I’m still stunned by an interaction on Rupaul’s Drag race (a Saturday night, light entertainment show, light being the operative word).
Rupaul replies to a contestant. Clearly shocked by their age -
“21!? I’ve got colostomy bags older than that”
To which, fellow panelist, Michelle Visage responds “I can smell it!”
What a ludicrously, thoughtless, insensitive and disturbing comment.
Apparently, it’s possible, but yet unconfirmed that Rupaul has a colostomy, if so, fair enough, he can make what ever jokes he likes, it’s his right. Although, that said I don’t really get the joke, as I’ve had a colostomy for 10 years now and in that time the oldest colostomy bags I’ve owned have been one month old, because they get delivered each month and I use them up each month.
I don’t hold on to them. They’re not collectors items, they don’t have sentimental value. I order them, I wear them.
So the ‘joke’ to start with is a bit weird. BUT if he hasn’t got a colostomy what a bizarre, deeply sinister and inappropriate thing to say.
The follow up by Ms. Visage either way? Oh my god what a horrendous thing to say in public, for the nation to hear, some of those viewers will be stoma owners.
I’ll tell you why it’s hit a nerve with me;
When I was first diagnosed with stage 3 bowel cancer, The first question I asked my oncologist is
“Will I die?”
The first question I asked at my pre op, stoma nurse appointment was
“will I Smell?”
That’s how high up on my list of priorities it was!!
The fear of smelling is still the second biggest fear in my life.
It goes;
Number 1 = Cancer
Number 2 = Smelling
Number 3 = farting without warning
Number 4 = Nothing, other than 1-3. I can handle anything life throws at me!
Ten years down the line my fears have not changed, nor dissipated.
I happen to have a great sense of humour, when you’re not blessed with good looks, I feel it helps develop other qualities, more important things in my opinion, and my sense of humour is a biggie. It’s fully developed I believe. I am fun and funny. I’m very grateful for it. It’s come in handy over the years.
I sort of have no problem with Rupaul’s remark, if he actually has a colostomy, even though it’s a weird thing to say. I personally think saying something like ‘I have knickers older than you’ or ‘socks older than you’ would work better, as more people can identify with it.
But the smelling bit? HELL NO!
And just sitting there laughing along, letting her get away with saying it is beyond me.
He’s a drag queen for gods sake, bitchy is their bread and butter.
He could have called her out on it and said “no sweetie, that’s all you” or words to that effect.
He could have made it a teaching moment.
Instead of reinforcing a long held stereotyped misconception that colostomy wearers smell.
I don’t have a very big platform to tell my story, to explain my colostomy life, and reassure others coming after me that it’s all going to be ok. But I do my best with the tools I have at hand to do just that.
Imagine having a platform as big as all those people on the panel of that show and doing f*** all to prevent stigmatising and marginalising groups of people, who quite frankly, have been through enough already.
It would be unacceptable to make racist jokes, or homophobic jokes and disability jokes…so why then is it ok to make fun of people with stomas?
She (Visage) needs to hold her hands up and apologise. She misspoke, own it, apologise for it. Be a decent human being. And in future think before she speaks. Words hurt. And there’s little point in being an advocate for marginalised groups like she apparently is, if she’s going to turn on the next lot of people on the list. That’s not what being an advocate is about. That’s simply hypocrisy.
Anyway. Other than feeling a bone burning rage at low class TV personalities I’ve had a great week.
Showers have been had, hair washes undertaken. Efforts have been made. In this seemingly everlasting, ground hog day-esque, life in lockdown, that’s a pretty big win.
It was a great week actually. My mum and dad have both had their first covid vaccines. I’m so so happy, it means that once their 21 days are up, they are 100% safe and protected against hospitalisation and dying. They could still catch covid after the 21 days but it will have a lesser impact on their health.
Which is all you can really ask for. Then once they get their second dose they will be 97% protected from catching covid at all. Which will be even better.
But Just knowing that they will be safe from serious harm if they do catch it is a weight off my mind. They just have to wait the 21 days for it to kick in. Yey!!
I have hope that we’ll get out of this pickle soon. Roll on summer! Roll on vaccinations. Roll on going to a restaurant! Hahahahaha, who knew we’d all be living through some dystopian nightmare where the highlight at the end was going to be being able to walk into shops or have a dinner out, salivating over one not made by yourself.
I had my little regular Thursday Pilates class with Sarah Russell of The Ostomy Studio (please please google it if you have had abdominal surgery, it’s a game changer).
It’s great, I’m learning to have confidence in my body. I don’t mean visually, I already felt body confident about its looks. What’s not to love? big boobs, big bum and what’s more all free, all my own work from overly enthusiastic cake consumption hahahahaha
But the confidence I’m building now is the belief that I can take a Pilates class without my hernia flaring up, or god forbid, causing more!
It’s such a great class, it’s via Zoom, which means I, or anyone else come to that haven’t got to worry about farting, I appreciate it’s a common side effect of yoga and Pilates, but I do struggle with coping with it.
