Happy Goat Horror

Oh God.

So… yep. I’m telling this story.

I have many bizarre personal anecdotes, and I generally enjoy sharing them, but this one is sort of a doozy. Fair warning, this article is long, and I’m talking about severe physical injury, a medical procedure, and in true “me” style, the mental gymnastics of the trauma of dealing with it all. But fear not, I like to have a laugh, so you can at least expect some stupid puns. Also, some drawings. Though it still feels a bit weird to talk about, I can assure you that over a decade later, I’m fine now, so worry not.

I think the reason I’ve chosen to open up (da duh dum tschhhh) about this specific thing is because I’m hoping to normalise what I went through a bit. A lot of people deal with this procedure for a multitude of reasons outside of injury, and I think it’s worth talking about because I felt pretty alone when I was in the midst of this ordeal. Solidarity sisters, YaYa!

So, blah blah blah, I was in a car accident, ended up in intensive care and had to undergo several abdominal surgical procedures in one go (as well as a spinal operation because that snapped like a little twiggy twig – wtf spine?! You’re supposed to be my base! We’ll get to you in a different article…). My memory of intensive care is hazy, on account of all the awesome drugs. What’s important to know is that I basically had no idea what was going on until I was taken off sedatives and moved down to a regular ward, where I was more awake and lucid (but still on what I consider both the holy grail, and Satan of drugs, morphine).

So, in the first couple of days on the ward, a nurse I’ve never seen before comes in and goes, “Hi Kayleigh, I’m the stoma nurse. I’ve come to show you how to change your bag.”

“What bag?” I ask, perplexed, but smiling.

“Your colostomy bag,” she says, and I notice she’s carrying some odd supplies, the likes of which I’ve never seen.

“What’s a colostomy bag?” I ask, none the wiser, because in my twenty something years, I had never once heard the word ‘colostomy’, and I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about. There is an excruciating silence, during which I don’t know which one of us is more stressed.

“Hasn’t anyone talked to you about your injuries?” she eventually says, looking totally fucking horrified. I too, am now approaching horrified. I have some vague remnants of memory from intensive care, but I really can’t recall any specifics that might have been explained to me. I tell her as much. She replies that she needs to get a doctor, and then vanishes so fast that she becomes a nurse blur. I can do nothing but sit there waiting, knowing that something quite serious is afoot, and I’m already a melting pot of PTSD and three different anxiety disorders, that I would not be diagnosed with until a bit later, but them were the facts.

Eventually, she returns with another nurse from the ward, because apparently the consultant wasn’t available. Not only did it fall on this poor woman to explain that I was the proud recipient of a stoma, but she also had to first explain to me what that even meant.

For those not in the know… (deep breath), oh jeez, so, a colostomy. It’s actually a miraculous, life-saving procedure, but I couldn’t see it that way initially. There was significant injury to my intestines and I needed quite a bit removed because several feet of it partied out of existence with a bang (this is also known as organ rupture, but that’s not as fun to imagine as your organs peace-ing out in a shower of fireworks). The surgeons stitched together what was left, but – and I mean, there’s no way around saying this – that means that pooping wouldn’t be a safe activity until everything healed up. So, to combat risking further internal injury, they erm… bypassed the need to use the injured bits by making a hole on the left side of my tummy, threading a bit of my intestine out of it, and making a little hole in said exposed bit of intestine. Thus, that’s where the poop now comes out, thus the need for the colostomy bag. Unlike regular pooping, it is totally involuntary and you have zero control over when it happens.

A colostomy might also be necessary for people with certain illnesses, like if they get blockages with food that doesn’t pass through as it’s supposed to, etc. Sometimes they’re just a temporary measure, and for other people, they can be a permanent work-around for a health problem.

The colostomy bag is a terrific invention – it’s sort of beige and has an adhesive ring that goes over and around the exposed intestine, and it sticks right on to you. There’s a bit at the bottom that you open to empty it into the toilet. There’s some care and practice that needs to go into changing a bag, hence the need to learn before they could release me from hospital.

