Blue Days

Feeling Like a Not-So-Perfect You (or Life) Can Get You Down—And That Means Everyone
Some Work, Some Courage, Some Gratitude, and Bootstraps Can Help You to Rise Up and Above

 My friend and I were talking recently. He was one of those guys that would poke a little fun at me about my ostomy. You can probably see by now that, post-ostomy, I like that kind of interaction. It means I’m still the same old Paul...to everyone as well as to me. 

Anyway, this particular day, out of nowhere, he got a little serious on me. “Hey, man,” he said. “Do you ever get depressed or upset, you know, because of the bag?” 

The question startled me, in part because, down talk seemed a bit out of character for him, and really because I never think too much about what my mom would call “feeling blue.” But it got me thinking, and we talked about it for a while. For example, my life had done a total 180 since a year ago last summer. Granted, since my ileostomy, the episodes of stomach pain were thankfully a thing of the past. Still, the solution had taken me to a place that was definitely beyond what I had allowed myself to consider as the solution. In fact, it was the radical solution, that would put an end to my pain.

 Looking Back: New Self-Awareness

 I thought back to the days immediately following my surgery, those days when I had such trouble changing the bag. Those days that went on for 6 months when I found difficulty to even leave the house. I had never thought of those as down or blue days…just awkward days when this rather strange appendage that was now mine encumbered me and potentially presented some problems if and when I had to move around outside my house.

 In fact, I hadn’t just been feeling awkward. What I was actually feeling was down. Even beyond those early days as an ostomate, I was suddenly taking a look at my mood since the new year had started. In early January, I’d been suffering with a skin irritation that was really giving me some problems. Plus, my wife, Michelle, and I had bought and were renovating a new house and selling our old. There was a lot going on, and I felt the pressure. Where it showed up the most was the way I suddenly again seemed all thumbs in changing my ostomy. Because of that struggle, I was feeling irritated, mostly at myself, and pretty inept. And yes, you could say I was struggling not only physically but emotionally. I hadn’t even realized it, but, yes, I was feeling down.

 Feeling down. Blue. I had never thought about myself in those terms before, in part because I’ve never seen myself as a person who lived an emotional roller coaster life. But my new self-awareness lingered even after that conversation with my friend. The other thing I realized was as easily as I fell into struggle, almost subconsciously and intuitively I pushed through it and bounced back. That by no means makes me a hero. A born pragmatist, it’s just intuitively been the natural thing for me to do. You know, you have you have two choices when bad moods hit you. You either just let it flow through you and feel the blueness and be annoyed, live it, be resilient and bounce back. Or you can dwell and go deeper into a hole.

People and Passions: Help That Turns Things Around

 In all fairness that ability to work my way out of it is not all on me. I am really lucky to be married to Michelle, who has an incredibly positive spirit. When I start criticizing myself for not being on top of my game, she comes back at me with a challenge to be tough. This jolts me out of negativity mighty quickly.

 I’m also lucky because I have a great family. When my sister and I were growing up, my parents were always right there to help us identify the blocks holding us back and the things that were helping us to move forward.

 Then, too, there’s Ostoh, the device I’ve created and the company I’ve started. To be able to turn a personal health blip and my tech career into a medical device innovation is pretty exciting.

Take Charge, Feel Gratitude, Use Those Trusty Bootstraps

 The other thing my conversation with my friend made me think about is the common denominator of being down. Things go wrong in everybody’s life. I was listening in on a conference call in which someone was speaking of her depths of despair at her unhappy marriage and her near destitution when she bolted. But her achievement in facing reality, risking everything to take charge of her life was the psychological and emotional springboard that pulled her back up.

 Another friend was recently speaking about someone she’d met through networking. This 20-something guy is on the autism spectrum and has Asperger’s syndrome. She described him as open, readily putting out there that he’s on the spectrum. She says he’s unafraid to admit that despite his successful work life and his many certifications in key educational and technological areas, he goes through periods of  struggle. Yet bottom line, he’s grateful…grateful for his life, his family, his work, his faith—and the Yankees.

 And, finally, there are my fellow ostomates.  

• People who have worn an ostomy bag for 30 or more years and had limited opportunity to talk about their condition because social norms prevented them from speaking freely

• People who missed out on high school and sports and dating and fun because of pain and weight loss and being sick in bed over and over again

• People who felt ostracized either sadly because other people made them feel weird or because of their own anxieties

 And then there are the mental bootstraps, that way we pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, that way that on our own we rise to the occasion to pull ourselves out of negative thinking. It’s not always easy, but it is doable as one ostomate showed us on Reddit:  

I traded something that I couldn’t overcome by effort and will for something that requires some attention and preparation. Your body is healing and starting to work again…there’s nothing stopping you from doing whatever you want to do except that squishy thing in your head.

-          Anonymous

For Every Something a Some Way Out

 There are all kinds of small and big somethings most everyone faces daily. Thankfully, at the same time, there are all kinds of techniques we can use to pull ourselves out of it. And if we can’t do it on our own, there’s no shame but rather empowerment that can be gained by going to therapy.

 There will be bumps in the road, missteps and imperfections that rise up to challenge us—ostomates and the rest of the world notwithstanding. We have to meet them head on, and some days we will meet them more forcefully than others. It might be easier said than done, but the important idea is to just keep moving forward and to keep on keeping on as best we can.

Life has an unusual way of pushing us to where we need to go. To me, that’s what Ostoh is all about. 

 If you’re interested in learning more about Ostoh and how it might increase your comfort, email us at hello@ostoh.com or use our contact form. Our goal is to make your ostomy life easier and make you feel what it means to be yourself.