President of EOA invited us to tell him how we spent the last months. I personally underwent an eye surgery in March and thus have enough time to recover.
Since January 2020, the Czech ILCO has a new presidium – three new colleagues were incorporated, young ostomates who are very active and have a lot of bright ideas.
The coronavirus pandemic changed our plans, we could not meet ourselves and congresses where we had to give lectures were cancelled or postponed.
So we have to offer our help in other ways. We started a project called WE THINK OF YOU. In the times when one has to stay at home the phone or internet contact is important. Information is shared via web and FB. We recommend to all ostomates – speak with each other, call to people you have not talk to for a long time as well as to all you love. Please them with good memories, discuss the current topics. Make daily notes of what pleased you today and how you pleased our friends.
For those who do not know whom to call, we offer POKEC – a chat with people feeling lonesome; for more details see the FB of the Czech ILCO. We actively contact those ostomates who to our knowledge need our help.
Another new project is called Masks for ostomates – following the appeal on FB, our new presidium member Jitka Svobodová got hundreds of masks and sent them to ostomates. Within two days after publication, more than 300 masks were sent to 60 ostomates, free of charge. It was met with very warm response, the ostomates appreciating our care.
A project PouchArt – Paint Your Pouch has been started. Ostomates decorated their own pouches and sent us the photo. In this sad time, the painted pouch is an interesting way how to make these grey days more lively. The gallery of painted pouches can be seen on www.PytlikArt.cz.
We generally recommend the exercise Health in move prepared not only for ostomates by Ms Luňáčková from the spa of Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad). This exercise is useful for all people, even those weakened by illness. They improve their condition by simple activity. I started with this exercise 17 years ago during my rehabilitation. For details, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At6ld4pbn2I.
Nowadays, with restrictions gradually eased, we can meet again. On June 3, I together with Pavla and Viktor attended a discussion with people taking care of ostomates.
On the same day, an event for nurses caring for children with ostomy took place in Brno. The Czech ILCO was represented by our presidium member Mr Bronislav Tučný who informed about ostomates organizations and presented the advice centre for small patients with our mascot S.Tomik.
Members of Prague ostomy organization met after three long months in a cafeteria and planned activities for the following summer.