So this class works out very well. I mute myself so I’m in my own little safe space should it happen.
It hasn’t actually ever happened to me. But I have been in physical classes and it was quite common for the ‘anussed’ community to do it. It’s perfectly normal….but I’m so demure I can’t cope with it (anyone that knows me is now struggling to compute me and demure in the same sentence) hahahahaha.
I felt fantastic after my bending, stretching and strengthening.
I decided to sit in the garden to get some from the source vitamin D.
Hello sunshine….
It felt bloody lovely. Twenty glorious minutes, sitting out there, in the sun, absorbing the D. Breathing in fresh air and listening to Beverley Craven (bit of a blast from the past, but I’d seen her on This Morning and it reminded of how much I loved her voice).
Five Stars! Highly recommend sunshine therapy. (Safely).
Friday came along and I was having a lovely time slothing in the living room, unshowered, in my pjs, when a thought occurred to me…do I have a Zoom meeting today??!?
I panicked and sent an email asking Hannah at BRUK (Bowel Research UK) the charity I volunteer for) if there was a meeting today.
You have never seen me move so fast. I washed my hair and showered in record time. Only to get out of the shower to find that, yes, there was a meeting, but it wasn’t till 2pm.
Still at least I now know I can get ready in a very short space of time. It’s good to know these things. :)
Dress from H&M, Tights from Tesco
Look at her, laughing and joking around. I can assure you I didn’t look like this when I thought I was unwashed and 10 minutes away from a zoom meeting!
It comes to something when you think showering and getting ready quickly should be something you add in your resumé, so proud was I of the achievement. :)
Anyway, the meeting was fantastic. Great to see the panel that I sit on for a catch up. Great to hear about up coming meetings too.
Research in all areas has sadly but understandably taken a back seat for a while. But there’’re slow shoots of recovery happening and that can only be a good thing.
The weekend came round quicker than it usually feels this week. It really helps to have little things to do in the week, even if it’s an hour’s Pilates class or a brief meeting.
It breaks up the day. January has felt about 50 days long.
I feel like starting a petition to get January reduced to 25 days, it’s about all I can cope with. Hahaha
But here we are now, it fabulous February! Who’s feeling fantastic!? Nah, me neither but I’ve got to try. ;)
This month has some highs within it.
On Valentine’s Day this year my lovely Chris and I will be celebrating 25 years of marriage. Twenty Five Years! (Yes, if you’re wondering, I was a child bride! Hahahahaha hahahahaha hahahahaha). Joking of course, I was a perfectly acceptable 22 really.
Some said it wouldn’t last (they actually did!) Some hoped it wouldn’t last (again, they actually did and probably still do!). Sorry to disappoint them, we lasted and they didn’t, the irony of that is not lost on me, that bit amuses me greatly. (What? I’m a great advocate of stoma life, but I’m not perfect in every way!) ;)
Anyway I had hoped we’d be in India for our Silver wedding anniversary, but then the pandemic came along and not only is pleasure travel illegal at the moment, our savings were wiped out by months and months of half wages, so we decided to pare it back.
We booked The Savoy for a couple of nights. Sound familiar?! Well that’s because we had booked it for my birthday back in May, which was cancelled due to lockdown. We had it booked for Boxing Day too, but it was cancelled due to lockdown…we then booked it for February But guess what?! Yeah, it’s been cancelled due to lockdown. Hahahahaha. I really thought it’d be third time lucky. But sadly not.
Well, that did leave me feeling a bit despondent. It feels like such a special and monumentous occasion and all we have available is staying at home.
But never fear, and this is why I married him all those years ago, although that said, it’s best I point out here that I’m not some gold digging trollope. He was actually unemployed when I met him, although he calls it “between jobs”…and we didn’t have a pot to piss in when we first got married, and come to that for many many years following…but he had potential then and ingenuity now.
He suggested we order some nice things from Fortnum and Mason. He knows how to cheer me up. So we have 2 hampers on their way, one in a wicker basket full to the brim of yummy treats. And 1 full of perishables, including 3 meals for our special day.
Okay, so it’s not a few nights spent in luxury at The Savoy. But it is a bit of luxury at home, and as I have a nice enough home I’m happy with that.
(On the note of having a nice home, I often get lovely messages about it, which is very kind, thank you very much for that, but it’s only lovely because Chris let’s me spend his (our) money and I work for a fabulous company. Follow Neptune Colchester on Instagram, that’s where you’ll find me, I man (woman) the Instagram and Facebook pages for Neptune Colchester. A job I love dearly and deeply).
We will have a delicious breakfast, lunch and dinner from Fortnums. What a wonderful treat! We’ll have a walk. And a hot tub, maybe a game of backgammon. But mostly enjoy the fact that after everything that was thrown at us in the last 27 years we’ve come out stronger;
Debt, alcoholism, cancer times 2, him snoring and me moaning about weight gain, insomnia and vertigo for the last 4 years! Hahahahaha
We’ve had a lot. But we just got through it all. I have no idea how; patience, blind faith, determination…me having very low expectations of life in general certainly has helped. ;)
I think we’re the luckiest people alive. I feel lucky that I met Chris to start with. We use to live a 10 minute walk from each other and although we frequented the same Indian take away, the same Video store (remember them?), the same pubs sometimes, we had never met until one pivotal night when we met at a friend of a friend’s party.
