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.

Eat Pray Love

I haven't actually read the book but I decided to go to India to 'find myself'.

First stop is Rishikesh, in Uttarakhand about 6 hours north of Delhi, where there of lots of ashrams catering for westerners. As far as I can tell, an ashram is basically a yoga training retreat with some meditation and Hindu traditions thrown in. I've been to a few yoga classes back home and have been using the 'down dog' app to practise at home but I do struggle with the bending at the waist - I empty before starting a practice but as soon as a little bit of output or air is in there, the bending squishes my bag and causes leaks. I only brought enough bags with me to change once every 2 days so I will have to keep an eye on this. Especially as the vegetarian diet means more than usual output...

After a few close calls I had the idea of turning the bag 90 degrees so it wouldnt get so squashed - this is the way that stealth belt works and I have brought one of those with me. This helped a little however the most effective arrangement was just to not wear the Comfizz band (that I absolutely always wear so I didn't really think about not wearing it) and have really loose Indian style trousers. It's this that really worked the best.

On another note; white water rafting down the Ganges was a disappointing experience as the rapids were not very wild but the difficult things was, of course, the lack of toilet facilities and the waiting around for Indian organisation and the huge bowl of porridge I had for breakfast that day. My bag had got quite full by the end of the session and I found it difficult to paddle hard for fear of causing a leak.

Surfing

I recently tried surfing for the first time since my surgery. I was pretty anxious because I didn't know how the bag would cope with all the pressing against the board and whether there would be toilets etc. Turns out surfing is a lot of fun, but I found that it's not exactly easy to do with a stoma. The warm up exercises were the first difficulty; many of the stretches were bending over so, like yoga, this often causes leaks for me. It seemed to be ok until we got in the water and it was less than half an hour in when I could feel the Brava seal that I use was coming lose and there would be a leak onto my skin. The actual bag held up though so there was no 'proper' leaking. During the lunch break I found that there were no toilets on the beach so I took a napkin and headed behind the dunes to find somewhere private-ish. It wasn't as bad as I feared.
Then in the afternoon session I could feel my bag getting full again so headed out of the water and took my wetsuit off and thankfully it was mainly air, so I burped on the beach and went back in. Had to change as soon as I got home.
All in all it wasn't easy but a lot of fun and definitely worth giving it a try. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to become a pro surfer though :(

It's me being a surfer!

Update

Since the naked bike ride I feel like a new man. Just a few months ago I felt so insecure and uncomfortable telling people about my bag but now I feel comfortable getting it out at the lido, the beach, skinny dipping, wandering around a shared room. I can talk about it without embarrassment and sometimes I initiate conversation about it. On a personal note, I've started to feel like I'm educating the female half of the world about ostomies one at a time ;)
If any of you out there are struggling with your body image and insecurity like I was, I recommend talking about it to safe people and then getting it out as much as possible,  a little at a time.
Regarding the travels, I've been hanging out in Europe, not really travelling around that much but hitting up a few places in between being in the UK. So far I ticked off Estonia, Latvia, Istanbul and Portugal, heading to Spain next then I've booked a flight to India in September. The plan is to 'find myself' there. Updates on that to come!
In the UK I've done a few cool things, went to the purple wings ball and met lots of fellow ostomates, including Stephie who asked me to write for her blog here.
I also did some hypnotherapy, meditation, yoga, an NLP workshop and and a social freedom day to help me be more confident. 

London Naked Bike Ride

A beautiful girl has told me recently that I 'should' be more confident, less insecure about my bag and care less about what people think. So a few days after that a friend mentioned that the London naked bike ride was happening soon, I thought this would be a good opportunity to get right out of my comfort zone and get my bag out in public and hopefully get more comfortable in my body.
To start with, this was a useful conversation to have with my friend because his ex, who I also know, has a bag and this is another ostomate that I now know in London (I am hoping to start more of a community here).
Secondly, of course I was anxious to first take my clothes off, I think most people were, but I particularly noticed that a guy pointed at me and I assumed he was pointing at the bag and saying to his friends 'look at that wierd thing' or something like that. But the twist is that the guy came over to talk to me later in the ride and told me that I am really good looking and he was pointing at me to tell his friends how hot I am! Talk about challenging my beliefs!
Next I told a journalist my story whilst we were riding and I explained that I was doing it to be more comfortable with my body. He seemed to be relatively interested in my story.
The rest of the ride was fun, but pretty uneventful, no one else mentioned the bag to me.
Overall I'm glad I did it but we'll see how much difference it makes to my confidence and self acceptance.