There are a few things in life that I find to be essential. That can mean different things for many different people. I know that food and water are essential. I even think human contact and my family are essential to my life, but another thing that is essential to me is the ability to jog or to be active outside. This is because I end most of my days trail jogging or I start my day that way sometimes as well. It is a simple thing and it means so much to me because I am able to refocus my day and in a way my life each time I am out in the woods. It is destressing in all ways and allows me to even push myself and gain confidence in my own skill and that translates into a more confident day and a more healthy day because my body is working on better healthy. But one thing that scared me when I knew I was going to get an ostomy was that I would lose my ability to jog outside or even be active. That was my biggest fear and I am so glad that I was wrong about my fear.
Luckily, I live in 2020 and in the United States of America and that gives me the ability to really have the internet at almost any location in the country. I am able to research and look up almost any problem or topic and get real answers fast. This was what I did when I found out that I was going to get a stoma and I needed to know what it was going to do to my life. Now research is not an awesome way to know how to deal with my stoma on a day to day basis. To me only real life work and learning and failing was the only way. But I still learned so much about the ability that I was not going to lose.
I knew this right away because what I saw when I was looking online was people doing incredible things with a stoma. I saw so many people that were doing incredible amounts of running with a stoma and in fact they were pure professional athletes. There were bikers and runners and people who were running marathons. Then came the big kicker that gave me so much hope. I saw people doing Iron Man competitions with a stoma. I knew that I was not ever going to be able to do that in my entire life and yet here are people with stomas doing physical feets so much greater than what almost any regular human can even do.
So I knew that I was going to be able to get back into jogging. But it was a bit of a slow start for me and that was because my Doctor wanted me to grow muscles correctly and to heal from my surgery well. I followed his instructions to the letter and now I am trail jogging just like I was before. I picked up some amazing ostomy gear that I saw professionals using and luckily they use normal gear! The cost was nothing crazy and I love my life and my trail jogging. So have no fear life is good.
Ostomy Care Site 