Latest / Beyond the Pouch / EP15: Natalie-Amber's Reversal Story & Accepting Her Scar

Transcript

EP15: Natalie-Amber's Reversal Story & Accepting Her Scar · Beyond the Pouch

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Why did you have a stoma?
0:01
SPEAKER_00: So I was misdiagnosed for seven years.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: December the 5th, um, 2017, I collapsed from blind, had sepsis, kidney failure, I had a stoma bag, and then I had the stoma reversed a year later.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: What you have gone through, it is staggering.
0:17
SPEAKER_00: The stoma didn't bother me, and everyone always asks me this.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: And the stoma is never the problem.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: It was the scar.
0:22
SPEAKER_00: I love my scar, would not want to not have her.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: She is a part of me, she is amazing.
0:27
SPEAKER_00: And if you was to say so, I could take your scar away.
0:29
SPEAKER_00: But absolutely not.
0:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, so I will big up my scar till the day I die now.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Welcome back to another episode of Beyond the Pouch.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: If you've missed any previous episodes, be sure to check us out on Spotify and your podcast providers.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Don't forget to subscribe because so you will never miss an update.
0:49
SPEAKER_01: Today we've got the beautiful Natalie, who you will all know.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: If you don't know Natalie, you've been living under a rock.
0:55
SPEAKER_01: Um you'll be sharing your story today about your stoma experience and life after reversal.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: And it hasn't been long since we've seen you because we saw you at the event with Pelican where you did your workshop on body confidence.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:08
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, welcome.
1:09
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, thanks for having me.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: I feel like we've got royalty, like we need to bow.
1:13
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm not Beyonce.
1:14
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
1:17
SPEAKER_00: Or Taylor Swift, as some might say.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: No, how have you been?
1:20
SPEAKER_01: How have you been?
1:21
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm good, thank you.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've been doing well.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I s when I last saw you, I was in a flare-up, wasn't I?
1:25
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: So I had the nappies out.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: But no, I'm all I'm all good at the moment.
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, touch wood.
1:31
SPEAKER_00: You just, yeah.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what is really unique about this episode is you're the first person that's come on without a stoma.
1:39
SPEAKER_01: But I do think as well that we both push a lot about is that just because you don't have one now, you did have one.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: We've all got things that we've been through that are similar, and it's really important to talk about both.
1:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it did obviously change my life, and it always will be, you know.
1:56
SPEAKER_00: It it what happened to me in the way it did was traumatic.
2:00
SPEAKER_00: And you don't know, I don't know if I have to have a stoma again in the future.
2:03
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, my surgeon has said, you know, that if you keep having flare-ups, you know, you may have to have a stoma in the future again, or you may even have to have a liquid diet.
2:12
SPEAKER_00: And so I have been told all these things, you know.
2:14
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know what the future holds.
2:16
SPEAKER_00: So who knows?
2:17
SPEAKER_01: And the big discussion a lot of the time is about, you know, whether to choose to have a reversal or not.
2:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: You've been through that, so I think it's really good that we've got you here today so you can share your experience with everyone else.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: But firstly, why did you have a stoma?
2:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I was misdiagnosed for seven years.
2:34
SPEAKER_00: So I trained as a dancer, I went to dance school, a bit like, you know, like fame, the musical, that sort of dance school.
2:40
SPEAKER_00: Um and they just put me in a category.
2:43
SPEAKER_00: So the doctors would be like, oh, you're anorexic, you're a model, you're a dancer, because obviously I've modeled since I was four or five years old.
2:49
SPEAKER_00: So they just put me into that box because of what I do as a profession.
2:53
SPEAKER_00: And despite us saying, like, no, I'm not anorexic, I love food, you know, it just wouldn't stay down.
3:00
SPEAKER_00: They just kept ticking it off to anorexic or IBS or bulimia, anything that wasn't Crohn's.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: Um, and obviously have a cousin with Crohn's disease.
3:09
SPEAKER_00: So I said, like, it's in the family, just give me a test because my symptoms were like how she was before she got diagnosed.
3:15
SPEAKER_00: And they were like, no, no, it's IBS, it's this, that, FODMAP, this, this, this.
3:19
SPEAKER_00: And then December the 5th, um, 2017, I collapsed, went blind, had sepsis, kidney failure, was rushed to hospital.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: I love how she says that, like, I'm blind, sepsis, whatever.
3:29
SPEAKER_01: So my gosh.
3:30
SPEAKER_00: I've got it in my head now.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: Two emergency surgeries.
3:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, I had 35 centimetres of my bowel taken out, and then I've got a I had a stoma bag, and then I had the stoma reversed a year later.
3:42
SPEAKER_00: Um and that I wow, I went down to like six stuff, like six K.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm not very good with this, six stone, six stone, you know.
3:50
SPEAKER_00: Um, I went really down, like size fours were falling off.
3:53
SPEAKER_00: That's how bad it was.
3:55
SPEAKER_01: And you share the images of that frequently on your socials just to show people what you have gone through.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: It is staggering.
4:02
SPEAKER_01: It is, I mean, you just said that so casually, but let's not underestimate what you have been through.
4:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the thing is though, it is disturbing just how many young women, young girls, especially you know, towards the end of our teenage years, how often we are misdiagnosed and it's always put down to an eating disorder instead of actually investigating the issue behind it.
4:28
SPEAKER_00: And I think as well, especially because of the background I was in dance school, like they would say to the students there, my teachers, but oh, you need to look like Natalie, like that's how you need to look.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, bearing in mind, we didn't know what was wrong with me.
4:40
SPEAKER_00: So technically they were telling them to look like me, but I was dying.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: You know, I died on the table, I'm here today, thank goodness.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: But you know and I and it was because you had Crohn's that, like you said, was misdiagnosed and you had a stoma for just over a year?
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I had it reversed the 21st of December 2018.
5:00
SPEAKER_00: And did you know what a stoma was?
5:02
SPEAKER_00: How how were you prepared, if at all, for that?
5:05
SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't that I didn't really know what a stoma was, but I knew like a little bit.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: So my granddad um had a really rare stomach cancer and he passed away of it.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: But he had this like bag, which I didn't know what it was.
5:19
SPEAKER_00: I just knew he had something on his stomach, and he'd go into the toilet and do what he needed to do.
5:24
SPEAKER_00: He's a typical Caribbean Bayesian man, he does not talk about his feelings, he doesn't talk about anything like that, so we never knew anything about it.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: I just knew he had something where it helped him go to the toilet.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: Um, and now, like, obviously he's passed.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: My nan said she would help him sometimes change the stoma bag and things like that.
5:41
SPEAKER_00: Um when he first had it, though, until he could get the hang of it.
