Greetings Fellow Earthlings,
Well once again it is time for turkey's gobbling - or is that gobbling turkeys - and howling halloweeners. Having grown up in central Canada, I always found firecrackers at Halloween rather odd. For me firecrackers belonged to May - Queen Victoria's birthday. I guess the western tradition of firecrackers came from the proximity of Halloween to Guy Fawkes day. "Remember, remember the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot�." as the old rhyme goes. Unfortunately all these 'crackers drive my poor dog crazy. She spends her time hiding in her bed with her paws pressed firmly over her ears. We can coax her out for a little turkey at Thanksgiving but by Halloween even turkey won't budge her.
This month our main feature is the ten most asked questions by new ostomates. It is a compilation by a CETN (aka ET nurse) of the most common questions she had encountered. This is followed by another article, also by an ET, on "product complacency". Often when we do something the same way for so long we don't even consider the possibility there could be a better or easier way. This author poses ten questions to help you evaluate how you take care of your ostomy. Who knows, after reading this you could giving up a turkey for Thanksgiving. Sorry, sorry was that the line of good taste I just stepped over? Oh come on - I know you read this column for the bad puns.
What other thanksgiving goodies do we have for you? A short bit on skin prep, for ileoanal pouch people we have a piece on nutrition and getting your new plumbing settled in, a realllly bad joke and some more stuff on eating. Well after all it is Thanksgiving. This last article is on positive eating. It looks at the psychology of eating and advocates a return to the 'family meal' where mealtimes are relaxing not frenetic refuelling stops.
And while we are on the subject of eating - we seem to have this theme thing happening again - did you know that over a quarter of us have such a weakened thirst mechanism we think we are hungry? Read the article on Water for more interesting tidbits.
We round out our time together with a couple of articles for urostomates. One article is a practical piece by a urostomate with some tips for daily living with a urostomy. The other addresses concerns for urostomates and guess what - they recommend drinking lots of water. I don't want to sound like a harp but most of us (and I count myself as one) do not drink enough! Water that is. I don't want to see you all stumbling down the road singing bawdy songs giving ostomates a bad rep just because of a misunderstanding.
Once again I seem to be running out of room so until next time,
Stay Well
Bob |
