When I became a urostomate, I had to revise my daily life. I had to face a new reality. I didn’t choose it. It was imposed on me and if I wanted to return to a normal life, I had to adapt myself to this new reality. These changes have touched many aspects of my life. Today, I’ll share one with you: my love life.

It’s important to get used to this new reality because one’s intimate love life mustn’t be neglected. We must find ways to feel at ease in our relationship so it can satisfy us. Of course, we must be comfortable with our partner. It allows us to rediscover ourselves and slowly leads us to a fulfilling sex life. Feeling beautiful and desirable is great too. It sometimes requires a long period of adaptation, I agree. We must be patient, cooperative and open-minded. The return to normal can also be very fast, everyone progresses at their own rhythm.

In my case, it was easy and fast with my spouse. We had been in a relationship for several years and my physical transformation made no difference to him; I was still the same person as before. I didn’t feel any difference or discomfort emotionally and intimately. I must be sincere, I had a doubt that crossed my mind at the beginning but it quickly disappeared. We experienced this adventure together and I knew I didn’t have to worry. Finally, the years went by and we broke up but my urostomy wasn’t the cause.

After 15 years of living together, a breakup is destabilizing in itself and I was also going to have to deal with my urostomy. I realized that redoing my life would lead me to a new situation that I was going to have to brave. At that moment, rebuilding my life wasn’t part of my plans but I knew I would want to meet someone at some point. Who would want me now? As a woman, my self-confidence took a blow! It was like if I was returning to the starting point, like if I just had my surgery. I was finally going to have to face the entire process of acceptance of my urostomy. I was anxious, I was sad, I loss my self-confidence and I would even say that I didn’t love myself anymore. Clearly, I had to work on myself until I felt better. With a lot of effort, I succeeded in loving myself again and in regaining my self-esteem. These efforts also gave me enough confidence to share this personal part of my story with you. It's crazy the work we can do on ourselves!

Later, I questioned myself about my future love life. Even though meeting someone wasn’t part of my short-term plans, I was curious. I wanted to have an idea of how it would go and of hat I could expect as a reaction. I didn’t feel the need for a new love life at this moment but I still allowed myself to meet new people and flirt. Nothing more. I wanted to see their reactions to the announcement of my urostomy. If the right moment presented itself, I would talk about it. I was pleasantly surprised. Obviously, people were curious. They wanted to know my story, to know what had happened to me. Well, it’s quite understandable. I don’t know if it was only luck but the reactions were positive and I never felt judged or rejected. I let my intuition guide my actions and it did a great job. I feel like I trusted the right people.

With or without a urostomy, many women don’t like their bodies. During intimate moments, some of them prefer to keep the lights off; others prefer to keep a camisole on. In my case, I simply wear an ostomy belt. I especially like those of the ANA collection which are very beautiful and sexy. Find what makes you feel comfortable and be proud of yourself.

I’m now confident for the future now that I no longer see my urostomy as an obstacle. All I have to do then is to find the right person, the one who will love me for who I am.

Anick

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