Kickboxing part 2

I emailed my contact in the Product Specialist team at Coloplast in the UK who was helping me to try out some new bags while I was at home, and I asked her if she had any contact details in Thailand. She promptly emailed back with her Thai colleague's email address and I fired off an email asking where I could get hold of Coloplast bags, but this was about 9pm on a Friday Thai time and I didn't expect to hear anything until Monday at the earliest. By Wednesday I still hadn't heard anything so I retried my UK contact, who very helpfully arranged to have some bags sent from the UK! I was surprised and very grateful of this generous support.

Comfizz on the other hand were not apologetic or helpful at all about their defective product and simply suggested that I purchase another shield. I had a go at patching up my shield with paper clips and medical tape, which has been somewhat effective - see picture below;

Kickboxing with a bag

As part of my quest to make myself a more masculine man and get in tip top shape for the next photoshoot I've headed back to Thailand to do at least 2 weeks of kickboxing and MMA training. I'm now 3 days into the training and, whilst all my muscles hurt, I have a slight headache from being punched in the head and a few minor cuts and scrapes, the most annoying thing is how difficult it is to get the bags to stay on properly when doing the training. What with the heat and sweating profusely from the training, the bag seems to be coming off after every session. This is causing my some anxiety because I only brought enough bags for using 1 every day, and I might well run out at this rate.

Another annoyance is the comfishield I bought from Comfizz. For those of you who haven't used Comfizz's stoma protection range, there are now two options, the level 3 hernia belt which comes with a stoma guard and as the name suggests also provides support for protection against hernias and their new comfishield which is basically just the stoma guard with a softer base and no hernia protection. You can see from this picture that the stoma guard with the comfishield has holes in whereas the ones that comes with the hernia belt does not. Unfortunately I brought the punctured shield with me and in the very first MMA training, when someone fell on top of me, it cracked right down the middle. I think this is because of the holes.

Jasmine Stacey Collection

My friend Jasmine, who I met when I modelled for the White Rose Collection ostomy underwear photoshoot, produces her own line of super sexy lingerie for ostomates under the brand Jasmine Stacey Collection and has just launched a crowdfunder campaign in order to help her to expand her lingerie line. More relevant to me, this will also allow her to design some underwear for men. I recently tried some underwear from Vanilla Blush, which was fine but nothing special, so I have high hopes that Jasmine can bring to men's ostomy underwear the same combo of sexy allure and functionality that defines her lingerie line.

Colifoam

Every now and then I get some inflammation in the 3 cms of rectum that I have left, I used to keep it under control with azacol suppositories but a few years back I found that hydrocortisone rectal foam called Colifoam worked much better and I only had to use it once a year or so. Unfortunately while I was in India this inflammation started up and I started bleeding from my bum, I went to the small pharmacy in Dharamsala but of course they didn't have any and directed me to the hospital. It's only a small amount of bleeding so I decided it wasn't worth it and that I would wait until I got back to the UK in about 3 weeks time. I got my old GP to send a prescription to my old pharmacy in Canary Wharf and headed over there on the way to crash at my friend's apartment, who kindly put me up for a few days when I got back. Unfortunately the pharmacy had messed up and lost my prescription and later told me they couldn't even get hold of Colifoam, despite being the largest pharmacy chain in the UK. I vaguely remember that someone told me in the past that they had stopped making it. I was a bit concerned as I was only in London for the weekend and wouldn't be able to go back to my GP to get a different prescription for something similar. When I got back to my parents' place on the Monday I tried to get an emergency GP appointment but it turns out that they are even more unhelpful these days than they used to be. They just told me either that they didn't have any appointments or that I would have to come in and fill in some forms before being able to wait for an appointment. Luckily I then phoned around some pharmacies and managed to find one that had some supplies left. Turns out they had loads in stock because they bulk bought it, so I know where to go in a years time.

Zen and the art of sitting on the floor

After yoga and Hinduism I decided to stay in a silent Buddhist retreat in Dharamsala, learning how to achieve enlightenment. Ideally I wanted to do Vipassana but the places were sold out and earlier in the year I was recommended that I do this in England because it would be more comfortable. So this Buddhist retreat, called Tushita, sounded like a good alternative, and was better in some ways because it was only 7 days long, so less intense for my first meditation retreat, and we would be allowed out of the camp to go to the Dali Lama's teachings which were happening at his temple on 3 days of the course. During the application process for Tushita I wrote that I had a physical disability but it didn't ask for any more information than that. On registration day, just before the rooms were allocated, with 125 people huddled around, the course administrator asked if anyone had any medical conditions and again, just like at the white water rafting over a year ago, and before the breakthrough of cycling naked, I didn't raise my hand or say anything. It's weird but I didn't think until later that I might have been able to bag myself a really nice room by speaking up. When I got to the room allocation desk I was probably about halfway down the list. I asked if I could get a bed 'close to a western style toilet' and thankfully there was still one bed left in the 'garden room' which only had 2 beds in it. When I got to the room, the other guy who'd got there first had taken the bed that was reasonably comfortable looking and I had to take the mattress that was sunk to nothing and as hard as wood to sleep on.

In the gompa, which is the name for the meditation room, there were a few chairs and I managed to bag one for the first session while everyone was still in the confusion of a new territory, however by the second session my chair had been taken and I was relegated to the more usual sitting position of crossed legs on a cushion on the floor. Spending 4 to 6 hours sitting on the floor is not easy, I'll tell you that, and after a few days it was pretty uncomfortable.

The morning and evening silent meditation classes were somewhat nerve wracking as well - 125 people in a silent room and I knew at any moment my stoma could make a loud farting noise! Thankfully there weren't any particularly embarrassing occasions but the anxiety was there most of those times, making it difficult to meditate effectively!

Despite these inconveniences I found it interesting that most of the time I spend at the retreat I  felt somewhat contented and happy. This is prett unusual for me as am I often discontented or unhappy about something. I don't really know if it was the tranquil surroundings, the lazy days, or the fact that I could be around other people without being required to talk to them, that made me feel content but whatever it was, it was nice. Oh, and I enjoyed seeing and hearing the Dali Lama teach too, but I didn't really understand much of what he was saying, the main idea is that we should all be more compassionate to each other, which is something I can get on board with.

Next up, I'm heading back to Thailand for the Autumn/wintry months to get away from the cold and to do more kickboxing training.