LeeAnne Hayden

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Accepting your Ostomy with guest Ashlyn Laskey

Ashlyn is 1 year out from having her Ostomy and from her perspective, it has really been a year of acceptance for her.

After going in and out of remission with her UC over the years, it finally got to a point where it was truly a life or death situation. The last thing that had to be done to save her life as the medications and treatments stopped working was to get part of her colon removed and have an Ileostomy put in. 

The year post-op was a battle with multiple hospitalizations following her surgery, losing all of her hair, and then working on how she can find herself again and adjust to this new normal and accept herself and her situation.

We can both agree that the mental aspect of recovery is one of the hardest when it comes to this.  But just really ensuring that you have this community around you that supports you and is there for you is so needed to thrive in this new life.

“Believe in yourself and finding a way to love yourself is the key to sort of everything else. For me, once I was able to accept myself and my new body and my new hair, and all these things I was going through.  I felt like the rest kind of just came naturally. And I think other people can sense that as well.”

You can find Ashlyn on Instagram @ashlynlaskey as well as her youtube channel, The Roaring Redhead. And be sure to listen to the rest of her story on this week’s podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify.