When I Tried to Find a Wedding Dress That Also Fit My Ostomy Bags
Last month, I officially tied the knot. As I look back on our wedding photos, I just can’t believe it’s already happened. I see the joy in my eyes, the love beaming off of my husband’s bright red face and my gown big enough to cover a small army. I remember stressing myself to tears on feeling beautiful or just feeling comfortable in my own skin as I went through gown after gown. I remember crying to myself that I’d never last a second in that tight-beaded bodice without something going wrong. I remember wishing I had chosen December as my wedding month as an excuse to bury myself in a huge furry winter-white cape.
I didn’t have the worries I remember my other married friends had about fitting into their wedding gowns. My worry was something I felt hardly anyone could relate to. It wasn’t just me squeezing into my wedding gown on that magical day — it would also be not one, but two ostomy bags. Running to the bathroom for any bride is a chore. It takes a very devoted bridesmaid to accompany the belle of the ball and hold up her dress in the daintiest fashion. I was so self-conscious about my medical situation that I didn’t want anyone’s assistance. I was petrified my gown might drop in the toilet or I wouldn’t be able to get to a bathroom in time or my medical appliances wouldn’t fit into my dress the proper way.
As a bride, I longed to feel beautiful and feminine — or like a life-size Barbie doll complete with voluptuous, womanly curves. I felt the internal pressure to fit into the gowns I saw while flipping through in bridal magazines. Every photograph I looked at seemed to blare messages of skintight satin and buttoned-up bodices. How would a backless gown look with a colossal surgical scar running down my back? After lying on my right side for six months while I lay in bed comatose, I had severe neuropathy, which made me an exclusive Asics sneakers fan. Every wedding magazine brimming full of 6-inch stilettos made me feel horrible about myself.
The more magazines I browsed, the worse I felt. My self-contempt brought me to the point where I was starting to believe the man I’m marrying was annoyed with me. After I realized the love of my life — who has always loved me no matter what and who thinks I’m the sexiest when I wake up in the morning and my hair is frizzier than a giant pom-pom — is marrying me for me, I started to shift my thinking. Everyone celebrating with me on my wedding day is there to cheer me and my husband on. They love who we are, and they love who we are together. Brandon is already mine — he told me he fell in love with me the day he met me. Who was I trying to impress? What was I trying to prove?
Then I realized I was trying to prove something to myself. Everyone else in my life just wanted me happy and healthy. I wanted to show myself that despite my medical circumstances, I could feel “normal.” But really, what is normal? Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and all colors and circumstances. It’s something all women deserve. And I wasn’t going to let me get in the way of my own happiness on my wedding day.
We may have good intentions, but strong, passionate and beautiful women pressure ourselves every day. Once we tune out those internal voices, we discover a beautiful truth. The people who matter in our lives are the people who love us for who we are. The only expectations we need to put on ourselves are the expectations to always listen to our hearts (and our mothers).
As for my wedding dress, I had this fantasy of a tight-fitting bodice with an enormous fairytale ballgown. I basically wanted to look like a giant wedding cake. The trick was having my dress fitted in a way that would give me some kind of figure, but with leave enough room for my ostomy bags, which expanded whenever I ate. After a snide comment from a bridesmaid that “I can always just not eat that day,” a brief pity-party and a little me time, I told myself the dress will look as beautiful as I feel in it. And so, with my medical situation in mind, the dressmaker and I were able to meet in the middle. My dress was not skintight, but it fit me in all the right places, embracing the medical bags that had saved my life years ago.
Looking back on my wedding day, I cry when I see myself floating across the dance floor in that giant cake of a dress. I look beautiful, happy and in love. And that’s because I was and I am.
Amy Oestreicher is a PTSD peer-to-peer specialist, artist, author, writer for The Huffington Post, speaker for TEDx and RAINN, health advocate, award-winning actress, and playwright. As a survivor and “thriver” of nearly 30 surgeries, a coma, sexual abuse, organ failure, and a decade of medical trauma, Amy has been challenged with moments of extreme difficulty. But, as an artist, actress, college student, and overall lover of life, Amy eagerly shares the lessons learned from trauma and has brought out the stories that unite us all through her writing, mixed media art, performance and inspirational speaking. Amy has headlined international conferences on women’s leadership, entrepreneurship, mental health, disability, creativity, art therapy, and domestic violence prevention. She is a regular lifestyle, wellness, and arts contributor for over 70 notable online and print publications, and and her story has appeared on NBC’s TODAY, CBS, Cosmopolitan, Seventeen Magazine, Washington Post, Good Housekeeping, MSNBC, among others. She has devised workshops for the Transformative Language Arts Network National Conference, the Eating Recovery Foundation, the 40th Anniversary New England Educational Opportunity Association Milestones Conference, the Annual National Mental Health America Conference, and others, and was this year’s keynote speaker for the Hawaii Pacific Rim International Conference on Diversity and Disability. To celebrate her own “beautiful detour”, Amy created the #LoveMyDetour campaign, to help others cope in the face of unexpected events. To creatively engage others in improving mental health , Amy developed a program combining mental health advocacy, sexual assault awareness, PTSD education and Broadway Theatre for college campuses, organizations and conferences, launching a Detourist Network, and Detourist Workshops to creatively fight stigma in society. “Detourism” is also the subject of her TEDx Talk and upcoming book, My Beautiful Detour, available December 2017. As the 2014 Eastern Regional Recipient of Convatec’s Great Comebacks Award and WEGO Health 2016 “Health Activist Hero,” Amy is a passionate voice in the ostomy community, founding the online community Fearless Ostomates, speaking for National and Regional WOCN conferences, and writing for the official print publication of the UOAA. Her presentations on alternative medicine, and patient advocacy and healthcare have also been accepted to international conferences on patient care, internal medicine, medical trauma and therapeutic humor in healthcare. As a playwright, Amy has received awards and accolades for engaging her audiences in dynamic conversation on trauma’s effects on society, including Women Around Town’s “Women to Celebrate 2014, BroadwayWorld Best Theatre Debut, and Bistro Awards New York Top Pick. Amy has written, directed and starred in a one-woman musical about her life, Gutless & Grateful, touring theatres, schools, festivals, conventions and organizations since it’s 2012 New York debut. Her original, full-length drama, Imprints, exploring the effects of trauma on the family and the healing power of creativity, was a finalist at Manhattan Repertory Theatre, and is currently in development for a full New York production. Amy’s collaboration with Beechwood Arts on “Resilience and the Power of the Human Spirit”, has traveled around the world, using her monologues, art, writing and recipes to express the life-altering detours and ultimately the invaluable gifts of her resilient journey. She is also a passionate arts advocate, a successful mixed media visual artist, a continuing education studio arts teacher, and an active member of the League of Professional Theatre Women, League for Advancement of New England Storytellers, Fairfield County Cultural Alliance, Theatre Artist Workshop, and several art guilds throughout Connecticut and New York. Amy is currently touring the country with her one-woman musical, Gutless & Grateful, her keynote presentations, workshops and signature talkbacks, which she has devised specialized versions for corporations, college campuses, survivors, healthcare professionals, and artists. She is leading mixed media creativity workshops to promote creativity as a mindset, an essential survival skill. Amy also offers creative coaching and consulting services help others navigate their own “life detours,” and prides herself most on ending each night with a gratitude list. Together, we’re stronger.
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