Being part of the new 2021 world I have a firm understanding of extremes. The United States is now borderline totalitarianism and I am indeed starting off an article about stomas with that wild statement. Because wild is what I am about and because I simply have a stoma does not mean that I am not able to do wild or crazy things. What it means is that I need to prepare a little more and have backups in place something goes wrong, but really everyone takes a little bandage kit with them when they are extreme biking anyway. Yes, you can indeed be an adventure mountain biker if you have a stoma. Just because you had an Ostomy doesn't mean that life is over. As a matter of fact, life just goes on and doesn't really change that much for me. Instead of slowing down after I recovered I went the opposite route and sped up into doing extreme sports. Now, let's be real, I do mountain biking in a state with no mountains. I am not super crazy or a professional athlete, but there are many with stomas that are. I do consider mountain biking to be a bit extreme. Now granted I live in the midwest and that means that my mountains are not like Colorado. Although I have been out there and boy that is insanely fun. So how did having an ostomy work with biking in rough conditions? It was a bit hard to start, but with conditioning, just like in any other sport I began to get the hang of it.
So once your mindset is in the right place one thing that helped me was having the right gear. Mountain biking brings out a lot of sweat and lots of jumps and jolts. It causes a lot of legs and abdominal strain too. It is also possible to fall so protecting your stoma is a big part of the gear and having it be comfortable is super important.
So I had trouble with seals and bags working well to start with. I was eventually led to called some online companies that sold in bulk after watching an online tutorial and started asking questions. I finally got the courage up to call and I am glad I did. These companies were really helpful and didn't sell me like I thought they would. Instead, I had a great conversation with someone that gave me test products instead. It was a no worries sort of exchange and I more than appreciated it.
Now, not everything worked for me but I found a better bag and belt system. It gave me the confidence to do a trail and start having some fun again. I got all strapped up and hit the local trail which is actually in the middle of town. I skipped the jumps the first few times but really got comfortable with my body and the bike going up and down. So I was able to get back to finally doing what I loved and take it up a notch as time moved on. This was a big boost to my life and the quality of it. It doesn't seem like much but when you are sitting in surgery thinking all that is good is about to end it sure is nice to get that rush of joy from the trail.
