If you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen I was on holiday last week which gave me the perfect opportunity to go swimming for the first time. I've never been much of a swimmer but I knew I'd have to do it at some point and I'm not going to lie, I was a bit apprehensive but as you can see from the picture above I soon overcame it!
So my first actual swim (pictured above) was nowhere near as bad as I thought it was going to be. I had a comfy swimming costume on (which I actually had from before surgery) which was a tankini. The bottoms didn't quite cover my whole bag but my top was long enough to and you couldn't notice it at all. Once I'd gotten over the initial coolness of the pool, I realised that swimming with an ostomy is no different to swimming without one!
Something which really surprised me was how comforting it is to be on your stomach when you're in the pool! I hadn't laid proper flat in 5 months and it was surreal to actually be on your front, and quite nice. I'm not going to lie though, it was a bit tough actually swimming, not because of the stoma but because I hadn't swam for so long!
After the initial day of just swimming, I grew more confident and ended up going on all the slides which not only surprised me but also surprised my mum and dad because I never ever go on slides! I kind of thought why not and then went for it.
At the end of the day, you've got to remember your stoma has given you your life back and not let it stop you from doing things!
Let me know in the comments how you've found swimming with a stoma!
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