I fell for him the moment I saw him. Literally, I just wanted to know him more, and lucky me, he felt the same way. :)
The Savoy will still be there waiting for us once the plague is over and we’ve been inoculated. And how lovely to have something to look forward to. :)
We had a very chilled weekend. The weather Saturday was ridiculously awful, you know I love snow, well it had the audacity to snow - of sorts, it was gale force winds and wet snow, it couldn’t have been a worse combo if it went out of its way to try and upset me.
I could hear the wind howling over our very precarious roof tiles when I woke up so I decided to cheer my man up with a doorstep delivery of salt beef bagels and cream tea from the café at the end of the road (definitely recommend The Booking Hall Café if you ever find yourself in Rayne at all).
Impressively he ate both bagels, I don’t eat meat, so I was saving myself for a scone the size of my head. :)
It’s the little things that get you through the day.
We didn’t do much else. There isn’t much else to do.
We did have however, a fantastic curry made by my own fair hands. Though I do say so myself. ;)
Just to explain to my friends in India, Tikka Masala is an English curry, created here, in Birmingham I believe, for our sensitive needs. Hahahahaha.
It’s not my favourite curry in the world, but I saw it on This Morning and thought it was worth a try.
It was delicious and so easy.
We then had a movie night, ‘my choose’ this week. I’d seen Justin Timberlake on This Morning (yes, I watch it a lot, what?! It’s not like I can get out more! Or at all even!!) He was discussing his new film. I’m not a JT fan, but he came across nice enough, so I thought we could give the film a go. It’s called ‘Palmer’ and it’s really very sweet. I had a little blub at parts. It’s lovely, and ultimately uplifting, and who at the moment doesn’t want that?
Then Sunday we awoke to bright sunshine and a touch of frost. My favourite winter weather, second only to snow. So we set off for a lovely crisp walk. This week, away from other people. We found the footpaths last week full of people that had either forgotten we’re in a global pandemic or, and this is more likely, didn’t care that we are.
While Chris and I will walk single file to pass people, others seemed oblivious to the need. Well F*** that thank you very much, we haven’t had months and months separated from people we actually love to be infected by selfish strangers.
So I created a walk, away from people, I knew some fields from when I used to walk my Pepper girl that were very rarely visited.
Off we set for a sunny, Sunday hike…
Jumper from Ralph Lauren, Fake shirt from Amazon, Leggings from Next, Boots from Le Chameau (The best Wellies around, bar none).
Don’t worry, wore a coat, I’m not a total weirdo, although that is debatable. ;)
I like a nice walk, I do not like too long a walk, I’m just not the outdoorsy, hiking kind, last week’s two walks nearly half killed me. This week we stuck to a more genteel 5k and that suited us both just fine.
Fresh air, a few steps on the counter, some lovely scenery…and best of all ~ no other humans. :)
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I’ve got a top household tip to share this week. Chris bought me some beautiful cashmere socks from The White Company for Christmas. Probably foolishly so as I’m incredibly clumsy. Anyway, long story short, I accidentally washed them on a normal wash and shrunk them…on their first go in the washing machine. Not ideal.
So I Googled how to restore shrunken cashmere socks…not as niche as you’d think, as it turns out. There were lots of suggestions. But the one I had the ingredients for was soak them in a bowl of warm water with gallons of fabric conditioner (baby shampoo or conditioner were also suggestions).
So I put a bowl in the bath and added half a bottle of softener.
Now, a word to the wise, it’s best you don’t then empty the bowl of concentrated conditioner into the bath…a bathroom I don’t use by the way…although Chris does.
He now feels somewhat vulnerable, that I’m surreptitiously trying to kill him off with an invisible slippery bath coating. hahahahaha
Apparently pure fabric conditioner can leave a slippery residue or so I’ve been informed! Hahahahaha, Silly man, as if I’d kill him off…I really like him, and besides, I’d never be foolish enough to do it before I get my anniversary present. Hahahahaha ;)
The socks aren’t as they were before I washed them. But they are a damn sight better than small enough for Zak to wear. Hahahahaha
Not quite back to their pre wash best, but good enough. And certainly wearable again. xx
Our youngest son and his girlfriend Kaitlyn live very near us. I opened my front door last night after hearing a knock and Kaitlyn had made a homemade apple crumble and left it on the doorstep for us.
I don’t mind this getting old malarkey if we’re going to get this well looked after.
It was delicious too.
Feeling lucky and blessed. xx
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I’d like to add my condolences to the family and friends of Captain Sir Tom Moore.
He brought together the whole nation through a difficult time, we will be forever grateful.
