Having an ostomy can be fun! The Carmichael Ostomy Association does an annual fashion show and I was lucky enough to participate this year. It was a blast. I am guessing that the models ranged in age from mid-twenties (me) to …who knows… 70s? 80s? Everyone was dressed so nicely. We each picked a song to play while we “walked the runway”. The president of the group read a description of each outfit and said some nice words about the model and then her husband made a silly and sweet comment about the song each person chose.

To highlight the best parts, one lady wore a cute, long dress with a nice sun hat and when she got to the end of the room she went outside and came back wearing a bathing suit, to show us that you can hide your ostomy (AND HERNIA!!) with the right suit. I’m vouching, hernia was not noticeable (neither was her ostomy). Her swimsuit was a one piece, red and had pretty flowers on it with bunched fabric in the stomach area. That’s not at all a good description, I wish I had a picture!

A guy wore jeans and a button up, boots, cowboy hat and walked down and then grabbed his wife and they danced (waltzed?) back up the runway together. It was so sweet.

I wore khaki pants that I’d altered a little to make more comfortable with my ostomy, boat shoes, and a blue and white striped shirt. It’s my sailor outfit!

The last guy that went was one of the older members of the group and he wore some slacks that his granddaughter had altered for him, a button up and a hat. On his second trip down the runway, his granddaughter handed him a chicken hat and the song changed to the chicken dance song. Yep, he did the chicken dance down the runway.

It’s days like these, meetings like these, people like these that make me so proud to be a part of such an incredible family of ostomates.