Laura: ‘Why should I feel ashamed about something saving my life?’

A YOUNG woman who wears a urine bag strapped to her leg, due to a severe bladder condition, has told how she faces verbal abuse from the public.

Laura Piercey, from Queen’s Crescent, said she had been branded “disgusting” while on the London underground and had been made to feel ashamed to go outside.

The 25-year-old, who had to cut short her training to become an NHS nurse this summer, is regularly rushed to A&E and has become “terrified to drink” too much after “horrible” experiences of the bag splitting in public.

Launching an awareness campaign this week, she said: “I get people pointing, laughing, rolling their eyes. Brazen people come right up to my face to tell me. The first time I got on the tube with it I had a stranger approach me and say I was ‘disgusting’.”

Ms Piercey’s condition means she has to wear the bag in order to go to the toilet. “I have had accidents when it has split in public, which was horrible,” she said. “But why should I feel ashamed about something that is saving my life? It’s human, we pee – it is so natural – I shouldn’t have to change.”

Ms Piercey, who now posts images of her “supra-pubic catheter” on social media, said: “I have discovered that I am one of thousands of girls who may be afraid to come forward. I want to share my story. I want to create that conversation and connect with more like- minded individuals.”