for, the [b]evidence of things not seen.” This is from the book of Hebrews in the New Testament.

This is the new covenant that we live under since Jesus went to the cross at Calvary. It is found in Hebrews 11:1. Hebrews chapter 11 is the great Faith Hall of Fame. Read it sometime. Amazing Reading.

What I Did First

As soon as I was diagnosed with cancer, my march towards having to have an ostomy started. From that point on I was walking in faith.

I immediately went and researched healing scriptures from the Bible. As you can see my faith is in the middle of my thoughts towards getting healed.

I needed to find healing scriptures, where God promises that I have been healed. All of the promises of God are yes and Amen. In the Bible, you will find this “2 Corinthians 1:20 New King James Version (NKJV)

20 For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.”

You can read that in 2 Corinthians 1:20 King James Version (KJV)  For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

After I found the Scriptures

I wrote them out on a sheet of paper. I used a concordance and a Bible to cross-reference them. Then that sheet of paper became nine pages of healing scriptures, that I had with me or around me for the next couple of months.

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Wherever I went they were within reach for me.

I researched entire sections of the Bible so as to not leave out anything according to context. The context, what is before and what is after is important to me, and to the proper understanding of the scriptures.

My wife and I prayed over these scriptures, and we believed that every one of them was true for me and my life.

If you would like a copy of the Healing Scriptures-Faith Builders PDF you may click on this link and sign up for the PDF and I will happily send it to you.

My Faith Is in the Middle-How My Faith Builders worked

I needed to put everything into action. Getting my faith activated was important to me. I learned many years ago, that God can’t drive a parked car.

In this case, I picked out a few scriptures that I could believe on for me, and then my wife and I prayed these scriptures. We believed these to be true for me right now.

Again everything that was being done by us was putting our faith right smack dab in the middle of this whole medical situation.

As we did that, and every day after that as we continued to believe, we added thankfulness and praise to God Almighty and to Jesus and thanked Him for my position in the righteousness of God as a Born Again Believer.

My Walk Started and What Followed

At this point in time, I started getting measured for my radiation treatments. You know where they figure out all of the measurements for where the radiation is getting aimed at in my body. The tumor was going to be targeted from multiple angles.

My radiation treatment each day was 22 minutes and I know for sure that the radiation machine stopped at least 10 times.

So that is 10 times that it stopped…. aimed…. and shot. Then it would stop and everything would then move to the next position. Then it was rinse and repeat.

Now I do know it wasn’t that simple, but I made it that simple, so that I could handle the 22 minutes each day.

I had to go through 27 of these treatments. For more reading on these radiation treatments, you may go to my post titled How to Get Through the Radiation Treatments for Colorectal Cancer.

What Exactly Did I Do To Put My Faith in the Middle

This whole thing is mental, will power and belief. I needed to kick the fear out of any equation. There wasn’t any way that I could fear, doubt or even say anything negative.

You see once I committed to a fact (which is a scripture) It is written, then I had to believe it was true for me.

You see that’s where the rubber meets the road. Could I do that? Could I stay with the belief, have no fear, speak no negative, and just keep telling myself that I was the well and the enemy of this world was trying to get me to accept cancer, to accept all the side effects that I was told might happen?

I was already healed by Jesus when he went to the cross for me, a believer. 

Isaiah 53:3-5 reads

3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

So I was already the healed. But getting back what he said He took it all on so that I could be totally free from all sin and death.

Practical Tips of Faith

So an example would be that I read the scriptures a couple of times a day. Then when I was doing treatments or when I visited the cancer doctors I would expect a good report. And you know what, I received several good reports throughout the 364-day process I lived through.

I would get told things such as:

• “I see the tumor shrinking really well. We are right on target, and you appear to be doing really well handling the side effects that patients usually experience with the radiation.”
• “You are responding very well. I would put you in the top 95 percentile for all the patients and how they handle these side affects.”
• “You seem very calm with everything that you have been going through. Many patients will show a bit of anxiety by now”
• You appear to be in my upper 90% of patients in dealing with the chemo side effects that most people are affected by.”

