A Colostomy War Story

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     Today we’ll go all the way back to 2001, the year I got my colostomy.  Nothing I ever thought I would go through, it changed the way I viewed my body and how I felt about myself.  I dealt with mine by reading message boards and talking to other people who had one.  Most of those were permanent and I knew mine was only temporary.  Still, it’s hard to feel sexy or even clean with a baggie of poop at your waist.

     It took a minute, but I did get to where I was able to deal with it.  Of course, as in most things I had to learn a lot the hard way.  You still get gas with a colostomy, you just don’t expel it the usual way.  Your  bag would fill with gas and you would have to “burp” it.  Once I started recovering from the surgery I would burp my bag in the garage.  Because of where it is in your digestive track, the smell was something you thought you would have to file an EPA report on.  The timing of any colostomy related events was never in my control, and in my oh so intelligent manner of being, I never learned to do anything the easy way.  I always chose the hard way.  Rudy told me not to do it, he told me that nothing good would come of it.  I did it anyway.  I had such a craving for sauerkraut and I figured since I was alone it certainly wouldn’t hurt to indulge my craving.  I’ll just say this, when I watched my bag fill with a category 5 tornado of gas, that when it flew off of me landing on the wall on the other side of the living room I was not surprised.  Mortified?  In a word yes.  I was so so happy to be home alone.

What’s Been Going On

     My family and I are going through some really challenging issues for the past couple of months.  I don’t know how much I want to post about it and have it out there, so I’m just going to write and see where it goes.

     My husband went into a business partnership with his father several years ago and the consequences of that decision are still haunting us on a very personal level.  My father in law is a classic malignant narcissist personality disorder and a host of who knows what other cluster B personality disorders.  This man has robbed us of so much money and is trying his best to drive us out of our home.  I’ve been married to Rudy for 15 years and I’ve always been treated as an outsider.  My husband has already mourned and grieved the loss of his father and as far as he’s concerned, the man is dead to him.

     He’s writing anonymous letters to the Sheriff claiming that we have loud obnoxious drinking parties all the time, and really when he called me (the sheriff is a friend of ours) he thought it was hysterical that the police have never been called to our house.  They write that we have no carpet on our floors,  the wife doesn’t work (that’s me) I only go outside at night and the neighbors are selling me drugs.  Rudy and I have made a point of trying to be positive people who have a positive influence on the people in our lives.  We try to be good, kind and giving people.  We have moments of pure joy in each other’s company, and we really like each other.  His granddaughter that he raised, my niece is staying with us because he beat the shit out of her said she has never see a couple who really liked each other before.  Every relationship that she bas borne witness to is a couple willing to fight to the death about any and every topic.  It is so hard to explain the dysfunction in this family, I only know that my own seems like the Brady Bunch by comparison.

     I try very hard to not care what this man’s opinion of me is and for the most part I succeed at that.  I always brought pies to their home on holidays and I didn’t know that as soon as we left he would throw my pies in the garbage claiming I was so riddled with STD’s that he didn’t want his grandchildren getting sick.  Oddly he always at my ham but he told the kids that my hands didn’t touch it so it was okay to eat.  I don’t know how he thought the thing got in the baking dish.  I must have waved a wand and it sprouted wings and flew in.  I’ve never been the object of such bitter, vile and focused hatred before.  I’m not in a position that I can afford to expend any energy on it.  One of the things Rudy and I figured out is that I get sicker when I’m stressed.

     Such vile things are being said about me and my family that it sickens me.  In the end my husband and our wonderful friends keep telling me that the people who know and love me know that we’re dealing with an evil man that’s full of shit and why should I care about the people who don’t know us.

     Now, I think I’ve said too much, but I want this blog to be real, and honest.  I want it to be about who I am and sometimes that means being vulnerable and opening yourself up.  On my last blog, my evil in-laws posted some horrific things about me culminating in their last post before I shut it down.  They said I should do my husband and his family a favor and swallow a bullet.  Kind of hard not to take that shit personally.  I’m determined to take the high road and be a better person.  Thanks for reading and comments are always appreciated.