Welcome to the 8th segment of #UroStories and today we have the fabulous Valerie Behnke, 60 from Ontario in Canada.

Take it away Val...

Living with a chronic illness can sometimes feel like a full-time job. What with juggling hospital appointments, visiting your GP, collecting medication, chasing up referrals, running a house and maybe a family. It is easy to lose an element of ‘you’ and to be consumed by your chronic illness.

I have been wondering how to introduce this amazing gentleman...Today we have Peadar who is 41, from Northern Ireland sharing his story about how he acquired his colostomy and urostomy which was not due to an illness. I think I will let Peadar explain:

When you have been an ostomate for a while you may go through stages where you ‘chance’ not taking your emergency kit out with you. Most of the time you may be fine but when you are out enjoying yourself and a leak hits, then you are stuck and may have to leave the event to change your pouch.

I can't believe that this is the 6th #UroStories already and today we have the amazing and beautiful Natalie Wicks who is 28 and from South Wales. Natalie has been through so much and still continues to have problems with her kidneys which requires stents and a nephrostomy as well as her urostomy. However, despite this, she will still help support and inspire other people with pictures in her bikini or her honest posts. It is an honour to share her story!

‘It’s in your hands – prevent sepsis in healthcare’

[2018 #safeHands]

You may be wondering why I am writing a post about this day? Considering this is aimed at Healthcare Professionals and the majority of my readers are ostomates. The reason why I have decided to highlight this very important awareness day is due to my own experience.

Last week I was at the ‘Ostomy Days 2018’ conference held in Copenhagen for 900 Stoma Care Nurses (SCN’s), Healthcare Professionals and Coloplast colleagues. From those 2 days, I have learnt a lot especially the different aspects of stoma care but one of the sessions that I found really interesting was for the UK SCN’s. This session talked about recognising that SCN’s practice needs to adapt to keep up with the times e.g technology, more online information and communication and this session discussed how they could start achieving this.

Welcome back to #UroStories and today we have the very knowledgeable Trevor Harvey joining us! Trevor is 78 years young and lives in Stoke-on-Trent. Trevor wrote an excellent, honest post for me, which you can view here on 'The Possible Struggles of a Male Urostomate'. 

Attending the hospital can be a frightening experience whether this is for surgery, an admission, chemotherapy, infusions or radiology investigations. You wait anxiously among strangers with little information and often instructed to undress into a hospital gown that can undermine your dignity and leave you feeling partially exposed.

I am sorry this is a few days late, I have had a very busy week. Welcome back to the 4th instalment of the #UroStories series. Today we have the lovely Donna Wood from Tyne and Wear who is 32 joining us. We connected last year and she has been a great support and is equally passionate about urostomy awareness. Also, Donna started the Urostomy Support Tyne and Wear/North East Facebook group for other urostomates in her area. 

Welcome to my 4^th instalment of #SelfHelpBookReview and for this month I have decided to review ‘The 5 Second Rule’ by Mel Robins. This was suggested to me by Emma a life coach I had a few months ago for the Confidence Course I completed to help stop procrastinating and build confidence.

For the 3rd instalment of #UroStories, we have such an inspiring and lovely man called Rich Greene, who is 69 and lives in Columbus, Ohio, USA sharing his story. Rich touches on so many brilliant points in his answers that don't only effect urostomates but ostomates in general.

I have mentioned before that my theme for this year is ‘stepping out of my comfort zone’ I have already accomplished things I wouldn’t have done last year like public speaking, lifestyle shoot and going abroad. So, when Paige messaged me to ask if I would be a catwalk model for the Purple Wings event I just went with my theme and said ‘yes’ even though deep down I started doubting myself. I pushed those thoughts away and saw it as another experience to participate in.

Over the last few years, I have been a regular inpatient at Bournemouth hospital. In 2016 I spent 7 months all together as an inpatient and last year I was admitted 6 times. Thankfully my admissions are reducing but I am prone to sepsis which can come out of the blue and involves a prompt visit to my local A&E and an admission.

Welcome to the second instalment of #UroStories Series. Chris' story last week went down really well and today I am excited to introduce a lovely lady Sue Cavanagh from Norfolk who will share her story. Take it away, Sue! 

I am so excited that Steve and I can officially talk about this product. Steve trialled this last summer and loved it. He was then asked to do a testimonial video in October. He mentioned to the team that I wanted to trial the product, since I have a hernia and prolapse, and they sent some samples out to me in December. We were then asked if we wanted to do a lifestyle shoot in Gran Canaria about how we met, our story and the new product. The experience was amazing, we loved every minute of it and it was the first time we have been abroad since our surgery. Hopefully, the film will be out soon. 

I am excited to announce the start of my #UroStories (Urostomy Stories). I have wanted to do this for such a long time and finally I have got round to it. I am so overwhelmed with the response to my post asking for urostomates to fill my questionnaire to be presented in this series. I had more than 56 people interested which means this series should last a year on a weekly basis every Monday.

The first person I would like to introduce is an awesome guy who is actually a Double Bagger called Chris Livett and he has just started a blog called 2bags-NoButt (loving the name). Chris is 41 years old and lives in Bebington, Wirral, so take it away Chris:

It is no secret that since July last year I have done a LOT of travelling. Mainly to see my lovely man Steve who lives in Birmingham but also for stoma-related events and work. Most of my travelling involves going on the train because I cannot drive but I remember for years I used to worry about having a leak and emptying my stomas using the train toilet. This held me back from travelling for a very long time but since the Purple Wings ball last July I have been gently pushed into travelling more.

It can be really nerve-wracking travelling by train for the first time after ostomy surgery. When I looked for specific articles about this I couldn’t find much, so I thought I would share 10 tips to make travelling by train with an ostomy a little bit easier.

This is my 3rd post for my monthly series #SelfHelpBookReview. I cannot believe it is March already. I am so glad I started this series because it is giving me the motivation to read again and to actually finish reading the books which I struggled with last year.

So for this month’s review, I have picked a controversial book: “You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay.

I have always struggled with confidence, in particular, trusting my gut instinct and trusting decisions I have made. I can see how much this has held me back so on the 4^th February 2018 I took part in a 30-day course called ‘Confidence for Success’ by the amazing life coach Emma Dawson.

Last year on Facebook Emma’s sponsored advertisement popped up on my page and I was intrigued. So I liked Emma’s Facebook Page and I joined her Facebook group "Bring Your Dreams to Life" I found the group was very inspiring and I loved Emma’s live chats. I quickly realised regarding my blog and the advocating I do that sometimes I lack confidence and doubt myself. When Emma advertised this course something spoke to me and I decided to enrol to build and nurture my confidence.