June 06, 2009
From a support group chat forum…
~I am sympathetic to people in wheelchairs, and if a person with a wheelchair came in while I was waiting, of course I would let them go first. It is true that I can fit into a regular stall. But with the ileostomy and getting all of my stuff together and emptying standing up, it is much easier to take care of cleanly and quickly when I am in the handicapped stall. And the other stalls in this particular bathroom are TINY with doors that open into you and often won’t lock. I have used this stall many times over the last 5 years and there has never been a problem. So I am just finishing up and trying to get the ileosorb into the bag when someone says “You know that is a handicapped bathroom”. So I explained that I had a medical reason why I was using that stall, and that I would be out in a minute. I came out and this angry woman in a wheelchair says “oh, what, you needed all that extra room for that backpack?” So again I said “you don’t know anything about my medical issues, but I have a valid reason to use this stall.” More words back and forth, and I was tempted to whip the bag out and show it to her, but I didn’t. Finally she said “that stall is for people in wheelchairs” and when I reiterated my point, at which point she said “I’m tired of hearing it” and then I kind of lost my temper and told her “I’m tired of hearing you too, you dumb b***h” and left.
I was not happy with the way I handled that, but I felt very frustrated. Most people know nothing about ostomies, and it is hard to have people verbally attack you for something that you know you didn’t do wrong. When I left, I was afraid of more confrontation, so I did not use the bathroom, which was not the end of the world, but not comfortable either. I am unsure of how to handle this sort of thing in the future. The place where this happens is a place where I could run into this kind of issue again. And if I had a leak, I would use that stall, and I would be in there at least 10-15 minutes. If it is not clear by now, I despise confrontation. Anyone else run into this problem before? What would people advise in terms of dealing with this if it happens again?
Ileostomy 1998 due to UC, hernia repair and stoma resite 2008… 
<formerly known as srubi74 or scrubi to some>
