How to support someone living with a stoma | by Nikki

So your friend, bother, husband, sister, wife, mum or dad has just had stoma surgery. Now what? How can you support someone you love, who has just gone through life-changing surgery?

Here are a few tips I have put together, things that people did for me and some things that I think maybe I would do, knowing what I do now, if someone close to me went through the same.

1. Let them cry. There is no fixing this, it is life-changing and they would have been through a traumatic time. It’s all too easy to try and see the positives. But in that moment, sometimes it’s best to acknowledge that, right now, it all feels a bit rubbish and that you understand the magnitude of what they’ve been through. 
2. Learn what kind of stoma they have and do some research. They’ve had major surgery. They’ve probably been in hospital for a long time or are still in there. Asking lots of questions and going over the same explanations of ‘what a stoma is’ can be exhausting. 
3. Offer food, a home-cooked meal – nothing beats a home cooked meal after hospital food. Again, it’s worth doing research about what would be best for them in the early days of having a stoma, it may be that they need to stick to white rice, or avoid nuts etc. Take this into consideration when presenting someone with something to eat. 
4. Offer to help with practical jobs. Maybe they can’t drive for a while after, offer to do the school pick up or grab some essentials from the shop. Or just offer to pick them up and take them out for coffee. I went from feeling like a prisoner of the hospital to feeling like I couldn’t leave the house without being an inconvenience to someone else. Or maybe something as simple as whizzing the hoover round. It’s the little things that mean the most.
5. Check in on them. They may not reply, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t grateful. 
6. Give them time to get back to themselves. I went from being Nikki who love socialising, having a drink, even the dance floor, to Nikki who found loud places, busy surroundings and anything unfamiliar, absolutely terrifying. My friends and family didn’t abandon me, they worked with me. Ok, so no, what we used to do doesn’t fit right now, so what can we do that does? A gentle walk, a coffee or as my girls did a picnic of stoma friendly snacks in my bed when I first came home.

Really, the best way to support someone you love who has just had stoma surgery is to just learn, adapt and be compassionate and understanding. That’s all you really need to do. And let me tell you, by being those things will help your loved one more than you know. I wouldn’t have got through the last two and a half years with my support network, and I hope that if needed, I could be as wonderful to them as they were to me.

Love, Nikki
@jonesvscrohns