What a year this has been! There’s been Covid, elections and fires….oh my! Here’s hoping that your Holiday season is safe and continues to be well. This website will not be updated until after the first of 2021. We are still available at BoCoOstomyGroup@gmail.com, 720-378-8411. Local online meetings are noted on the side bar.

There is a new coordinator for the Ostomy Support Group at Anschutz Medical Center. Her name is Charlotte Graham, charlotte.graham@uchealth.org. She has been a nurse for seven years, and is a newly certified CWON. After the first of the year they will be having virtual meetings every other month.

Dr Richard Rood, MD, FACP,
FACG, AGAF, FASGE

On October 10th I listened in on a presentation by Dr. Richard Rood, Professor of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis. Dr Rood has had an ostomy himself since age 13 due to UC. As a gastroenterologist, he was a presenter at UOAA’s 2019 National Conference and is currently Chair of UOAA’s Medical Advisory Board. His career has been focused in treating ostomy patients and lecturing around the country on IBD and current treatments and trends. This presentation included descriptions of IBD and methods of treating it with medications or surgery. The latter part of Dr. Rood’s presentation focused on the current pandemic, as he has moved into treating Covid patients. He described an international registry of data from IBD patients who also contract COVID-19, and he displayed data showing the prevalence of adverse outcomes among Covid patients who take various medications for their IBD. The link for this registry is at https://covidibd.org and you can find a summary of collected data at https://covidibd.org/current-data/ . Additional info about COVID-19 and IBD can be viewed at www.crohnscolitisfoundation.org/coronavirus/adults. This talk was really interesting and I was able to screenshot most of it, so if you’d like a copy, please let me know.

I’ve recently learned of a new telehealth ostomy group, To-Day’s Ostomy Solutions. In addition to appointments online, they also offer pre-surgery education, and they have partnered with all the major suppliers. You can book a session online, but they are only an out-of-pocket service, accepting all credit cards and PayPal.

The UOAA has designed a new Ostomy Blockage Card. Well, it’s not really a card anymore. It’s much more detailed than the previous blockage information, with descriptions of what to expect and how to diagnose a blockage, and comprehensive instructions for healthcare providers should you need to go to the hospital. I think it’s probably better that it’s so comprehensive, but it would be nice to just have a “card” that we could carry with us. Still, if you think you have a blockage, print this out and take it with you. Most of the providers we see in the ER have never seen an ostomy.