As I’ve explained this, I’ve marvelled at the fact that this is even possible. Without this surgery, I couldn’t have lived. But this is now, 13 years later, with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, I had no idea this procedure existed, so if you can, try to imagine the absolute horror that enveloped me as this poor nurse had to spell all this out. I’m actually quite embarrassed about how I reacted now, but I was deeply shocked and I couldn’t deal with yet another thing, on top of everything else. It was already too much.

I won’t list the million things I was already struggling with, but it was a lot. On top of it all, I simply just could not even fathom what she was telling me. It did not compute. She explained it perfectly but there was some sort of block in my mind that wouldn’t allow me to absorb what she was saying. I hadn’t replied yet, but the nurses were looking at each other because I think they could see the imminent freak out all over my face.

“I think the best thing to do is just to show it to you,” the stoma nurse said. “It’s not as dramatic as it sounds, and the sooner you face it and learn to look after it, the sooner you can recover and go home.”

You might be wondering how on earth I wasn’t already aware of the bag – it was on my body, for crying out loud. Briefly, I’d had a lot of abdominal surgery and therefore, had a lot of internal and external scar tissue, so everything in that area felt either sore or numb. I had not seen under my hospital gown because I had not yet been able to get up, change my clothes, or shower, and it hadn’t occurred to me to look. I’d had bed baths in intensive care, but as I’ve explained, I was barely conscious, so I didn’t see anything, and had yet to go through that same lovely experience on the ward.

So they showed me my colostomy bag, and it took me tremendous effort to compose myself. I started crying, but not hysterically, just you know, a standard weeping. It was when the nurse showed me how to safely remove the bag and then she took it off, exposing my bare intestine to me that I absolutely lost my shit. Well, not literally, because the bag was empty and… never mind. My metaphorical shit, I mean. It went bye bye. Flew off into the ether.

I started crying hysterically, had my first ever full-blown panic attack, and I had to look away. I couldn’t bear to look at it, it was too weird. I mean, honestly, no one expects to see their own intestine just sitting there on the outside of their body. I think if I’d known about this procedure, and maybe if I’d needed it for an illness and had time to mentally prepare myself, I wouldn’t have reacted like I did. Something in my head just went and I couldn’t accept it, let alone think about learning how to change the bag. I was absolutely inconsolable, making a spectacle of myself to the other patients on the ward, and making it impossible for the stoma nurse to do her job and teach me.

She actually got quite angry with me for that and told me I should be grateful instead of acting like a child, and left in a bit of a mood after changing the bag herself. So then, on top of the shock, I also felt deeply ashamed and embarrassed. It admittedly wasn’t my finest moment but to be honest, she could have been a bit more understanding and sensitive, instead of telling me off and trying to force me touch it only a minute after learning of its existence.

The mental stupor I went into immediately after was… a time. Some of this will sound a bit vapid and shallow perhaps, but here goes. Firstly, it’s intestine on the outside, and I’d have to touch it and look at it. That felt freakish to me. Secondly, I was a comedy burlesque performer at the time – it was my single greatest passion, and I had JUST hit the point of actually making money. I had several private bookings lined up, including a wedding and a festival as part of a stage show for a band I loved. A big one. I’d worked so hard to get to that point and now it was gone, just like that. (Though, actually, burlesque is an entertainment form that draws the kind of crowd that would probably be totally accepting of something like a colostomy bag, but that wouldn’t occur to me for years.)

Thirdly, it was the summer break between my first and second year of uni. I was supposed to go back in less than a month. I could not yet even walk. And also, my degree was in Theatre and Media, and the major 60 credit component was a goddamn physical theatre class that involved a lot of physical activity, of which I was no longer capable.

Lastly, and the worst, I felt disgusting. For me, it was a real-life, body horror nightmare. In case you didn’t pick up on it a few paragraphs back, I have always been insanely weird and embarrassed about certain bodily functions. I was a woman in my early twenties, already with no self-esteem. I had body confidence issues (I know this sounds like a contradiction on account of the burlesque). I was the kind of person that had been with my then boyfriend for two years, and couldn’t poop if he was in the house. The kind of person that, if my chair squeaked and people looked at me, I’d go red and scream “IT WAS THE CHAAAAAAIR!!!!” At the best of times, I already couldn’t cope with that kind of thing, and now I had to go around with a bag hanging from my tummy, that would – at any given moment – start filling with poop, against my will, or even possibly knowledge. I felt gross and ashamed, and panicked that my boyfriend would be disgusted and turned off, and thought he’d never want to touch me again, nor would anyone else.

