One of the best traditions that we have at ostomy camp is our final campfire. It’s a time for everyone to talk about the experience they had that week at camp, send love to someone who couldn’t make it that year, or tell everyone there how much they mean to them.

In front of the campfire this year, someone came up and said a little speech. This person talked about how camp was where we all felt comfortable, happy, and secure with who we are. Camp was where it didn’t matter what we had, because at there, everyone was accepted.

Camp, they said, was the way the rest of the world should be and that we had the power to make it so.

I completely agree.

We do have the power to make the world as amazing as ostomy camp.

As individuals, we can make the world as accepting and comfortable with differences by talking about them and being comfortable with them ourselves. We can teach those who don’t know and we can show that there is never anything to be ashamed about.

I don’t think I talk about this enough, but this campaign was created to do just that. It was made to teach those who didn’t know about ostomies what they are and that we, as ostomates, or we, as people who know about ostomies, completely accept them.

It is our duty, as individuals, to make the world like camp.

Tell people about your ostomy or, if you don’t have one, tell people that you know about them or know someone who has one. Explain what it is, show them the Facebook group, and show them the website.

Then, tell me about it!

I’ve decided that I want to name these, what I’m calling, “Ostomy Ambassadors”.  

As I see them, I will blog about them and say what they have done to help spread the word. So far I already have 3 I want to write about because they have come to me and told me what they had done. They also told me how great they felt by doing it.

So to all of my followers- Invite people to the Facebook page, show off the website, tell everyone you know about what “ostomy” means, and tell me about it! Write it on the Facebook wall, or post it here, or send me a message- anything.

Do whatever you can to be an Ostomy Ambassador

Thanks guys :]

My dad passed away.

Still can't believe it's been a year. Well I still can't believed it even happened.

I don't really feel like writing a whole thing today. I just wanted to give him the honor of being mentioned. I know he would be proud of me for this blog, so this is the least I can do.

For those who are new to the blog and don't know the story of what happened to my dad, you can read the blog I kept up for him during his journey here

A whileeee back I was asked to be featured about Uncover Ostomy in the Phoenix magazine, a publication put out by the UOAA.

I never blogged about it here... because I was waiting to get the copy of it to read. I never did get a copy so I figureddddd they still hadn't printed it.

Well after Michael, a fellow ostomate, posted the Phoenix advertisement on the Facebook page I stopped and thought... wait a second... Did they print it?

Did some google searching and there it was! June 2010 with me on the cover. Cool!

Guess I was featured haha.

Well just wanted to send a shoutout to them and a big thanks for doing that!

Also wantd to give a shoutout to my fellow classmate Leah, who actually wrote the article that was published. She's awesome!

If you haven't read it already, or want to read more from them, you should order it :]

<3

[PS: Where's my copy?? haha]

Well it’s safe to say that having an ostomy definitely does not stop me from being in normal relationships… and dealing with normal stupid relationship drama.

Then again, I don’t know if you could have ever called my relationship with Mike normal.

I’m sure some of you remember my blogs over the past year that rambled on about how he had broken up with me again and again and again. He had many different reasons for it each time he had done it, but the most recent reason that had used the last few times was his ridiculous obsession with success. He had some personal issue where he needed to make tons of money and have a great job to know that he was a good person. He’d break up with me over that, then realize a week or two later that he made a mistake. He’d claim he would think about me all the time and that having someone you care about around is more important then anything else. He was just saying that. When he broke up with me in May it was the same thing. It was because of the foreseeable 100 hour weeks and his inability to focus on a person he had spoken of many times before. I was done.

And I was. I moved on, dated around, and enjoyed myself. It was weird to be dating again but it showed me even more than having an ostomy didn’t stop guys from being interested. I’d add them to Facebook, they would see my profile picture [same as the Facebook fanpage] and they’d still ask me out. I really forgot how ok with ostomies people are. Well, at least the people I come across.

Anyways, so I was fine. Moving on etc etc. And after 2 months of no contact with him [well, minus the text or something here and there to tell me how “proud he was” of me] he started emailing me constantly. I told him time after to time to stop, to just leave me alone. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. I told him to get over me, move on, focus on something else, but he refused, saying he was wrong and how he realized that I meant more to him than any job or amount of money could mean. We started communication again. He would send me email after email or text after text of how he had changed. He promised that everything was different. At first I didn’t believe him. Well, why would I believe him after everything that he’d done before? But as the weeks went on he started telling me all these things in his life that he was doing that he used to make fun of, or swear he’d never do. It really had seemed like he had changed, and for the most part, he had. Eventually…

I gave in.

We got back together.

And you know what? Things were actually perfect. I was in a normal relationship without fighting, without constant breaking up, with happiness and new and exciting things. It was great.

But, of course, good things never last.

While we started to talk again, Mike had been accepted into the business school at my university. This was one of the things that had caused a strain with us before. Him getting in meant that that strain would be gone, I thought. But this was a big deal, especially for him. It was everything he wanted. His future was right in the palm of his hands because of this school. He was going to do everything he could to make sure he didn’t let the opportunity pass.

And that he did.

Last night he told me that he just couldn’t be with me. He couldn’t balance me and school. He needed to put all of his energy into his studies so that he could be successful, and make money. All he ever wanted in life was money. He knew that he would be giving me up, giving up our future, and he knew that this was going to be it with us.  No matter how much he loved me, he said, this was his personal issue that he could never get rid of.

Even though he said he had.

I’m going to be honest and admit that I feel pretty stupid right now. I don’t often admit that, especially in public, but I did make a stupid mistake. I knew that this would happen again but I ignored it. I also made the mistake in letting you in on that part of my life when I should have known it was going to disappear again.

I’m referring to the blog I wrote about the lavaliere that he gave me. I wrote it mostly because he wanted to feel a part of my life and I knew he knew that I always write about things in my life that are important to me. So I did because he was. Though, I guess now, I’m taking it back.

Anyways, thanks for reading. I kind of needed to vent it all out, you know? It just makes me so mad that someone who spent 4 years trying to be with me because they were so “in love with me” decides that money’s more important.

I just hope when he’s old and grey and he comes home to his empty nest with just a pile of money, it keeps him as warm as I did.

Anyways, at least through all this it proved that I still deal with normal everyday things that every other girl my age does, ostomy or not.

Sometimes though, I wish my ostomy did make a difference.

Maybe it would help filter people out haha.

<3



I just wanted to take the time to send a shout out to John on his birthdayyy

For those who don't know who John is, he is what I like to call, the "producer" of Uncover Ostomy.

He was the one who helped me build the concept of UO into what it is today. He helped take my concept and make it real. He organized the photoshoot, he made the website, he's thought of concepts to put into the site, and he's pretty much managed the entire thing.

He is also lso constantly putting up with my whining whenever I need something :]

He's a great guy and this site wouldn't exist without his hard work.

Happy Birthday John, hope it's great!