So as you can see, we claimed that the side effects would be minimal and that I would totally healed of cancer. I was and I am.

I would visualize being cancer free. I would listen to Praise and Worship music while I was under going the radiation treatments, 27 of them in total.

I did have the tumor get burned into submission And it had no sign of cancer in the biopsy after the removal and the colon cancer surgery I went through.

My faith did get me through the nearly year of treatment plans. I don’t even want to think about where I would be now. I am very grateful for my results.

You Can Do This Too

You can make your claims using the Bible verses as I did. It has nothing to do with me, but everything thing to do with the Word of God. Bless you as you move forward with your walk of faith.

George Drum

myostomyis.com

You Need To Be Prepared to Care For Mental Health of a Colostomy Patient

I had my colon cancer surgery in December of 2013. 

The mental health of a colostomy patient was as far from my thinking as the east is from the west. It just never occurred to me that the mental health of a colostomy patient was that big a deal.

I look back now and it didn’t take but a couple of weeks after I got home, for me to realize fully that there was a whole side to this situation that I wasn’t entirely prepared to handle.

The Two Sides of Mental Health of a Colostomy Patient

Caring for the colostomy patient is largely a mental health issue. Having a stoma can lead to depression as well as all the other second thoughts, and doubts you start having.

Side One: From Thanksgiving 2013 through to my release from the hospital following my surgery which was Monday Afternoon, December 16, That time period was controlled by the doctors and nurses that were involved in preparing me for the surgery.

I simply followed directives and I was places I needed to be when I needed to be there.  But then once I got home It was only a little over a week until Christmas.

Side Two: You will find out there are things in your mindset that will take more than a few months to effectively work through. These things are self-doubts and fears about how you are perceived by family, friends, and strangers from now on.

Some of these things I still am working on even after 4 years. Mental health for a colostomy patient is important and needs to be taken seriously.

Now I Was Home, the Changes Started to Work On Me

We were bustling with Christmas activity at home. So while I was recovering from my 6 hour-plus major surgery, I still didn’t have very much time, by myself where I needed to be thinking about nor, was I doing much of anything that was directed as my own choice. The family was doing this, we needed to go here etc. You get the picture.

So I would say that by roughly January 4, 2014, I was fully in the mode of “What to Heck has just happened to me”.

I was now involved in a really different life with changes that were totally brand new to me….. I was struggling with many things by then. I finally figured out that this was going to be a real mindset challenge. Unlike anything, I had thought about previously.

One Month After Surgery-Psychological Impact of Stoma

So next I am having to start preparing for the next steps the doctors had set up, to get me healthy again.

Next up was healing of surgical incisions, my surgery to have a Medi-port placed in my chest, and the chemo treatments were getting planned and set up.

My job was healing and now I was realizing my biggest job was dealing with the following mental side issues. So I am experiencing the psychological impact of having a stoma.

Here is my list as I saw it.

• I needed to find the right set of pouching. The size and style that I was comfortable with.
• I needed to create a travel bag for myself.
• I was working with my wardrobe. What I would wear now, and how I dressed now to be effective(to be able to get to my pouch easily)and also be comfortable wearing the clothes
  
• I was leery of traveling away from the home. I lacked confidence in my ability to deal with the actions necessary to take care of myself in a foreign setting
• My self-image had taken a whipping. I felt as though everyone noticed my ostomy
• I was really concerned about how my wife would view me now, with the big changes to me physically

These are a few things I was dealing with mentally. Over and over again in my mind. It seemed that everything was full of uncertainty.

I would also like to interject at this time, that the practical side of caring for your ostomy is covered in my blog post titled, “Colostomy Maintenance My First Job‘ which is about my first month, to a month and a half, after I get home from my surgery.

You may go here for this article about my experience.

Stoma and Depression-I Felt That I Was Very Alone

I did feel all alone, like I was on an island. I didn’t know another soul who had an ostomy. You think you are a freak. The stoma is new to me so having a stoma and depression made perfect sense to me.

You are so different than most people, but truthfully, they don’t have any clue you are different, and you are thinking that they see you that easily, or thatyou stick out like a sore thumb.