5:44
SPEAKER_00: Kind of like when I first had mine and you're still trying to like get the hang of things.
5:48
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, I didn't really know much about it.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: But then obviously when it happened to me, I was really sad, like, oh, I wish granddad was here, because maybe we could have like spoke about it so that I maybe knew more.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: That's really that's that makes you really emotional, actually.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: That's really oh my gosh.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: That that family connection.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: I was the favourite grandchild because I'm the I am the firstborn granddaughter on my dad's side, so obviously I was the fave.
6:15
SPEAKER_00: Well, you are a queen then, clearly in all walks of life.
6:18
SPEAKER_01: Instagram family everywhere.
6:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, how did you find life living with a stoma for that year period?
6:28
SPEAKER_00: That year was really hard for me, but I think that it would have been different if certain things didn't happen.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: So, for example, I had a boyfriend at the time, so when I collapsed and went blind and the paramedics came, he was there and he had to talk to me whilst like I couldn't see, but he had to talk to me whilst they were.
6:46
SPEAKER_00: I think they were putting like the is it ECG, whatever those little things are on you.
6:50
SPEAKER_00: Um and so he saw all of that happen, and then as soon as I had the stoma bag, he just changed and he was just horrible, as in emotionally, where he would just be like, nothing worse than having a poo bag.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: He swore, but I'm not gonna swear.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: It's like poo bag, you know, if you move on, don't poo on anybody.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: And then he said, like having my scarf, I wanted to post it on Instagram, because this is when I was trying to build up confidence, was attention seeking.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: So I remember posting a bit and deleting it straight away because oh obviously I'm attention seeking, I don't want to do that.
7:19
SPEAKER_00: Like, that's what he made me, you know.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: So I was in a really bad place because the person that was meant to be there, especially when he saw all that and he was there in the intensive care and things, he just changed.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: So he's a whole thank you next.
7:31
SPEAKER_00: And actually, like I don't regret him now.
7:33
SPEAKER_00: Like I really cannot stand the boy.
7:36
SPEAKER_00: But I if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't have been as passionate about what I do now, where I vowed no woman would ever feel how I did.
7:43
SPEAKER_00: And you know, so actually I'm quite grateful that that happened in my life when it did, even if it was all in one go and it was a big bang in one go, you know.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: And you know, let's make it clear who you're with now is the complete opposite.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: Yes, Ollie, he is a amazing, he's lovely, and I'm very, very lucky.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: But maybe then that had to happen so that I can appreciate now how lucky I am with Ollie.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: And it's think you find though, it's the tale as old as time with women having stoma surgery that the partner they're with, it's literally either a make it or break it for the relationship, and it is a story that we hear again and again and again and again and again.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: But think how many don't even share it.
8:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, there's so many that are living that life and don't share it.
8:32
SPEAKER_02: It's just I think obviously I'm I'm a bit older than you now, obviously.
8:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm 39.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: Well we all look 21 though, we're all in our 30s, flirty and thriving here.
8:47
SPEAKER_02: But it's I don't know, it seems to be I worry for the younger generation because everything has to be so perfect and everything is so edited and filtered.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: And I'm a bit like, well, what if ever happens if my daughter's diagnosed and she has to go through this?
9:05
SPEAKER_02: What's it going to be like for her?
9:08
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know obviously I've brought her up to be uh strong and not need to have someone validate her, but it's quite scary to think of like history maybe repeating itself.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but look who she's got as a mum.
9:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:23
SPEAKER_02: Look who she's seen she's seen you go through, and we've got to be.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: We've got Love Island, Married at First Sight, and you know people You catch that.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they watch all of that and then they decide that they want to look like them, and you get all those weird DMs on um Instagram, like, oh, can you apply for Married at First Sight and things?
9:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's always like they want a tick box is how they want a person with a disability.
9:50
SPEAKER_00: But then they never use anyone really with a disability, do they?
9:53
SPEAKER_00: Like I haven't really seen anyone on I don't actually watch Marriott at first sight, but I'm sure I would have seen if they had somebody with a disability on there.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: They did have the one girl I cannot remember names.
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Um there was a girl with um like her arm wasn't didn't grow past where her elbow would have been.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: That was the season, wasn't it?
10:16
SPEAKER_02: I I know exactly what episode you mean because it had the other girl on there, Gemma, um, and they did her really dirty with the editing.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: Is in the which one?
10:25
SPEAKER_02: English.
10:26
SPEAKER_00: The British version.
10:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's other versions.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, yeah.
10:32
SPEAKER_01: New Zealand is the best.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: No, there's Australia, there's America, there's honestly.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's the lives of Beverly Hills till the day I die.
10:41
SPEAKER_01: No, but this is like way better.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: This is way better.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: But anyway.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: But no, your daughter's got like you, you know.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: I I don't think you'd have to worry, but I get what you mean, especially with social media, and like even some of my friends, their little girls are only they're they're not old, you know, they're under ten and they want to have filters on their pictures and stuff, and it's so sad because of school and the way that they're told, oh, this isn't this, you know.
11:04
SPEAKER_01: I've got a child who's in year four, and they're having to talk about body confidence and self-esteem because they're seeing now that whereas they would have hit these problems where children were outwardly talking about insecurity, say year five, year six, going into secondary school, they're seeing it in year three and year four.
11:22
SPEAKER_01: Like it it it blows my mind.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: Boys and girls, yeah, it's it's heartbreaking, but that's why people like yourselves with the content you're doing.
11:31
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you are famous for showing your scars proudly.
11:35
SPEAKER_01: You were, I mean, I was I filmed you a couple of months ago when you were dancing in front of that doorway with a couple of streets.
11:43
SPEAKER_01: Yes, you there were some looks for a very good reason because you were looking.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, that is what you are known for, giving that positivity and giving that confidence and giving a big yes, this is me.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: And what I think is fab as well is that you don't see people show scars after stoma surgery with a reversal, and you you know, you you show yours.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: And I I know unless you've had it, don't know you know someone, unless you'd see people like yourself, how would you know what to expect?
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, because I know that reversals aren't obviously as known as when you have a stoma, because so many people go to me, Oh, you've had it reversed.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, I didn't know you could have them reverse.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there's still stuff that people don't know, but I think as well, I think I struggled more so because obviously I'm mixed.
12:27
SPEAKER_00: My scar was always going to be darker.
12:29
SPEAKER_00: So one of my this is gonna be so confusing.
12:32
SPEAKER_00: My cousin's cousin has Crohn's, not a relation to me, but a relation to my cousin.
12:36
SPEAKER_00: Um, and she was one of my first friends ever with a stoma, and she's still one of my best friends to this day because she helped me so much.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: But she's obviously white, and her scar that looks like mine is literally basically invisible now because obviously over time.
