I’m an ostomy and IBD advocate plus an illustrator and graphic designer from Sydney, Australia. I love to create art to raise awareness about ostomy life and to show the positive side of living with a bag. On my 1 year stomaversary I painted a colourful ostomy mural at Bondi Beach in Sydney, proudly sponsored

At 38, I never thought that I would be a candidate for ostomy surgery. In fact, it was something I had not contemplated for almost eight years. At the age of 30, I was diagnosed with bowel cancer and considered myself lucky at the time to have had a near full colectomy. I categorically refused

January 2019, I was 24 years old and was on a month-long trip around South-East Asia. Towards the start of my trip I had noticed some of my IBD symptoms coming back after being in remission for 7 years, I didn’t think much of it and made a mental note to see my gastroenterologist when

My fifteen-month-old son Harry is fascinated by my ostomy bag. He crawls across to me while I’m eating, reading or otherwise relaxing, grins impishly and whips up my T-shirt like a magician unveiling a trick: ta da!  He still doesn’t quite know what to make of it. His eyes fill with wonder and then look

Seriously? I don’t think I would have gotten through my surgery without mine! Stomal Therapy Nurses play a pivotal role in our lives pre and post-surgery. Most of us lucky enough to have a stoma nurse (and it amazes me that anyone is allowed to go through ostomy surgery without one) know they are amazing

During my health journey over the past 5 years, I have had to rely on social media for health tips from young people around the world experiencing similar surgeries or complications. So I recently created a public Instagram account called @ostomydays, in order to try and give back to a community which helped me in