Rays of hope

P, the stoma nurse from the hospital, has just phoned. She has been really terrific throughout, ever since Elaine’s first appointment – compassionate, caring, concerned and optimistic. She told Elaine that “We’ve got it early this time. We’ll get rid of it. I still think you are going to live to be a very old lady.” P reassured Elaine that if she had to have a colostomy bag, it would be far easier for her to manage.

P also said she would chase up the appointment.

The phone and doorbell have been ringing all the time with friends giving their support, and we’ve hardly told anyone yet. Thanks so much.

2 thoughts on “Rays of hope

  1. Richard

    Elaine, I have no idea how you’ll react to this. It is a quote from Gillian Rose.

    “I want to write about shit – the hourly transfiguration of our lovely eating of the sun. I need to remove the discourse of shit from transgression, sexual fetishism, from too much interest, but, equally, from coyness, distaste and the medical textbook. My interest is in the uncharted; my difficulty that I will inevitably enlist, by connotation and implication, the power and grace of the symbol. I need to invent colostomy ethnography.”
    Gillian Rose, , Vintage 1997, page 87.

    Keep writing Elaine.

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