All I've wanted to do is get on my bike and ride. I don't mean around town, I can do that anytime on any day. But travelling by bike on a trip is what I am so wanting to get doing again.
It was a long 12 months last year, dealing with cancer, my operation and the changes that it brought about. It became even longer after dealing with the broken neck on top of it all.
As someone who has battled Anxiety, Depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, riding isn't just a lovely hobby, it has become a necessity for survival.
Riding is my peace, my Zen, the balancing of my ying and yang so to speak. It clears my mind, it soothes my soul. It takes away the Anxiety that abounds in this troubled mind of mine.
I actually believe that if it came to a point that I could no longer ride, I would die. To me it is as necessary as breathing.
That all being said, I have to change things a little. Yes, I love my riding around town, everything from exploration, just riding or transporting to shops etc. But I also adore my touring and bikepacking, and in this lies the dilemma.
Ever since Rectal Cancer last year left me with a permanent colostomy, it is in this that hides the challenges of touring and packing. It is no longer a case of just packing a bike with a roll of toilet paper and heading off.
Now it takes much more planning. Now I'm not talking about an overnighter, or a couple of days. They are relatively easy to deal with. But longer trips, a week, two weeks and longer.
I started out using standard colostomy pouches, both closed and drainable. Closed ones are just that, they're closed. Once filled they are disguarded and thrown into the rubbish. Drainables have an open end that can be emptied into the toilet, for such instances as diorea.
Pouches are basically a bag that adheres onto the abdomen over the stoma. It collects your output, or faeces. Not the most pleasant of subjects I know.
Now in itself they have served their purpose. But the big issue with wearing a pouch is that your output is irregular. It happens when it happens. This makes it difficult to judge how many pouches are required on any given trip.
To give you a bit of a background here...I could go two or three days without going to the toilet. Then I could go three, or even more times in one day. Some days it was just constant small amounts of output. Some days I would have diorea. Nothing was normal or regular. I then investigated a method called Irrigation, or Bowel Training. This is what I now do.
This method is a little more involved than sticking on a bag. It requires a little time and effort, and water.
Irrigation is a basically giving yourself an enema. Filling a bag with around a liter of water at a particular temperature. Then is fed into the stoma filling the bowel at a prescribed rate. To fast a flow, or wrong temperature and it can cause stomach cramps, and even cause one to pass out.
Now, of course there is a method by where the waste is caught. Prior to filling the bowel a temporary disposable drainage bag called an Irridrain is applied. This catches any water spilled and the waste that comes out.
It takes around ten minutes to fill the bowel. Then it takes around thirty to forty minutes for the bowel to drain. This can be done daily, or every second day. I haven't had much success with going two days at yet.
After this is done a small pouch called a Mini Cap is applied. This helps contain any small amounts of output that may happen the next day. These occurances are rare though.
Why do I do this? It's simple, I have control. Where as I would go any time, any amount, I now have control over my bowel and my movement. It is a bit like being normal and regular in a way.
I choose to do this at night after dinner. I give my dinner approximately an hour to digest then go into the bathroom and do my thing. I've chosen night time for a couple of reasons.
1. I live with four women in the house. My wife and three daughters. The bathrooms in our house are pretty much over occupied in the mornings. Night time is quiet...lol.
2. I have decided to do it at night for when I go biking, and hiking. As it takes the best part of an hour to complete, it makes more sense to me to do it at night. The day is done, I'm sitting back and relaxing.
Once the application is done I can walk around and do what I want whilst I'm waiting for my bowel to drain. So I can clean up, get stuff packed ready for the next morning, blog, post on social media etc.
Yes, the drainage bag needs to be emptied. This also creates a problem. If at a comping ground, caravan park or rest area where there is a toilet, it all honkey dory. But if in the middle of the bush I have to dig a small hole to empty the contents.
I'm a person who likes to live by the motto of Leave No Trace. Unfortunately there are certain times I have to break my own rule.
The plastic bag of course goes into my rubbish bag well wrapped up in a disposable nappy bag. So there is no rubbish left behind.
I know sometimes we have to go when we have to go. So riding or hiking along a trail nature may call, and call loudly. So I guess burrying my waste isn't a real big deal.
Unfortunately, as I said, it's not as easy as packing a roll of toilet paper. But when I look at it, I choose where I can bury it, I leave no toilet paper floating off into the breeze and the rest of my rubbish comes with me until I find a bin.
That's just the application process, on top of all this I have to plan and carry my supplies with me. Mini caps are much smaller and lighter than closed or drainable pouches. But the irrigation drainage bags are not the lightest and when I have carry quite quite a few they soon add up in weight.
This is why I found it difficult to bikepack on my last trip and took my trailer. Everything was just too overloaded.
I've decided that lightweight bikepacking for more than four days is not practical for me. Anything over that I really need to take a touring approach, either on the Kona with all four panniers, or bikepacking with the trailer in tow. There's no other way around it that I can see at the moment.
Water is essential for this process. Its not just needed for the application but I have to remain hydrated. The lower bowel removes a moisture from waste ready for processing in the rectum. Seeing I no longer have a rectum, if I become dehydrated I can end up with a blockage, something I don't want to go through. This is all big reason why I called my wife the first time on Kullogum when I became dehydrated.
I have to maintain a healthy amount of water throughout the day. Now I know that is a given but if I don't, the water will not flow into my bowel and flows straight into the irridrain. It's a waste of time, and precious water. I need to be well hydrated for it to work properly.
I know that this may have been a gross subject, but I just wanted to point out what is involved for someone with a stoma and colostomy to bikepack, tour or hike. It is still a work in progress.l and I won't give up, I will find a solution...
Cheers and ride safe out there 👍
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