12:49
SPEAKER_00: Whereas mine, because of my skin tone, is more prominent.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: I I struggled to start with with that because I was like, oh, because you know, obviously now I don't care, but at the time that was also what I struggled with, especially because obviously on social media we see scars and stuff, but we don't really see any mixed or black women with scars.
13:05
SPEAKER_00: So I've kind of just took it on and you know.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: And the the the other thing as well, those with ulcerative colitis don't tend to have open surgery.
13:17
SPEAKER_00: No.
13:17
SPEAKER_02: Those of us with Crohn's We do.
13:20
SPEAKER_02: We do.
13:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because it's quite it's a lot of keyhole, isn't it?
13:23
SPEAKER_00: So when I first obviously, because I was new to everything, when I first had my stoma, and then some people that I met along the way, you know, as you do, were having keyhole for stomas.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: I was like, hey, is that a thing?
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Because I didn't obviously know.
13:34
SPEAKER_00: I thought every person that had a stoma had to have open surgery.
13:37
SPEAKER_00: So then it I think for ages, I know obviously what happened to me was horrendous, but it took me a really long time to I think really wor realize what happened to me, if you know what I mean.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, I've never been, you know, wanting to harm my life or be suicidal until 2018, in that summer, when I had the thank you next, and you know.
13:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it was just because of that, the body, you know, my body, I I looked like Mr.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Burns naked from The Simpsons.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: I would not look at myself in the mirror.
14:06
SPEAKER_00: It was because I was so tiny.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: Um, and it was that the scar, the stoma didn't bother me, and everyone always asks me this, and the stoma's never was the problem, it was the scar.
14:16
SPEAKER_02: I think the other thing is as well though, when you're ill with Crohn's, because uh when you're at your worst, because you spent such a long period of time being that small, it is then such a weird thing to both go through physically and mentally with the weight gain, and then try to accept the new you, yeah, just because the the the thing that you're trying to change with regards to to body confidence and being body positive, and it's such a I think like mental health battles and thinking about that all the time.
14:54
SPEAKER_02: Because when you're skinny and you're you're you're unwell, but people are going, Oh, I wish I could have what you've got and I could lose weight, and oh, I'd I'd die to be that size, and all you like, I just want to be able to eat without throwing it up or going to the toilet.
15:08
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, there's some people, you know, one of my cousins, she's tiny, really tall, but that's her physique.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: She doesn't look unwell, that's her physique.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: So yes, she is small, but some people are built that way, and some people are built plus size.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think what's funny is at the moment, it's obviously where I've been, I have lost a bit of weight, not in a ill way, just with the gym and stuff like that.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: And then everyone's like, You look really well, have you lost weight?
15:30
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, thanks.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, actually, oh, so did I not look well before?
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Did I look because I really you know?
15:35
SPEAKER_00: But the first thing they say, and I get it, like it's a normal thing most people say, don't they?
15:39
SPEAKER_00: And they think it's a compliment, but I think until we've gone through what we've gone through, then we realise, actually, so did I not look good before?
15:46
SPEAKER_00: Because obviously I've been on the steroids, the moon face, the I've gone up, down, had comments from when I was tiny, had comments when I was on steroids.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: I can't win.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: No, you can't, you can.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: Have you have you noticed that when you do put on weight and maybe if you do go a little bit over, you don't get the oh, well, don't you look amazing?
16:04
SPEAKER_02: You get the well, you look well.
16:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
16:07
SPEAKER_00: Not that you look really good, like you look amazing.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: Do you look really good or you look amazing?
16:11
SPEAKER_02: It's just you look well.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: No, but seriously, I get that.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: Like, because I wear baggy clothes sometimes.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: I think I've still obviously got body dysmorphia to a extent.
16:19
SPEAKER_00: I'd be lying if I said I didn't because I think a lot of us do, whether we care to admit it or not.
16:24
SPEAKER_00: No, I do because i I had it when I was a tiny, so all baggy clothes because people would make comments.
16:30
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm a normal size.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: I say normal size, you know what I mean.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: Like I I'm not unwow looking now.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: So You're healthy.
16:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're healthy.
16:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm healthy, and I still wear baggy clothes because I bloat constantly, and then I'm worried people are gonna say something, like the comments I always get when I blow, always, oh you're pregnant, or you that and it just and in the end it get there's only so much you can take, and it's constantly in your head being and then you start to believe it, don't you?
16:54
SPEAKER_00: And then you're like, so I I don't win.
16:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm wearing baggy clothes then and baggy clothes now.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: So I mean, do you find that you're kind of thrown off with regards to your where your waist is meant to be and where it should be because of the lack of belly button?
17:06
SPEAKER_02: Because I know for me that still throws me.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: When you say lack of belly button, what do you mean, sorry?
17:12
SPEAKER_02: So your silly Right, let's all get them out.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: Come on.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: Yours goes through your scar, doesn't it?
17:18
SPEAKER_02: Oh yes, yeah.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: So and obviously I don't have one.
17:21
SPEAKER_02: You don't have a belly button?
17:23
SPEAKER_02: No.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: Because of the reconstruction surgery.
17:26
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I know this is a lot of things.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: I loved mine.
17:28
SPEAKER_00: But I haven't.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: I honestly find like how this is gonna sound so stupid, but I didn't know you could live without a belly button.
17:36
unknown: Yeah.
17:36
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's just a bit of a gap with your umbilical cord, wasn't it?
17:41
SPEAKER_01: No, it's your first it's your first feed-in tube.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: It's a feed-in tube, isn't it?
17:47
SPEAKER_01: Your umbilical cord is the first one.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: So it's also your first ever scar.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:53
unknown: Oh well.
17:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like I so yeah, I mean mine, weirdly, they did I've uh you know open surgery a few times and they went round it like a roundabout.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: So it's not gone through, it's not removed, but it's tiny.
18:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: But it did go missing, like obviously when like I first had surgery, because I was like, I haven't got a belly button, but I did, but I just didn't think I had one because obviously where everything was like wow, it looked it looked like it was bleeding, but it wasn't obviously, was it?
18:19
SPEAKER_00: But with the like fresh wound.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: There's some surgeries, they go through the belly button, don't they?
18:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm not on about stoma surgery now, I'm on about everything and anything I've seen them where they actually go through it.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: And I know with the kids, so like my two children have both had stoma surgery open surgery, so that the eight-year-old, he they actually did his from below the belly button.
18:40
SPEAKER_01: So with the kids, they've got the same scar as me, but they've started below the belly button, but then it's further down.
18:47
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know what you know what what's worse.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: There's the I mean, yeah.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Well, I've learned something new.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: That sounded so silly that I did not know you could live without a belly button.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: I honestly thought it was we had to have a belly button.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: No.
19:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, you're you've trained as a personal trainer.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: And you do show um you show that in your in your content.
19:11
SPEAKER_01: So I know I would love to go to a personal trainer that specialized in what you do, helping people who have IBD and things like that.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: So what is your approach with your clients when you are doing that?
19:22
SPEAKER_01: I mean, when you meet them, they must come with all sorts of fears and misconceptions.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: And how do you tackle that?
19:29
SPEAKER_00: So most of my clients are online.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I have one in-person, no, two in-person now, sorry.
19:33
SPEAKER_00: Um, but um one of the girls I have is in Ohio, so she's in the USA and she's had 22 surgeries for colitis um and still waiting for Barbie butt surgery permanently.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: But she's doing her like is they see college uni, she's like, you know, their version of uni.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: So when she graduates, then she will, because obviously, that's again a lot of time off, she's too stressful on top of everything.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: So I cater to her as in okay, there's some things obviously that I can do that she definitely can, and that's just because of her amount of surgery.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: But I know, you know, if so, for example, I won't do Russian twists.
20:10
SPEAKER_00: There's certain things that pull on my belly a little bit, so I know then I ain't gonna give it to her at all because so I So do you feel that then you still feel things like that in your tummy?
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Scar cramps all the time, all the time.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and so I will never do Russian twists, I hardly do any core work, but I think it's a waste of time for me.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't have any core, he cut through that.
20:29
SPEAKER_02: We was we were speaking about that as well.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: You speak a lot about that too.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: It's the same with Kristen, the the girl I have in America.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: She she hasn't obviously got a core, but we work on her obliques, so she can feel it on her obliques because it's at the side, but she can obviously feel it down the middle.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: So we we've tailored it for her.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: Whereas, you know, one of my other ones has had no surgery, so completely like as if I was to Pete, you know, someone walking down the road.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Like, no problems, no nothing.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, what we have with her is her flare-up, so then the fatigue, and sometimes she's just too drained to train, and that's fine.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: I get that, and that's the same thing with me.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: If I sometimes am unwell or haven't they completely get it.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: Well, you were whacked when we saw you last time.
21:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you you were rushing to get to a class and you were like, Oh my god, I don't know how I'm gonna do this.
21:11
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's when I pulled my scar as well, so I wasn't really dancing.
21:14
SPEAKER_00: But luckily, because it was my showgo workout, a lot of the ladies, most of them that know it now, meant I literally just could boss them around and then so one of my friends was there that day, and I was like, Oh, thank goodness, because she knows quite all of it.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: So I was like, Oh, thank God, everyone just copy Abby.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm just gonna shout at you today.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: This is the this is the thing though, that uh with with Crohn's, and obviously the fact that your bow can produce scar tissue, and then you've got scar tissue from the surgeries and everything else.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: They don't talk about movement after the surgery and the struggles that you have.
21:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there's no rehabilitation, is there?
21:51
SPEAKER_02: Not for scar tissue, no.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean they they take it, they try to remove some of the scar tissue when they open you up, but the thing is.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna create more.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: It's just gonna create more.
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's what he said to me.
22:03
SPEAKER_00: Because I obviously said to my surgeon, look, I blow it all the time.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if I eat as the healthiest person that I can, or if I eat the most unhealthy foods, my belly doesn't change.
22:13
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, Well, this is the thing, it's your scar tissue.
22:15
SPEAKER_00: And he said, There's no point in me taking it out because all what will happen is it builds up more and you'll get a bigger blow.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's been the hardest thing for me to accept.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And I do think that's coming from the background I did in the dance industry.
22:27
SPEAKER_00: Because obviously I was always praised for how I looked, which I don't see how, but what I mean is I never got the like body shaming like the other students did.
22:36
SPEAKER_00: So and I never had to worry, you know, like my belly just always stayed flat.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Like but now it's a whole different body change, and because it happened at an older age, I never got, it was just a bit shocked.
22:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you actually deal with this?
22:48
SPEAKER_00: Oh, is this what I'm meant to be like, you know, which is which is good because I'm healthy and I'm alive and that's what I like, but it's hard to get to get used to it.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: It's difficult though, because that causes pain in itself.
22:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:00
SPEAKER_02: And I'm guessing with you post-reversal, it you can feel it a lot where you know when you're going to need the toilet, you know, because you can feel it, because yeah, you it it as it's moving, it's pulling the scar tissue, so you're getting pain and cramping.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: And it's also annoying, is as simple as I was on a shoot once and I bent down to put on the trainer they gave me, and I couldn't get back up because I had a scar cramp.
23:22
SPEAKER_00: So in the end, she had to put my shoes on for me.
23:25
SPEAKER_00: But like physically, literally, I couldn't get back up, and I was like, oh my god.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: And it was just putting my shoe on.
23:31
SPEAKER_00: That was it.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: And you you had a J Pouch constructed.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: No.
23:35
SPEAKER_00: Did you?
23:35
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a couple.
23:36
SPEAKER_00: Remember, we did that, we did that.
23:37
SPEAKER_00: Um I've got one.
23:39
SPEAKER_00: No, yeah, because we did that collab, remember?
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:41
SPEAKER_00: I don't have a J pouch.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: That's why I asked because I asked you.
23:43
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:45
SPEAKER_00: We did a collab, eh?
23:46
SPEAKER_00: Is okay?
23:47
SPEAKER_00: We did.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: This is years ago now, like five years ago.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people asked me, and I was like, I don't have a clue what a J pouch is.
23:54
SPEAKER_00: You can't have a pouch with Crohn's.
23:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course you can't.
23:58
SPEAKER_02: Why can you not actually?
24:00
SPEAKER_02: Because the stuff with ulcerative colitis, the reason why J pouch works with ulcerative colitis, because of all the large bowels being removed, technically there's no disease.
24:11
SPEAKER_02: So the J pouch is formed out of the obviously the intestines.
24:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:18
SPEAKER_02: Crohn's because it's from mouth to bottom, they can't form anything.
24:22
SPEAKER_02: It's the same as why most of us with Crohn's disease can't have a continent stoma.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Or um like being able to have because there's some where they they've literally it's like an internal pouch, but it's it's basically like a continent stoma, so they just have to stick a straw through it to obviously open up to release the output.
24:45
SPEAKER_02: But the reason why those of us with Crohn's disease can't is because that could then become ulcerated, which would then cause more problems.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: So that's obviously why then, because obviously where I got all these questions, I usually do when people message me now to this day about j pouches, I'm just not going to talk about it because I'm not confident.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: So I usually send them your work because I knew you had one.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: And so sorry if you get random DMs sometimes, but I don't want to be asking giving people advice or even saying what I think if I don't know.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: But that's that's the right thing to do.
