Vaccines for COVID are opening travel security. My wife and I are on an airplane, for the first time in a year. We are flying to Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota for a maintenance procedure. We have just planed after getting through the TSA. I had emptied in the...

I switched to an ostomy appliance provider. I was using my local hospital medical supply source. It seemed very impersonal and limited. The resource person would take the phone call and look me up on the computer, then reorder whatever was on my record and hang up....

It’s not a terrible thing to have an ostomy. Most ostomates I’ve met are better off for having one. Either severe inflammatory bowel disease, cancer, trauma, or other medical issues led the surgeon to convince that person that he or she would require that...

Pleated pants are OUT As a physician, I change into comfortable scrubs for the operating room, but I am accustomed to wearing dress clothes in the office. While scrubs accommodate my ostomy appliance (and contents) easily, dress pants are another story! Pleats were...

What day is it?   Although I am aging, I don’t think I have any measurable dementia yet (given my selective hearing, my housemates in quarantine, wife, and daughter, may believe otherwise...). The days are sort of blending together. Is it Monday or Tuesday? Does...

Life is full of challenges. As individuals we each face our own trial and tribulations. Ostomates, or persons living with a urinary or bowel diversion, face special kinds of adversity. Now, as a species, together we are facing a global pandemic. During this difficult...

COVID 19 by Dr. Joseph Salisz, MD I am nervously working among the masses, some with colds or flu, some may be with C-19, all full of nervous energy and needs. I spent all day yesterday and half of today calling patients to cancel appointments and postpone procedures...

Celebrating Pat Recently, it was announced that StomaCloak was nominated for the LakeShore Innovator of the Year Award. We sat down with StomaCloak President Pat Camp to get her reaction. Pat, what is the Lakeshore Innovator of the Year Award?The Innovator of the Year...

On television’s “Good Morning America”, this morning, the hosts congratulated a brilliant 16-year-old actress who starred in an award taking remake called “The Invisible Man” I haven’t seen it yet, but it’ll be on my list after the theatre run. Sometimes I  am blessed...

Semi-retired I’ve reached the ripe age of 60. My hours of work have been reduced by 50%. Although I feel very healthy at present, my health record sometimes slows me down like an anchor that I forgot to pull back into the boat. Insomnia and anxiety weren’t part of my...

Sweaty Respect! If you want to mow an average lawn, generally you should periodically practice walking 10,000 steps. If you plan to carry your 20 pound grandson through the zoo, you should work on your core and your upper body strength, or suffer fatigue and joint...

I wrestled in high school. As an all-out aggressive effort for six minutes on the rubberized mat, S W E A T was the name of the game. Guy’s showers at our school were in “the dungeon”... a dark dank cement floor locker room that would’ve been perfect for growing...

When I look back the almost ten years that I’ve had a urostomy, it seems as though my greatest concerns were related to vacations. “Will I be able to hike as far, hunt with sleuth, wear a swimsuit... Did I bring enough appliance changes, can I count on the wafers in a...

Our Clients Speak for Us and we are Happy to Share! One client summed it up in three words, - Comfort, Security, Confidence. Our President Pat Camp says, " The most satisfying thing we do at StomaCloak is form relationships with ostomates and try to develop ways we...

I shiver with the words “Black Friday”!! I grew up in a family that emphasized Thanksgiving. It was a sin to consider the Christmas season until thanks was offered up, family style, for all of our blessings. To decorate, or to shop for Christmas presents were to “put...

Out of the House StomaCloak was born, just over five years ago, as a result of a living room conversation between Pat Camp, an ostomy nurse, and Dr. Joe Salisz, a local urologist. At the time, Pat and Joe were brainstorming ways to improve the experience of patients...

Requiring special radiation at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for cancer management, I camped for five weeks on a remote riverside site on the Zumbro river. I prefer nature over hotel amenities. My daily commute South through vast corn and alfalfa fields was 23 minutes....

My wife and I just returned from Isla Mujeres, Mexico.  I'm not a heat fan, nor do I like "sunning" on a beach or at the pool; I like to be active! But considering the late snowfall in Michigan, traveling south for a "spring break" was a wise decision! Mornings found...

I remember driving the four hours to my dad’s family farm when I was young. It was my favorite place on earth. Grandma and Grandpa had about a square mile of hilly upper Michigan property with staggered barb wire fences, piles of field stone with fossils, and dairy...

Dealing with Related Odors Several years ago, my partner Dr. Joe Salisz and Pat Camp, a retired ostomy nurse, were trying to solve a clinical problem. Dr. Salisz had just undergone ostomy surgery and was frustrated by the smell of urine in and around his urostomy bag....

The gym I belong to serves a very diverse crowd and advertises that it is a "judgement free zone"! I rejoin every Thanksgiving to try to maintain a reasonable performance status over Michigan's winter months. For three years in a row now, I walk to the same treadmill,...

If you have a stoma or have worn a ostomy appliance, you know the cold moist feeling of the plastic after perspiration or after showering. The scrunchy sound of the plastic against the plastic that it makes with movement is a sound you know; adding to your insecurity....

What happens when the physician becomes the patient? What if the physician is a urologist and the disease he has is something he has treated before? Joseph Salisz can explain what happens because he’s been there. As a urologist he says, “I fix plumbing problems.” And...

A Urostomy Bag Through the Homestretch! Last weekend, I had the honor of running the Muskegon Seaway 5K (3.2 miles) race with a great friend. Really, in retrospect, there were many in the 1500 runners that I knew, but Greg is a friend! Greg is a natural runner. Even...