I have no navel, which I find quite horrendous, you know. I must, it must feel like somebody that has breast cancer that loses a breast, as much as you think your navel doesn’t mean a lot, it does if you don’t have it. You know, it is quite strange to have no navel. But that’s just, I mean it doesn’t matter, I can live without it, but that’s like a deformity to me, you know.

And is your colostomy permanent?

I pray God that it will never be permanent, because it’s not a good thing for a lady because every day you bath, when you change, you cannot even, you know, I feel that I’m half a woman, you know, I don’t know how to put it, I’m little bit confused because it sometimes you mess around without knowing what is happening.

So on top of being bald, overweight, oh at my worst I was fifteen stone so I was charming, and it’s taken forever to lose any weight since. I also had this enormous bulge. I have intestines that had just escaped through the muscle wall, so it wasn’t particularly attractive and I wasn’t either.

As far as the surgery goes, I mean that’s such a big issue, that’s quite a difficult issue. I looked grimly fiendish with my clothes off, and the fact that, you know, I was left with this hernia for such a long time that got bigger and bigger, that this comedy steroid body looked even more bizarre, you know, not being able to wear any clothes. And I thought ‘blow me I’m not going to go and buy enormous clothes’, you know, because somewhere in the back of your mind, you know, ‘I’m going to have an operation, I’m going to look at lot thinner. Well the reality is not as such, you know, because you’ve got the effects of the steroids and also, you know, it’s a long time before your body recovers from the surgery, to get back to a more normal size. I mean I’m still a very big size but that’s something I’m working on.

Yeah, yeah, I mean at first I felt quite ugly, you know, because of the hysterectomy and the bald head and so I’ve really gone out and I look after myself now, you know, and I go the hairdresser’s a lot, have my roots done and my nails and try to keep my figure looking good. I try to keep fit and slim.

And we were actually treated to things like hand massages, we had a day where some of the cosmetic companies put on a ‘Look good, feel better’ initiative and we were all brought together round a table to be given a little treat of make-up and how to make yourself look better when you had no hair, no eyebrows or eyelashes, and your cheeks were out to here with anti sickness drugs. And we had a bit of a laugh and something like that is great as well because it, I think certainly for females it helps if you can try and make yourself feel a little bit more confident, and I think may be we can do that with make-up where men can’t, and maybe that helps to give us back our self esteem a little bit.