Today at work I had to drive to a meeting, and as I was driving my phone started going a bit crazy in my pocket. When I arrived it became apparent I had been featured (well my picture) on ITV daytime show Loose Women who this week launched a campaign about body image using the hashtag #MyBodyMyStory – fellow IBD & Ostomy blogger Shell Lawes (who is hosting #IBDHour this month) spotted this and encouraged those of us in the IBD and ostomy comunity to get invovled, so I sent a tweet last night and then forgot all about it.

So three minutes into todays show, this image graced the nations screens!

This particular picture is about two years old, and I’ve put on a bit of weight since then, but you can just about see my scar and obviously see my bag.

There are people with IBD and ostomies who would not be comfortable doing this, and there will be people who ‘don’t want to see it’, so by taking part hopefully it normalises ostomy bags – the show has apparently shown at least one ostomy image each day this week. And well done to the Loose Women for allowing so many people to share there bodies and there stories.

You can watch todays show for the next week on the ITV Hub.

Shell has been capturing the images of those people in the IBD & ostomy community and sharing them on her Instagram.