25:14
SPEAKER_01: Like I think as people in our position where we share content about medical stuff, which is only our experience, it's not shouldn't be taken as medical advice.
25:24
SPEAKER_01: That is the appropriate thing to do because we you can't possibly know everything and anything there is to do about it.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're the most knowledgeable person I've ever met on the planet about today, Doctor Lou.
25:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not a doctor though.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I know you're not, but that's that's your nickname.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: I know you're not doing it.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: You're very knowledgeable, you are.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, if you just want me the belly buttons we don't need.
25:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but I think I think the thing is, because I've spent all of my adult life ill.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: You've consumed a lot of information.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: I've consumed a lot of information and I've done a lot of stuff behind the scenes for trials and clinical trials and advocate boards and patient boards and patient perspectives for things with the hospitals and stuff like that.
26:05
SPEAKER_02: But it's just there's no way some if somebody messaged me about Jay Power, like I don't know.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: Send them to Rachel.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: It's an awkward one because I, you know, if you've had something that's been negative for you, like I I it wasn't the right decision for me, I shouldn't have had one, it wasn't great, it made me way worse.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: So when someone asks me about it, I'm like, oh god, you know, if someone's confidence is teetering on the edge and they've been given that option, it's I know it's not going to be what they want to hear, but again, I can't lie.
26:35
SPEAKER_01: So I've got to know you've got to give your opinion.
26:36
SPEAKER_01: You know, you've got to give your honest opinion, haven't you?
26:39
SPEAKER_01: So then I'll but I I know of people who've had positive experience of it.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: So I'll say, you know what, this is just mine.
26:44
SPEAKER_01: Follow so and so.
26:45
SPEAKER_01: They've got a positive experience, so you there's balance.
26:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but at the same time, there's there's no good or bad really shared online with people post-reversal.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: Most people have a reversal and they go off.
27:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and that's why it's so unique that you, you know, you're still present and you still talk about it because people don't.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: I think and if it's but if it's you know, if things are going really well, you don't tend to speak about your health if it's well, you know, you don't really go into much.
27:16
SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you're poorly and you've got, you know, it's a bit like therapy.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: I know like my account I started of as a it was a form of therapy.
27:23
SPEAKER_01: It is for a lot of us, and that's why you talk a lot and you share a lot, and as soon as it goes great, you're like, see ya, I'm gonna live my life.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: Because a lot of people haven't been able to.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: I think as well, like I don't want anyone to ever, like I said to you guys earlier, like feel how I did.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, I'm not gonna just stop.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: I believe the reason I died on the operating table and God saved me that night was because I had a calling and I didn't know what my calling was.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I thought I was gonna be a famous dancer, dance and for Beyoncé, you know, marrying Justin Bieber, but hey, ain't gonna happen.
27:50
SPEAKER_02: Um you're not dead yet.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean I mean he's married, okay.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: Let's gonna uh but no, but like obviously I took the other route, which obviously was more what he had in store for me, and that is to make a change and help others, and I love this, like I'm actually passionate about it, and that is I think my calling.
28:10
SPEAKER_00: Well, that is I know that is my calling, you know, Justin Bieber can wait.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you're too busy and important to be bothering with him.
28:16
SPEAKER_01: Let him live his life with Haley, it's fine.
28:19
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you um obviously you had your reversal, yeah.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: And we were talking about this before we came in to obviously film this episode.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: Uh reversals just aren't spoken about, are they, at all?
28:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I had my reversal for me at the time.
28:37
SPEAKER_02: How old were you when you were George?
28:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh, good golly.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: I had I was 24 when they formed my stoma.
28:46
SPEAKER_02: So I'd have been 27 when they reversed it.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: I was 25 when I had my stoma, so we were similar sort of age then.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: I was two.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, I know.
28:58
SPEAKER_00: To be honest, I I know this is really random before we carry this on.
29:01
SPEAKER_00: You did say earlier, and I have spoke to a few people about um something you said on the body acceptance shoot, which was about your little boy being worried to go in the swimming pool.
29:13
SPEAKER_00: And that, uh like when I was talking to my nan and things, like, you know, not just randomly, like I mean like people that I know.
29:19
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, by the way.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm no, but um, you know, because I that really affected me and it because it brought me back to that little boy that I'd said to you guys about that that killed himself in America because he was being bullied.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: So my next thing is to go into schools, and I want to raise awareness on on um IBD, but stomas as well, mainly stomas, because of these people, like that poor little boy, and then when you said about your little boy, you know, being a bit it bothers me.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: But they kids are mean.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: They are I'm scared of kids.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: I was doing the other day in the park with my friend, and I was like, There's children over there, I don't want to do it.
29:51
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Natty, you're like confident went no, not with kids.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: They really scare me.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Because I was like, if they have something to say, if I'm rubbish, they're gonna tell me, and I am gonna take it personally, I would be really upset.
30:02
SPEAKER_01: Because when I They're savage, they are because when I was trying to find a school for for my eldest, and he had the stoma at the time, he still got it now.
30:11
SPEAKER_01: He had it from a week old and he's still got it now.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: Um, they'd never had a child before with a stoma, which blew my mind because in my life, I know loads of people with them.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, where are all these kids going to school?
30:23
SPEAKER_01: But you know, it's not a small school.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: There's about 600 pupils, they've never had a kid with a stoma, so having to educate and talk to them and let them know, and you know, all the meetings and all that, oh my god, it is it is it's relentless, and still, you know, he's in year four now.
30:40
SPEAKER_01: It's not you know, every year new teachers they don't know what one is, and you've got to start that process all over again.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: And things like that would be so beneficial.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: But also I found a DBS.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but sometimes they just you know, they've got so many things they're trying to deal with.
30:57
SPEAKER_01: I feel like they don't see it as important, which is really sad because it's one kid out of hundreds.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: But it is important because when these kids leave school and they meet lots of other people, they're gonna encounter people with it.
31:09
SPEAKER_01: It's extremely important.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: Primary schools, I mean, yeah, we we had to do a petition to get them to put bins in the year four, five, and six girls' toilets because they weren't- they weren't prepared for girls to start periods.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's taking them that young.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: And there was um I did the London Fashion Week that I did.
31:30
SPEAKER_00: The one of the designers I walked for was deaf, and um she was saying, so she had a lady that was talking for her, that it's not taught in schools, and I think she's got um two sons that are deaf, and it's not taught in schools.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: It's not even a thing.
31:44
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, we learned Spanish, French, German.
31:46
SPEAKER_00: They need to put that.
31:47
SPEAKER_00: I think that is something that should be put in again, you know.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, why not?
31:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: Is that for the ASL?
31:56
SPEAKER_00: And my my brain.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: ASL.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: Sign language.
31:59
SPEAKER_00: Sorry, sign language, yeah.
32:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, is ASL the actual name for it?
32:03
SPEAKER_00: I think so.
32:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what's that?
32:04
SPEAKER_00: No, sign language, yeah.
32:05
SPEAKER_00: But there's different, um, because I only learnt from that lady that there's there ASL and BSL.
32:11
SPEAKER_00: There's different languages.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: So you know like how we speak English and there's Spanish, then Welsh?
32:16
SPEAKER_00: Um, it's like that for sign language, but there's a universal one that the majority of people that are deaf will speak.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: Well, um, for married at first sight, again, sorry.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: The UK one that's out now, there is uh a deaf guy on there, and they use in the ceremony the I don't know what name it is the person.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: Um no, the person who conducted the ceremony was doing sign language as well as talking, which you know, again.
32:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say, so you had your reversal.
32:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: And what did you feel when you woke up and you came round after the reversal?
32:50
SPEAKER_02: Because this isn't spoken about enough at all.
32:53
SPEAKER_02: No.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, I embarrassed myself because so one of my best friends from school and he was my prom date, and I've known him since before.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: Like, obviously, we lost contact after school just as you do.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: And then he was in the room when I had my surgery, the one that yeah, because he works for the hospital.
33:11
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just randomly, but he was and he actually happened to be in that and he saw the m my name and nearly like fell off his seat.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh my goodness, because obviously he then saw everything I went through in that surgery.
33:22
SPEAKER_00: Um, so then we've obviously became close again, and he used to come up every single night and sit with me in my ward and stuff.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: And um, so we stayed really good friends now.
33:32
SPEAKER_00: Um, and when I had my reversal, I remember like vaguely, obviously I'm on those like medication they give you.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, Where's Aaron?
33:41
SPEAKER_00: Where's Aaron?
33:41
SPEAKER_00: And then they got him, and I was like, Oh, we should get married one day.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, what?
33:46
SPEAKER_00: Like, because I felt like it was so good that he'd like had my back, you know.
33:50
SPEAKER_00: He was not that we ever would.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness, please, he'd be so lucky now, Jake.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: And he's married, so and his wife is gorgeous and I love her.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he's got a baby now who's gorgeous.
33:59
SPEAKER_00: But um, no, it's just not like that.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: But you know, when you're drunk, like I say you're drunk, you're on those.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: And then I went up to the like put onto Mouden, which is the surgical ward, and I was like waving everyone, like, I'm back.
34:11
SPEAKER_00: Like it's so embarrassing.
34:12
SPEAKER_00: This queen thing again.
34:13
SPEAKER_00: I don't know why I thought like they're pushing me in the bed.
34:15
SPEAKER_00: It's so and my mum and my auntie obviously stayed in the hospital all day and then they waited and they came back up and they were like, shh, like, shh, and I'm just like, oh, but I was like, look at my lips, they like look really good.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: I've not even had because they were swollen.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: I was like, God, I don't even need lip phyllis if this is all I need.
34:28
SPEAKER_00: Like, it's so embarrassing.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, because I don't know what I say, this is why I don't like my colonoscopies, because I have my surgeon and I say some crazy things to him.
34:37
SPEAKER_00: The last thing I said to him on my colonoscopy was, if you leave, I'm going to follow you.
34:41
SPEAKER_00: Oh, right.
34:42
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, it's just because he saved my life.
34:44
SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, he knows what I'm like now.
34:46
SPEAKER_00: I think that's why he's so quick with the sedation.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, anyway, we go.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: They must be used to that.
34:51
SPEAKER_01: But did you, I mean, did you like go to feel what was there?
34:56
SPEAKER_01: Did you how that must have been really weird?
34:59
SPEAKER_00: It was a didn't feel much different, as in I had absolute mad, obviously, pain because he re-cut my scar open.
35:08
SPEAKER_00: Um just before they said obviously we don't know until we do it if you're gonna have a bit of it cut or all of it.
35:13
SPEAKER_00: Shock, it was all of it, would happen, wouldn't it?
35:16
SPEAKER_00: So I had all of that, obviously, whatever they did reversed it back, and um I didn't feel any different apart from that really bad stomach pain.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: So coughing, everything, oh, don't make me laugh, like that hurt.
35:29
SPEAKER_00: And then it took days and days.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: I was not going to the toilet, and my surgeon was like, right, you need chocolate, Coca-Cola, you know, coffee, anything with caffeine.
35:38
SPEAKER_00: You just need to keep eating it.
35:39
SPEAKER_00: Was trying everything, nothing was working, and I was just constantly being sick.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: You're like, me, aren't you?
35:44
SPEAKER_00: They put the Ilias.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:46
SPEAKER_00: Then they put the tube down my throat, which stopped the sickness, and then it still didn't happen.
35:52
SPEAKER_00: I was in there for over a week, and then finally I went.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my But I really didn't think I was gonna die, and I was worried that I because obviously, if you don't go, that's more surgery, right?
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah so I was really worried because I was like, oh no, please, no, no.
36:05
SPEAKER_00: Because it was I nearly kept my stoma because I had so much trauma from what happened to me the first time.
36:11
SPEAKER_00: I thought honestly, I'm gonna die in this operation, like this is just no way I'm having it.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: They even, because I had a massive panic attack, called my mum into the room where the the anesis are, and she had to talk to me about my cat.
36:25
SPEAKER_00: Anything about cocoa, then I calmed down, and then I was knocked out, but I wasn't gonna have it done.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I'm gonna die.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: I'm rather so there was no way after that reversal, you're gonna get me down lower again.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: No.
36:37
SPEAKER_02: I know, I know when I had my reversal, because I had the abnoplasty and the stomach reconstruction at the same time, I came round on the high dependency unit, NG tube down the back of my throat.
36:49
SPEAKER_02: They'd given me an epidural, but they'd done it halfway up my back.
36:53
SPEAKER_02: But where they'd put it in, because of the way that I was laying on the bed, the epidural actually came out.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:00
SPEAKER_02: I had to I had to be re-prescribed pain medication because obviously the epidural wasn't working.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: So how long was it between your reversal and when you had a stoma again?
37:12
SPEAKER_01: Four years.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: So quite a while then.
37:15
SPEAKER_01: So that that first bowel movement then?
37:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna ask you to describe it because that's a bit TMI, but how did you feel?
37:21
SPEAKER_00: Not TikTok, because it's Snapchat at the time.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: Snapchat, I don't have Snapchat now, but I did.
37:25
SPEAKER_00: I just like sat on the kimono, is it comodo?
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Komono?
37:28
SPEAKER_00: I always say it wrong.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Commode.
37:29
SPEAKER_00: Commode.