I couldn’t cope and I had a bit of a breakdown about it all. My morphine button had hell of a work out that day, let me tell you. (Lol, addiction humour, what a hoot. That’s a story for another day though weeeeeee).

This has been a bit doom and gloom so far, hasn’t it? Don’t worry, we’re approaching sunnier skies… but first we have to battle out of the last bit of this shit storm (ba da dum tschhh).

Out of sheer determination and defiance, and against the advice of literally everyone, I did make it back to my second year of uni on time. Six weeks earlier, my classmates had known me as a curvy, moon-sized-headed, upbeat type of person. When I returned, I was 6st 12lbs (I’m 5’6 and had lost 3 stone) occasionally having to lean on the wall to walk around, and popping pills like it was NYE 1999. With Prince. They had some questions, but they were all afraid to ask. I think they thought I’d spent the summer discovering the heroine. In fairness, I did look quite… heroine-y.

I told them bits, and for the most part, they were supportive and great. I left out the stoma because I didn’t want them to know. One girl, who we’ll call Dickhead, noticed it poking out from under my shirt, and loudly – getting the attention of several others – asked me if it was a colostomy bag. She then proceeded to tell me it was so disgusting that she’d rather die than have one. It was such a nasty, ridiculous, and overdramatic thing to say that it made me realise that actually, it really wasn’t that big a deal.

I decided to bond with it – “it” being my intestine. Whenever I had to change the bag, I’d say “hi little fella”. I named it Wiggles, because sometimes it was wiggling. I know this sounds peculiar, but personifying it really helped chill me out about the whole thing. I bought some looser clothing so it wouldn’t get noticed again, but from that point forward I was quite happy to show it to curious people. Apparently, it was more fascinating to my friends than gross, as I’d feared. My then boyfriend didn’t care either, it didn’t put him off in the slightest. It became just a regular old part of life, and then the next thing I knew, I was back at the hospital having the procedure reversed.

I was on the bowel ward for my recovery after they poked the little dude back inside my belly, where I met a couple of women who were in there because they had new colostomies. One of them had Crohn’s, and was pretty relaxed about the whole thing (it wasn’t her first rodeo, and she’d opted to have it permanently the second time). The other one was a woman whose bowel had ruptured while she was giving birth to her first child, so she’d been taken right out of the delivery room and into surgery for a temporary stoma. I felt so sorry for her – she was just like me, only her situation was way worse. Prior to it happening to her, she’d never heard of it, and she had to go through the shock immediately after giving birth, and couldn’t be with her new baby either. (FYI It is NOT common for this to happen during childbirth, she was unlucky). She was a mess, and I stayed up the entire night trying to console her. I gave her my number and we text for a few months afterwards whenever she was struggling with it, and before long, she was dealing with it just fine. My initial experience was horrendous but being able to help someone through their own bad time made me feel really good, and also taught me, again, that it’s really not that bad. It’s just a bit of a shock when you see it for the first time.

And that’s the story of me befriending my own intestine.

Here are some FAQ’s, in case you’re wondering about any of the following:

Is it hygenic?

Oh yeah, you wouldn’t believe. It’s crucial to keep the skin around the stoma clean, so when you change the bag, you disinfect the whole area. It’s up to you when you change it but I think I did mine every other day (and obviously you empty it in the toilet whenever there’s something in it). Sorry for the image, but it comes out in the bag liquidy, so it’s not noticeable to other people unless it fills the bag out a lot. When you’re walking around, it’s also completely odourless.

Can you feel it when you’re pooping?

Nope. You’ll be aware of the bag if it starts inflating or filling, but you can’t really feel the bodily function.

What do you mean, “inflating”?

