Anyone who knows exactly what will happen in their lives at any given time is full of themselves. It’s a folly to think you’ve got everything completely under control in life, considering disaster or calamity or financial ruin can happen to the best of us. And 90% of the times these things happen, it’s out of our control. Sure, you can prepare for the worst in some ways, but bad things still happen out of the blue. Unfortunately, there’s not much that can be done in that present moment. Take the current health crisis, for example. If you just had a surgery completed, like an ostomy, and you were sent home with your new ostomy supplies and shown how to take care of yourself, that’s great. It’s especially great that you were able to have your surgery done before all of this pandemic stuff hit, because I’m certain that patients with the disease are prioritized over a lot of other surgery candidates.
Nonetheless, if you did have that procedure done and you’re home safely, that doesn’t mean you’re out of the woods just yet. Consider how hyper contaminating this novel coronavirus seems to be. Well, for someone whose immune system is A) still recovering from surgery and B) likely compromised simply from complications to the excretory tract in the first place, things aren’t looking so hot. Add to it the fact that your stoma will be exposed multiple times a week and you have got to be careful with touching an open wound like that. So, it’s easy to count yourself lucky to have that procedure taken care of prior to this crisis striking the world, but you’re absolutely still more vulnerable than the general populace simply because of how your body is recovering and learning to heal itself. Your ostomy supplies are of the highest grade to handle comfortability and cleanliness with your stoma, I’m sure. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’re fully protected from external factors that are largely out of your control (like family members contracting the virus elsewhere, whether at work or out getting groceries). This is largely what makes the virus so scary and unpredictable: those who are older or have weaker immune systems or physical health, for whatever reason, are far more susceptible to this deadly virus. In time, we’ll learn how to take care of this, just as ostomy patients learn to take care of their daily bowel movements and weekly cleanings. That doesn’t mean there’s not cause for alarm here and now, though.