I know I haven't written in a while

Just because I haven't written doesn't mean I haven't been thinking. I appologize for my absense; I have been fighting my body as of late, getting sick and what not.

I had an interesting conversation earlier today that got me thinking about impediments to active, healthy living. As an ostomate I am acutely aware of just how expensive it can be to have had or be unhealthy. I spend about $250 a month on ostomy supplies. That works out to around $3000 a year. Considering that the roof over my head costs me $350 a month, I'd say its fairly significant.

Now, I don't get the wear time out of my ostomy products that most others get; I sweat a lot, shower a lot and swim a lot; all that water leads to the products coming off like band-aids in a pool. This is a result of choices I make. If I lived a lifestyle that was geared more towards extending the wear time of my products, I would likely get 5-6 days out of them instead of 1-1.5. When my parents were paying for my supplies, they actively encouraged me to extend wear time (read nag, nag, nag).

At that time, I didn't participate in sports, I watched a lot of TV and ate a lot of chips... I was slightly overweight - enough so for my doctor to say something to me. I was also more prone to getting colds, flu and kidney infections. Now I don't get sick anywhere near as much, am not really overweight and watch considerably less television (but I never miss 24). I have to say that the wear time versus quality of life debate is strongly argued towards quality of life.

I live in Canada; my provincial medical plan covers some of the cost of my ostomy supplies - it has a large deductible ($1500) anything over it pays 70%; and my extended medical plan picks up 80% of my out of pocket expenses. So when all is said and done I figure I am out of pocket about $600 of the $3000 I spend each year. I had to put the money out first, but not bad coverage, really. I am fairly lucky, I have heard of quite a few people who don't have any help at all.

I'd like to know from all of the ostomates who read this blog: do you give up on quality of life, to get more wear time? Do you not participate in recreation or sport because you don't want to spend the money on ostomy supplies? Would this change if you had better assistance with your ostomy supplies?