Wednesday, April 4, 2018

Where do you go for Stoma Gear?

We are seeing some wild things happen in the Economy as of 2021.  Easter is about here and a massive correction just happened.  Last year when the economy went dead and riots took place things got a bit scary in the United States.  It has caused shipping in some cases to stop and stores to be luted and burned down in other areas of the country.  Really it has made me think that the supply chain of the United States is simply not perfect and can fail.  In many aspects, it has failed this year and lots of regular products have been baren on shelves for months.  That goes for a lot of different areas.  When you have a medical condition as well it makes you worry a bit.  Even though I only have a stoma, it requires a lot of extra gear and ostomy supplies to keep my life working well.  The fact is that I require a shipment of supplies and use a finite amount of gear every single month to keep my body working well and my health.  I am not a huge fan of being stuck without gear for my stoma.  In fact, I started to think about what would happen if those riots happened in my city and shipping stopped.



It brings to mind a scary thought and a reality check.  Do I actually have enough gear to survive that or even a natural disaster?  I have always thought that when a natural disaster hits that most people should have a few days of supplies to make sure they can get through power outages or floods in order to get to safety.  Or in some cases to wait for things to come back, but we have seen in those cases that people have been stranded for up to a week or more before help came.  In some cases, people were on rooftops for weeks trying to get away from floods.  Now I am comparing my situation to this because what if I am not able to get supplies for a month or more because of the economy or a supply chain break.  If I am not able to get gear for two months right now I would be in trouble. 


So I knew I needed to spend some extra money in order to alleviate those fears. My own conscience was not happy with the lack of supplies that I had stored up in my home and I figured if this happened to me as it happened to many across the nation then I may be in a serious medical condition.  So I have made it an effort to start stockpiling ostomy supplies.  I wanted to not only be able to survive a shipment not coming but two consecutive ones.  This means that if shipping stops for two months I will still be safe and doing just fine with my stoma.  If you have a stoma you know what gear you need. Now think about not having it for a month.  Not cool.



I may sound a bit nuts, but for the last six months, I have been working on getting enough extra gear to get me through a small disaster.  I feel better about it and I now don't have to worry.  Worst case scenario I can help a friend out if I have to.