Keanu Reeves Isn’t the Only One Matthew Perry Offended Recently

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I realized what many ostomates already know: that you can live an awesome, full life with an ostomy. In the past year, I’ve run two marathons, including the Boston Marathon, with my bag. Other ostomates I know have had babies and gone scuba-diving. We’re not as limited as you might think; many of us can hike, swim, surf, have sex, wear bikinis, and play sports just like anyone else.

People who read Perry’s comments, however, might not realize those things are possible, and may instead equate the surgery with a death sentence. I worry about someone who may be faced with getting an ostomy one day and thinks it’ll ruin their life because the only thing they know about it is that Chandler from Friends had one and told People magazine how “hellish” it was. It’s a worrying message, and one that’s especially frustrating when you consider that Perry could have described his experience honestly while also acknowledging that the thing he hated so much was also the thing that saved his life.

“That alone is enough to make people think twice about whether they should have a colostomy, if they have a choice in the matter. They’re going to have a very negative attitude toward it, even though it might save their life,” Hamburg told The Daily Beast about Perry and his therapist’s comments. “He didn’t couch it in the fact that he was lucky because they could do something like this in a temporary situation so that he could survive, so that his body could heal, so that he could recover. He couched it in a very negative way, including actually kind of attributing his sobriety to having had a colostomy. It puts a very negative light on the concept of having a colostomy and the fact that it wasn’t done to make him see that he needed to change his ways. It was done to save his life.”

Read the full opinion piece here: https://www.thedailybeast.com/keanu-reeves-isnt-the-only-one-matthew-perry-offended-recently-those-with-ostomy-bags-are-upset?ref=author