I hope that makes sense to you. Sounds kind of crazy right?I was feeling lost and depressed at times.

As I moved on, and chatted with my home nurse, my wife, and my family, I was realizing that most of all of these things were all in my head. Other people around me, didn’t notice, didn’t care or whatever. You fill in the blank….

This Article Is Written Because a Meme Struck Home

I was looking at my Facebook account last night and the following meme was published (shared) by a friend of mine. Now realize no ill will is intended by this meme, but a point of how badly people spell words today is the point here.

So after looking at this meme you can see why it is going around and being shared. It is kinda of light-hearted humor. But It smacked me of just how easily, sometimes…. maybe someone can smell my colon.

That is a real possibility. But Why Did I almost take offense to this? Well, because to a person with an ostomy, none of this is funny.

It is one of things that we most worry about, all day, every day.

No matter how good we have gotten at taking care of ourselves, something could happen. It really could. Then What?

Well if you have an ostomy you understand. Other people don’t know, and they don’t even know this exists.

Yes caring for mental health of a colostomy patient is a real thing, and not to be taken lightly.

Here’s is a real scientific research study where they do show that there really is a mental side that is big and really does need to be addressed by the ostomy owner.

Study Proves Mental Changes Are Necessary

A study entitled “Adjusting to bodily change following stoma formation: a phenomenological study” was conducted by Gabrielle Thorpe, Anthony Arthur, and Maggie McArthur from the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK in 2015.

In this study here is the official conclusion statement. “Stoma formation can undermine an individual’s sense of embodied self. A concept of embodiment is proposed to enable the experience of living with a new stoma to be understood as part of a wider process of re-establishing a unity between body, self and world.”

Furthermore they concluded that “In defining a framework of care, individuals with a new stoma can be assisted to adapt to and accept a changed sense of embodied self.” Okay so in reading the study they found out what I am telling you from my first hand experience.

A person with a new stoma, can and will feel out of the ordinary. They are very self conscious of themselves, and they are now searching for a new identity where they can be comfortable again. And this does take time, to define, and to adjust too.

So if you are struggling then you are normal. You will struggle, but others are here for you. You Will Find A new identity and comfort level with yourself.

So in examining the results of this study on 12 stoma recipients over a twelve month period of time following the surgery for stoma formation.

Read More About Ostomy Life-View Related Posts Below

What I Eat-How Food Affects My Ostomy Pouch
How Food Affects My Ostomy Pouch is a personal detailed list of foods I eat every day. Using this list I comment on how each food affects my ostomy pouch.

Colostomy Clothing Was Immediately on My Mind

A very large roadblock in returning to normalcy was finding clothing. Colostomy clothing requires certain things be present to make them work for you.

George Drum

myostomyis.com

Gearing Up For My Radiation Treatments

It took me a little while before my radiation treatments started. After the diagnosis, and after I had completed all of the examinations they needed I was ready for the radiation.

At least I thought I was ready. But what did I know about it? Well, actually nothing, exactly nothing! So what about now? Ask me now.

I know now what I am sharing on this site. So let’s begin to un-peel this onion, for you. Here is everything I know about the radiation treatments I received.

Please remember I am not for or against any prescribed treatments. To my best observation, it sure looks like every patient has their own diagnosis and treatment plan. This is what I experienced.

The Pre Radiation Measurements

So about two weeks before my actual radiation plan started I came to the Sands Cancer Center and I had a session where I was measured.

Well what exactly is this? I had to disrobe and lay down on a bed surface which is actually the same size as the bed that I laid down on for each treatment.

This took about twenty minutes of time and was a separate visit to the hospital and the cancer center. They measured everything they needed to know about my size and mapped out locations for all of the radiation beams to be used.

The Radiation Treatments Started

My first radiation visit was scheduled for a Wednesday.  My plan called for visits every day Monday-Friday. I also was told that the number required was 27 visits.

Everything is well planned out and you just need to show up every scheduled visit.

So I put my time in and the treatments started in August and ended by the middle of September that year.

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What a Radiation Session Is Like

Usually, you will wait for a few minutes in the patient area. You must always check in with the people at the front desk. They will then let the radiation techs know you are there. Your arrival is announced.

