Blog posts of '2011' 'August'

Recently we posted a two-part article with tips to prevent medical errors in your medical care. As a follow up to this article, we found an article on the Mount Sinai Hospital website that promotes many of the same tips, as well as a few new ones for us!

If anyone walked a mile in the shoes of an ostomate, how would they feel? What does having an ostomy mean to you? Survey says: good health, no pain, belonging to a group of strong, caring and compassionate people - ostomates, savvy individuals who've learned how and where to get and share knowledge, help, humor and hope. Okay, there hasn’t yet been a comprehensive survey.

As an ostomate, you have obviously spent time in the hospital even if only for your ostomy surgery. During your hospital stay, some of you received support from friends and family, some of you received support from visiting nurses or fellow ostomates, some of you however may have started this journey on your own. For this reason, a common practice among ostomates, friends of ostomates, and many ostomy chapter association groups is to visit new ostomates in the hospital

Best Practices to Avoid Common Ostomy Pitfalls Colostomy, Ileostomy, Urostomy I am sure that the overwhelming majority of us TRY to do the right thing for our bodies and most importantly for our ostomies.

Sunlight and vitamin D for bone health and prevention of autoimmune diseases, cancers, and cardiovascular disease.

A Book Review of Brenda Elsagher’s I’d Like To Buy A Bowel Please Ostomy A to Z (2006) I recently had the opportunity to hear Brenda Elsagher’s offbeat presentation. She is a stand-up comedian, a parent and wife, an author, a public speaker and advocate, an ostomate, and runs her own business. She is also highly involved in her community. Does she live a full life after her surgery? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

My name is Jan Madaffri, and I am 31 years old. I only knew my husband four months before my ileostomy surgery. At that time, I had a J-pouch which was slowly failing since July 1991. In January, 1990, I received my first ileostomy due to ulcerative colitis, then later reversed to the J-pouch. I wasn’t in pain anymore from ulcerative colitis, but I was unable to control my bowel movements. This put a big damper on my social life, being a prisoner to a toilet.

As we stated in yesterday's article, being an active part of our Health Care Provider Team is the fi

We as humans aren’t perfect. While this may not be a grand revelation for most of us, it certainly applies to all of us. Even those of us in the medical industry are not exempt from the daily mistakes that we make in our day to day lives. When our favorite drink is messed up at our local coffee house, we simply have it fixed and nothing terrible happens. However if your Doctor or Health Care Provider makes a mistake,