Stoma Dreams

Last night I dreamt about poo, pooing, outhouses, urgency, messiness, nudity, smells, airplanes, lost luggage, glaciers, beaches, and it starts to get foggy after that.

But what sticks out the most is that which was not sticking out - my stoma! I was in some outhouse, which was on some sandbar in the ocean. I was trying to poo while standing up, out of my abdomen, without an appliance on, and no stoma! It had been sucked inside my abdomen so it really just looked like I had a kind of anus on my tummy.

I tried to push my stoma back out, successfully, but when I relaxed, it sucked backed inside. I thought it looked sexy- like a unique, misplaced bellybutton, and best of all, no bag! The pressure around the hole created by the caved-in stoma acted like a sphincter and kept all my poo inside, unless I pressed both hands on either side and pushed.

I've come a long way. Throughout the first couple of years after my ostomy surgery, I was having regular dreams that my intestines were forcing themselves down toward where my anus once was. I would often find myself in the middle of a very pleasurable dream when a hole opened up in my ass and long, windy farts or warm diarrhea would spill out.

There was actually a part of me that believed this was real, and when I woke up, I would check. Even after the disappointing realization it was just a dream, I figured it still could be possible that my intestines had a kind of memory and they wanted to create a path back toward where my anus was.

I don't really need to mention it hasn't happened. And I've let go of the belief it ever will. I think all of me gets that now, even the dark and cobwebbed corners of my subconscious have seen the light.

This doesn't mean I completely believe what my surgeon and GIs told me in the past... that my ostomy is permanent. I do believe it is possible that I will poo out of my bum again, maybe even out of a proper, healthy anus made of my own genetic material. I would certainly like that.

But for now, despite the annoying bag changes, having to wake within 6 hours of sleep to empty my bag, occasional leaks, problems wearing all the clothes I want, and all other such proverbial, and literal, pains-in-my-ass... and despite sometimes wishing it was different, I've accepted that for now anyway, it's not.