The Society does not endorse or support products or services. This is a guest blog post written by ostomy patient and advocate, Dawnette Meredith.

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This is me, a 50-year-old woman completely thrilled about a very expensive stuffed bunny from overseas. Ridiculous you say? Well, this is a very special bunny. It has an ostomy just like me! I underwent ostomy surgery in December of 2016 after battling severe colonic-inertia for 49 years, 9 months and 15 days. My bunny was a bright spot in my recovery. It was a daily reminder to smile and laugh at an otherwise less than ideal situation. For heaven’s sake, I’m a grown woman, but there I was showing off my stuffed bunny to family and friends! It somehow made it easier to talk about my illness and recent surgery.

This little bunny sparked in me a hope to pass along positivity to other ostomates, and a dream to give children in the United States who undergo ostomy surgery a teddy bear with an ostomy. I designed a Teddy bear with a red button for a stoma and a removable Velcro ostomy pouch. Awesome Ollie the Ostomy Bear was born.

There’s no better place to start than in your own back yard. Rady Children’s Hospital, near my home in San Diego, which performs roughly 120 ostomy surgeries per year, was the perfect place to begin. I know from personal experience that ostomy nurses are essential to helping patients recover and cope after ostomy surgery. My husband and I sponsored eight Awesome Ollie Ostomy Bears and delivered them to the ostomy nurses at Rady Children’s Hospital. The ostomy nurses were given the joyful task of handing out the bears to their ostomy patients. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and soon Rady Children’s Hospital called for more bears! Soon, other children’s hospitals wanted to acquire the bears for their ostomy patients. I quickly needed to find a way to get bears sponsored in time for the holidays!

I approached my ostomy support group and its members with the possibility of sponsoring the bears for Rady Children’s Hospital. Within 20 minutes, over 30 bears were sponsored! Wow! I hurried to prepare the bears before Christmas-time. I like to think of myself as “The Ostomy Elf” busily working in my teddy bear workshop. In a flurry of fabric and thread, the bears were ready. The second batch of sponsored bears was joyfully delivered to Rady Children’s Hospital in December 2016.

It’s a new year and Awesome Ollie the Ostomy bear has BIG plans! The goal is to secure funding and provide free Awesome Ollie Ostomy Bears to children’s hospitals all across the United States.

If you or your organization would like to sponsor Awesome Ollie Ostomy Bears at a hospital in your area or purchase a bear for yourself, please contact me at Terrabusy@yahoo.com or 858-336-4418. Awesome Ollie sponsorship costs $20/per bear. Find Awesome Ostomy on Facebook to keep up on all the Ostomy Bear news.