Oh, with gas. A perk of having the colostomy for me was that I didn’t have to break wind for that whole year. As I’ve mentioned, I’m extremely weird about stuff like that. I don’t know if that’s the case for everyone but it was for me. You do have to let it out of the bag though. I would not risk just letting that thing inflate because it could possibly pop. FYI, I’m still really weird about this stuff and embarrassed talking about it, but I’m trying to share honest info here.

Did you actually touch your intestine?

Hell yeah! You sort of have to, for cleaning purposes, and you need to make sure your hands are super clean first. But yes, yes I did. It’s weird because you feel the connection with your finger, but not with your intestine (maybe there are no nerve endings? I’m unsure). There was no physical sensation of being touched for Wiggles.

How often do you have to empty the bag?

That just depends on what you’ve eaten, I guess. Sometimes, once a day and there’d be hardly anything, other days, more. I found that if it seemed a bit overactive, curry – of all things – tended to settle and slow everything down. Couldn’t tell you why. It’s still my go-to bad belly food to this day.

Are there things you can’t eat if you have a colostomy?

Yeah, there are foods that can cause blockages, and you don’t want that because it’s really painful and may result in needing surgery. I was told in no uncertain times to not even think about eating nuts (hehe). I was also advised against eating apples and pears unless I peeled them first because the skin can cause issues. Certain meats – I was told that if I had beef or steak, I needed it cooked well and had to chew it to a total pulp before I could swallow it. I’m telling you, you’ve got no idea how long it takes to chew beef to an actual pulp. It’s not worth it, to be honest. By the time you get three bites in, your food has gone cold.

What about sex?

Sorry mum! And mum-in-law, if you’re reading this! But this was actually my most frequently asked question, so you can see where people’s anxieties live!

Honestly, nothing to worry about. Obviously, you’ve got to be aware of how much weight is on it, but I got accidentally squished a couple of times in the early days and nothing bad happened. I don’t advise lying flat on your stomach for any reason, that’s just asking for a disaster, but other than that, common sense will see you through your fun times!

What about sleeping?

I’ve got bad news for you if you’re a front sleeper, but other than that, it was normal. I did put a pillow next to me so that I couldn’t accidentally roll all the way onto the bag, but I adjusted to that pretty fast and it became routine.

Can we just go back to “sometimes it was wiggling”…. wtf?

Yeah, so your intestine moves, and it looked like gentle wiggling to me. It’s usually when something’s moving through it, but even looking at a glass of squash could get it going. Honestly, I learned so much about how responsive your body is to stimuli when I could see that little dude out and proud. Wiggles is the most appropriate name ever for your intestine, in my opinion.

I hope this hasn’t been too weird a read. This is the most self-conscious I’ve ever been releasing an article. I guess I wanted to share because I had no one to talk to about this when it happened to me. No one in my life had a colostomy, so I had no one to ask questions to whenever something came up. Doctors are great, but none of the ones I had were actually living the experience so outside of perfunctory, technical answers, they couldn’t really help.

I also didn’t have anyone to vent to on the days I felt resentful and upset about it, because as lovely as everyone was, they couldn’t understand. In a bid to cheer me up, and in completely loving and well-meaning ways, I kept being told that it was fine, that it could be worse because I could have died, and I’d adjust. I don’t blame my loved ones for this – what else are they supposed to say? – but the problem for me was that whenever I opened up, those sorts of responses made me feel guilty and bad about myself for not being able to permanently look on the bright side, and so I stopped trying to talk about it. Sometimes, when you’re in a situation where you have to dab at your own supposedly internal organs with a disinfectant wipe, you just need to be allowed to be pissed off about it, you know?

So, I guess, I really wrote this article for anyone who might be in a similar situation. If this is you, and you need to talk to someone who can relate, I’m here for you. And not in a ‘we’ve connected through this article’ way – I mean literally. Feel free to email me or send me a message if you need help or a friendly ear. If you have questions that I haven’t covered, I’m happy to answer. That goes for everyone really – if you’re curious about anything, feel free to ask! I’m totally open to conversation on this topic, I’m well over the initial trauma it caused me and happy to chat.

So, that happened…