Today was one of those rare days where everything just fell apart. Not in a dramatic, world-ending way — just in the quiet, human way where frustration piles up until you crack.
Now that I’ve had some distance from what was, let’s be honest, a full-blown breakdown, I’m grateful to God that I’ve made it this far without losing it sooner. But today, God must’ve thought, “Let’s see what happens if…” — and I didn’t exactly rise to the moment with grace or humor.
The morning actually started fine. I walked over to my radiation appointment, only to find out it was being held in a different building because my regular room was down for maintenance. The new room wasn’t far, but it did mean a three-block walk through Houston’s early morning heat and the kind of humidity that feels like you’re swimming instead of walking. By the time I got there, I looked like I’d walked a mile underwater.
Normally, that wouldn’t matter much — except for the small, inconvenient detail that I currently have an ostomy bag attached to my stomach butt hole (and yes, that’s what it is, and we’re just going to call it what it is). These things don’t love heat or sweat, which makes living in Houston a challenge and working out again at home an unsolved mystery.
Thankfully, it held through radiation, mostly because I wear this “stealth belt” under my shirt— a name that’s far cooler than the product itself. It’s meant to make the bag less visible, but all it really does is make me feel like I’m going to a formal event in a medical cumberbund.
Still, I made it through. I should’ve taken that as my win for the day and called it there. But no…
A couple hours later, I went to a new coffee shop called Pavon, trying to relax with a book. It was one of those perfectly curated Houston cafés — all marble counters and soft jazz — except for a group of women holding court at the next table, talking loudly enough to fill the room. Normally, that would’ve annoyed me, but today their noise was actually a blessing: it covered the occasional gurgle from my ostomy bag, which was acting up a bit. Nothing major, just…active.
What I didn’t realize was that “active” was the early warning sign for “about to fail catastrophically.”
So naturally, instead of heading home, I decided to stop at H-E-B. Because why not add public risk to the equation? Sometimes my own stupid decision-making astounds me.
You can probably see where this is going. Somewhere in the cracker aisle, I felt the adhesive starting to give way — right as the smell hit. I froze, clutching the bag against my stomach with one hand and steering my cart with the other, praying I could get to checkout before total disaster. I didn’t care who I ran over at that point.
By some miracle, I made it through the line, grabbed my groceries, and made it to the car before the bag fully surrendered. And that’s about when I did too.
The truth is, this wasn’t just about one bad day. I’d been working with an ostomy nurse the week before at MD Anderson to try a new convex bag that was supposed to hold better than the flat ones. When she applied it, it lasted three full days. When I did it myself, the first lasted eight hours, the second one hour, and today’s barely made it eight again. I’m doing everything I’m told — cleaning properly, prepping the skin, applying the seal just right — and yet it keeps failing.
By the time I got back to my Airbnb, I was hanging on by a thread. The bag came off, and so did my composure. I lost it. I don’t know why I took it out on my groceries, but the bell peppers took the worst of it. A few other items were harmed in the making of this meltdown, but I’ll fix them before confessing which ones.
Eventually, I just sat down and stared at the mess. I’ll figure this out. I know I will. This won’t be the thing that beats me — but today, it sure as shit did.
And yet, like always, there’s a silver lining somewhere in it. My threshold for embarrassment keeps rising with every mishap. That’s not exactly a superpower I asked for, but I guess life doesn’t really take requests.
Here I am — a little more humbled, a little more human, and needing new bell peppers…