Our guest for February will be Diana Leutenegger of ConvaTec. ConvaTec has recently expanded their me+ program to include “Your Guide to Recovery”, a detailed program for regaining activity after surgery. Our next meeting takes place at Longmont United Hospital, February 7, 1:00 pm. I will be out of town, but Debra Noel, sarafinanana7@gmail.com, will happily attend and facilitate. And don’t forget to check out her blog, Drop In With Debbie!

Our March meeting at Long Peak Hospital will have a presentation on the Aspen Club of UCHealth. Established in 1989, and now with more than 12,000 members, the Aspen Club is a community resource for those over 50. It provides a wide range of program benefits including health education, screenings, discounts and social activities. They serve all of Northern Colorado, and will be expanding to Longmont in the next couple of months. Check out the many activities for January/February here.

I wanted to share this graphic I found on the OstomyConnection Facebook page. I was unable to find credit for it, but I thought it interesting that fully 50% of all ostomy surgeries are due to cancer and diverticulitis.

Registration is now open for the UOAA National Conference 2019 in Philadelphia, PA, August 6-10. There are three additional tracks this year for Pediatrics, Young Adults and Caregivers. There are four full days of Conference Sessions covering a wide variety of topics, including panel discussions, medical marijuana, ostomy-specific breakout sessions (ie ileostomy, colostomy, etc) and social events. Hotel discounts are available until May 31.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself in the hospital for a total of three days. I contracted a very common stomach-bug virus for children, but it’s very rare for adults. I was severely dehydrated and, Thanks to Charles! he knew of a protocol for how to slow and thicken my output that slowly allowed me to rehydrate and return my output to normal. This was a relatively small event, but felt very large to me, and was made more urgent after I realized that the doctors treating me had no idea what to do. They were still treating me as if I had a colon, and were actually making things worse (as far as I was concerned). Charles and I are corroborating on a paper for the Phoenix Magazine to talk about this type of incident and how to prepare for it, should it happen to you. Our meeting at LUH in April will be to discuss what happened to me and share what we’ve learned. Let’s just say, I’m so glad Charles is on our team!