A lab person will then show up say hi, and then lead you back into the radiation room. This room is actually a very large room.

Your radiation bed is in the middle of the room.

It will take a couple of minutes to get your shoes off and then climb onto the radiation bed.

Once I was on the bed I needed to get down to just my underwear in the lower portions of my body.

So I wore sweatpants every day, so that I could lift up my hips and pull them down to just my underwear. For me, the radiation was being directed at a tumor near my anus, so my groin area was the target basically.

Then I was covered up by the tech with a light blanket so that my private’s area was not exposed, plus the room temperature in this room is rather cool.

Then I was told that I had to lay as still as I could for the duration of the session that day.

The bed as you can see in the pictures is very narrow and it is very flat and rather hard to lay onto for 20 minutes.

After you are set up then everyone will leave the room except you. You are the subject of the radiation gun at that moment in time.

They Leave the Room, It Begins

With all of this being new, I paid extra attention to everything that was going on around me. The session was around 20 minutes in total. I believe the actual radiation was somewhere around 16-18 minutes. At first, that seemed like a long time.

The machine turns 360 degrees all around you in that time span. The machine is quiet except for starting and rotating into the next exact location.

Then there would be a quiet period then a noise from moving then quiet then another noise that came as you were actually being shot with the radiation then it clicked a few times then dead silence. Very quiet, then  it moved a small increment again.

After the first session, I took a headset and used my MP3 player to listen to praise and worship music or music from the late sixties and seventies that I really enjoy listening to. It made the time go by faster for me.

It was easier than just laying there hearing all of the sounds of your treatments being done.

The Flight of the Navigator

During these radiation sessions, they (the equipment) always reminded me of the Disney movie from 1986, called the Flight of the Navigator.

In this movie, there was an alien with the “light shaped head” who was the Navigator.

That character in the movie always was remembered by me in comparison to the radiation machine’s radiation shooting area….

My Top 5 Radiation Treatment Tips

During these sessions, I came up with 5 top tips for the radiation treatments, that I would stress to pay attention tofor another person going through what I went through.

1. Trust the program, be relaxed and take instructions well
2. Show up. It is a process. Stay with it. You will not want to stop and go from day to day. Wanting to stop today, that is your emotions, but you made the decision to do this, so just do them.
3. Pray and Trust in the Lord. He will take you by the hand and be with you.
4. Stay Hydrated, if you need salves, or ointments use them. If you have anti-nausea pills take them. keep on top of any side effects, both medically and with your attitude. You will very easily get dehydrated so keep drinking water, it will help a lot.
5. Read Positive Books

• The Bible-The New King James Version
• The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale, and 4 great books by Pastor Robert Schuller. The books by Pastor Schuller that are great are
• Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do!
• The Be (Happy) Attitudes: 8 Positive Attitudes That Can Transform Your Life
• Move Ahead With Possibility Thinking
• If It’s Going to Be, It’s Up to Me: The Eight Proven Principles of Possibility Thinking

Putting positive in can only help you remain positive in your mind as you are trusting the treatments to do their thing.

&

The NKJV, Holy Bible, Larger Print, PaperbackMove Ahead with Possibility ThinkingThe Power of Positive ThinkingTough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do!If It’s Going to Be, It’s Up to Me: The Eight Proven Principles of Possibility ThinkingThe Be (Happy) Attitudes: 8 Positive Attitudes That Can Transform Your Life

Getting Through Radiation

So I found that getting through the radiation treatments was very tough emotionally. You had to stay focused all the time on just getting through the next session.

Trying not to look to far down the road. During my 27 sessions over the 6 weeks plus that it took, I did have two updates on the treatments.

Doctor B as he was called said that the radiation was doing as they had hoped. It was shrinking the tumor and he also said that I seemed to be handling the side effects pretty well.

I simply would say “yes prayer does work”, as I smiled at the word of the report.

Was I that confident, well yes and no. Since I had never been through this before, I fully trusted the medical team with my treatments and I fully trusted God with my life. Was it easy, no, but it was do-able.

George Drum

myostomyis.com