I am 71F and here's my story. There was a tumor in my bladder and into the wall, but not through it. It was removed but found to have invaded the bladder wall, which would not heal itself. After 12 weeks of chemo, I was referred to a urology surgeon at Mayo to discuss bladder removal, and at first I was against it. He told me about bcan.org and it took me a week to get up the nerve to even look at that website. I am glad I did because fear of the unknown is quite scary. Having more information is less scary.

I had the urostomy surgery four weeks ago and recovered nicely. I stayed in the hospital five nights and they had me walking every day after the surgery day. The urostomy nurse visited me at the hospital every day to discuss the use of the bag. She also gave me lots of supplies to bring home. I also had home health nurses visit me twice a week for two weeks to change my bag. I am glad they brought more supplies, and they got me started on ordering supplies after I decided what I wanted.

My husband changes my bag but I will eventually change it myself. He watched a video by Hollister (maker of the bags we like) and found that most people who changed my bags were doing too much. Since the stoma changes size for a few weeks before it settles down, the short version of his routine is "snip it, click it, before you stick it." In other words, we are using a two-piece bag but he snips the hole to the correct size and clicks it onto the bag before doing anything with the adhesive covers and placing it on my body.

Also, to remove the bag, he uses an adhesive removal wipe to take off the bag, cleans the area with a damp wash cloth, and dries the area with paper towels (these turn out to be the most important steps), before the other steps.

I empty the bag every hour or two, and hook up to a night bag for sleeping. I have a walker from when I had knee surgery two years ago, and the night bag hangs on the lower rung while I am sleeping (currently on the recliner, but will eventually graduate myself to the bed). To empty the night bag, I roll the walker over the toilet, place the bag on a top rung, and open the valve to drain. Hubby rinses it out with hot water and returns the night bag and walker to an out-of-the-way location. Big note: keep the open end of the intake tube higher than the bag during storage, and use a velcro strip to hold it in place for storage.