37:30
SPEAKER_00: I sat on one of them, like, hey, I'm going for a boo.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: Fair play.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:34
SPEAKER_00: And pseudo cream became my best friend until they gave me like barrier cream properly, but yeah.
37:39
SPEAKER_02: Because obviously, it took obviously I changed hospital after my reversal and I went up to Kaiser St.
37:46
SPEAKER_02: Thomas's.
37:47
SPEAKER_02: It took St.
37:48
SPEAKER_02: Thomas's and like another four years to work out what had actually been done to me when I'd had my reversal, because I'd literally diarrhea and incontinent from day dot of my rever from my reversal.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think anything quite describes the pain and the cramping post-reversal, which can take up to three months to settle.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: I think as well, even now, like if I need to go to the toilet and I'm saying I'm in the shop and I get stuck because it's either you walk and you poo, or you have to stand still.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: So I literally could be in the middle of the store.
38:22
SPEAKER_00: Everyone has to walk around me, like, what are you doing, mate?
38:24
SPEAKER_00: Like, move.
38:24
SPEAKER_00: And I'm there like, just get my phone out, like just scrolling, you know, whilst I'm squeezing my butt cheeks.
38:31
SPEAKER_00: Like, and then I have to wait till you get the like the clear way.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: When it's calm, she's like, right quick, make a beeline to the toy.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, they're good.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: I like leg day.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: I was a ballet growing up with ballet, and my mum and dad did taekwondo.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: Like, I've grown up with a strong leg, so it helps.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: Tons of skill.
38:46
SPEAKER_00: I needed that.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: I think the term echo chamber comes to mind.
38:50
SPEAKER_00: It's literally, yeah, run or poo.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: So I will have to stand in the middle of the crowd, and I'm sorry you're gonna have to walk around me because uh uh if I move.
38:59
SPEAKER_01: So with the how many times, you know, compared to before stoma life and after, is it dramatically increased the amount of movement you have a day?
39:09
SPEAKER_01: Is it a pattern?
39:10
SPEAKER_00: I didn't actually know before stoma life because I didn't have blood in my poo.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have any symptoms like most people.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: I had itchy eyes, bad skin, bad belly, and was always throwing up.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: I never had none.
39:24
SPEAKER_00: So again, that's why I don't really know.
39:27
SPEAKER_00: Like it's a bit obviously I get it now.
39:29
SPEAKER_00: Like I'm obviously always going to the toilet a lot, and sometimes I poo myself obviously there's not one week I will I will poo myself at least once a week, you know.
39:37
SPEAKER_00: That's minimum.
39:38
SPEAKER_00: Um but like I I don't know obviously beforehand because Yeah.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: And that's that's the thing, because I know obviously post-reversal for me, it wasn't until I'd had my stoma reformed in 2016 that the reason I was having the issues I was having is because uh over half of my large bowel had been removed back in 2009 and I'd had a lot of my small bowel taken out, yeah, which is why it was always always constant diarrhoea because uh bile acid malabsorption, so my body's just overproducing that.
40:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and of course, because I've got nothing in there to s like to slow anything down, it's just going through me literally eye of a needle springs to mind.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
40:24
SPEAKER_00: Is that when you had your reversal?
40:27
SPEAKER_00: Because that's something my when you said that name just now Malor and Malabsorbsorb.
40:32
SPEAKER_00: That's what my Ibidina's what I had.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: So she just gave me some medicine to take.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: Actually, funnily enough, it's out of stock in the hospital.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: Is that so I'm still waiting?
40:42
SPEAKER_00: I actually don't know.
40:43
SPEAKER_02: Or is it the question uh question?
40:44
SPEAKER_00: It's a drink.
40:46
SPEAKER_00: You have to drink it.
40:47
SPEAKER_00: Don't know if that helps.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's that hot that stuff's vial.
40:51
SPEAKER_02: Oh, great.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank goodness it's out of stuff.
40:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, don't worry about it for now.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: Before we wrap things up, I wanted to touch upon your body acceptance workshop.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: So I've actually taken some of the things you did with us and used it with people in my everyday life.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's like it was amazing.
41:09
SPEAKER_01: So the I mean, you shared your story really passionately and then what you're doing to make a difference.
41:14
SPEAKER_01: And then the bit I loved the most was where you invited people to stand up and talk about what they were proud of and what was good about them.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: And you and we don't do that enough.
41:24
SPEAKER_01: No one we don't do that.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: And you know, Keith, who we all love, you know, he stood up and did it.
41:29
SPEAKER_01: Big up the Keith.
41:30
SPEAKER_01: The Keith.
41:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and it was lush.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: And I I was with a friend the other day and they were a bit low, whatever.
41:36
SPEAKER_01: I said, I know what we're gonna do.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna chan on Ali, and I'm gonna you I need you to stand up and talk about what is good about yourself.
41:42
SPEAKER_01: And they felt so much better after it.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: So anyone that's watching this, if you take anything from this episode after this, yes, do that, even if it's to yourself in the bathroom mirror, because it wasn't in lush watching Keith do it.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: It was and add a little head roll or a little hair flick, because then you're really channeling me.
42:00
SPEAKER_01: Well, Keith's just Sass, so he's just he melt one hair and he was doing that.
42:08
SPEAKER_01: No, I mean what you know, what inspired you to make that part of it?
42:12
SPEAKER_01: Because that was hands down one of the best things I've seen for body acceptance.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: I think it was just adding into everything that I went for on my self-acceptance journey, you know.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: Again, going back to the thank you next, it was a massive part of what sculpted me to who I who I am today.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: And I never complimented myself.
42:29
SPEAKER_00: Like I said to you earlier, I wouldn't look in the mirror.
42:30
SPEAKER_00: I thought I looked like Mr.
42:31
SPEAKER_00: Burns, you know.
42:32
SPEAKER_00: I just I just didn't like the way I looked, and it took me so long to accept it, and it wasn't a nice journey.
42:38
SPEAKER_00: I had to write in, you know, my journal, this is what I love about my body today, or this is what I accepted.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: And it took a long time because I felt like I was making things up at times just to write something down.
42:47
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, you keep repeating it and you keep repeating it until you actually get to a place of kind of where you feel a little bit free.
42:53
SPEAKER_00: Obviously, self-acceptance is never ending.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: We're on this road forever, you know.
42:56
SPEAKER_00: There's no there's no, you know, we're not gonna get to the wizard like Dorothy did.
43:00
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna keep going to fight, you know, for the rest of our lives.
43:03
SPEAKER_00: But then we learn how to accept things and how to deal with things.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: And I think it is so important to give ourselves some credit.
43:08
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we are badass, we've gone through so much and we're amazing.
43:13
SPEAKER_00: And I love my scar, would not want to not have her.
43:16
SPEAKER_00: She is a part of me, she is amazing.
43:18
SPEAKER_00: And if you were to say still, I could take your scar away, but like, absolutely not.
43:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, so I will big up my scar till the day I die now.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's why it's important just how I could compliment you two, how we all complimented each other today.
43:30
SPEAKER_00: Why can't we do that to ourselves, you know?
43:33
SPEAKER_00: I actually think I look quite cute today.
43:34
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna compliment myself.
43:36
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what I mean?
43:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, you should say, Look, I look amazing in that pink top, you know?
43:40
SPEAKER_00: And that dress looks nice on you, and your hair, obviously, because I know you change it up all the time.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: So, like, you know, but why don't we do that?
43:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we don't.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: It's not being stuck up for you to say, Oh, my hair looks and your hair smells amazing.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: Like, it does.
43:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we Yeah, I mean, the thing is we're teasing people with this because they can't smell it.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: But if you can't, yeah, you're missing out.
43:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
44:00
SPEAKER_00: No, but what I mean is as soon as you came in, everyone's like, where is that coming from?
44:03
SPEAKER_00: But you know, you could literally be like, My hair smells the bloody amazing.
44:07
SPEAKER_00: Why don't we do that though?
44:08
SPEAKER_00: Because we don't want to look like we're stuck up.
44:09
SPEAKER_00: We're not stuck up.
44:10
SPEAKER_00: We're just, you know, we have to compliment ourselves.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: We have to.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: Can't rely on other people too at the end of the day.
44:16
SPEAKER_00: We only have ourselves.
44:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a flipping with bad mouth, which is always makes sure I smell nice.
44:22
SPEAKER_00: I know, my mum bought me some poo spray.
44:24
SPEAKER_00: Like every time we I always forget it.
44:25
SPEAKER_00: Like, where's the poo spray?
44:27
SPEAKER_00: I've never forgotten it.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: VIP poo or whatever.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: So as well as being a queen in every walk of life, you're also an award winner.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: So please share with the people what awards you.
44:40
SPEAKER_00: So I won the Alex Domain Lifetime Awareness Award from Crohn's Encalitis UK.
44:46
SPEAKER_00: And then I also won the MTM Black and Asian Empowering Woman Award.
44:51
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that was this fun, fun times.
44:53
SPEAKER_00: I've got them on the mantelpiece at home.
44:55
SPEAKER_00: They're not in your toilet.
44:56
SPEAKER_00: No, they do need dust.
44:58
SPEAKER_00: I just hate cleaning.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: Like I have to clean them, like dust them.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: Because they're all they're both made of glass.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: So I mean, those must have been great moments for you.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
45:08
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure they're not going to be the last awards that you have won.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: They were massive, like the Crohn's one.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: I did not expect that, like at all.
45:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, I r um hosted a fashion show just after my reversal.
45:20
SPEAKER_00: So I still had the bandages, like the pac the covers on the dressings.
45:24
SPEAKER_00: Um when I did that.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: And then I've the picture that people see the most is obviously there's three of us.
45:29
SPEAKER_00: So it's my cousin who's had no surgery, um, has Crohn's.
45:33
SPEAKER_00: Then Jasmine, the one I said was my first friend of a my cousin's cousin, that not that cousin, another cousin.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Uh she has a stoma forever.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: And she was the first time showing her stoma, and she also has Crohn's.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: And then there was me with Crohn's who'd had the reversal.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: So it was like all like three different stages.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: And that was like a, we were like, woo-hoo, famous like little walk down the runway.
45:53
SPEAKER_00: And yeah, um, I won that award through that.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm assuming it was that, because that was the the and obviously I'd started my journey on raising awareness, but that is the main thing that I had done.
46:04
SPEAKER_00: And then the MTM one, I think that they I got I won that just for everything I do in general for empowering women.
46:11
SPEAKER_00: And that's obviously for black and Asian people.
46:13
SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that was that was a really good achievement as well.
46:16
SPEAKER_02: That is a m it is amazing though.
46:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the amount of work that goes into what you do on social media along with your modelling and being a personal trainer, you're a powerhouse.
46:28
SPEAKER_02: You really are.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: So I don't feel like it sometimes.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, the other day I did a run and I just overdid it and I couldn't do anything for the rest of the week.
46:35
SPEAKER_00: Like I couldn't work out, like I just was so tired.
46:37
SPEAKER_00: It drained me, and I do get frustrated with that.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: My IBD nurse is like, Nasty, like you do do a lot, like sometimes you need to take a step back, you do too much.
46:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, and that's why like your body won't do as much as it could.
46:48
SPEAKER_00: And it's frustrating because I'm like, no, no, no, no, no.
46:51
SPEAKER_00: So then I always get like then set back because I get toe tired.
46:54
SPEAKER_00: It's like an it's a toxic cycle, isn't it?
46:56
SPEAKER_00: You're going round in circles.
46:58
unknown: Yeah.
46:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean from everything that we've covered today, I mean, if there was one thing you would say about people and their journey of body acceptance, what would you what would be the takeaway from this?
47:09
SPEAKER_00: Uh not to rush it, you know.
47:11
SPEAKER_00: Trust the process, trust the journey.
47:13
SPEAKER_00: Don't avoid the ugly, you know, because otherwise you're gonna have to go back and deal with it anyway.
47:18
SPEAKER_00: Face every obstacle as you come and face every obstacle and take what you do from it.
47:23
SPEAKER_00: Take something from everything, you know, because there's always something to be learned.
47:26
SPEAKER_00: Nothing happens for a, you know, just random reason.
47:29
SPEAKER_00: There's always something to take.
47:30
SPEAKER_00: And obviously to be your biggest supporter and especially when it comes to people around you, if your friends, your family, your dog, your cat, like I don't know.
47:39
SPEAKER_00: If anyone treats you how you shouldn't be treated and makes you feel rubbish about the way you look, or the way your body is, or the way that your disability is, whether it's hidden or visible, thank you next.
47:50
SPEAKER_00: Goodbye.
47:51
SPEAKER_00: You put yourself first in your energy, and you have to protect your energy always.
47:55
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
47:57
SPEAKER_00: She lush.
47:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, don't cry.
48:01
SPEAKER_00: I'll be good.
48:02
SPEAKER_00: I don't want my mascara to get my contact lens.
48:05
SPEAKER_00: Please don't cry because it's dangerous.
48:06
SPEAKER_02: That's right, my concealer will come off some of our bags as well.
48:09
SPEAKER_02: Um I was gonna say, so um, I'd like to say thank you to Natalie and thank you to everyone for tuning in to be on the pouch.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: We hope you've enjoyed the conversation and found her story both inspiring and insightful.
48:25
SPEAKER_02: And don't forget to join us next time.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: So we'll start.