Today went pretty well. Mostly it was a normal work day. I went into the office instead of working from home and in the plus column my car started right off with no problems.
Most of the day was consumed by meetings and reviewing a document. It is shocking how quickly a day can be taken over by small things. That is certainly one advantage of working from home,
Tomorrow I am hosting our book club discussion at lunch. The company purchased for anyone that wanted to participate the book Engineering Cryptography. The goal for tomorrow was to be about half way through the book with a second meet up in about a month. I planned this back in November before my diagnosis, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. I am sure it is still a good idea, but I was lucky to get through Chapter 9 tonight after work, and the goal for tomorrow was to be through Chapter 12. Still, all-in-all getting through those 9 chapters was significant and should provide ample fodder for discussion. The 12 chapter goal was set before I started reading it, so there was nothing scientific about that choice, it just seemed like a good middle point.
My samples of the convex barrier from Coloplast came today, and none too soon. When I got home from work, I opted to change out my barrier because it was starting to feel a little bit irritated. It was good that I did since the bottom area had started leaking under the material and was aggravating the skin. My plan had been to replace it with another of the Hollister flat barriers to not risk something new in the middle of a week, but when I cleaned the area, my stoma decided to recede a little an using a flat barrier did not seem prudent with these likely better alternatives in hand. So far the convex barrier has been holding up well and definitely feels more comfortable that the other. The last time I tried a Coloplast flat barrier it failed after about 3 hours and since it lacks an outer barrier tape border, it failed catastrophically. I am hopeful that this one will get me the expected 3 days wear and Hollister has some samples of their convex barrier being shipped to me that will hopefully arrive before the end of the week. I am definitely hopeful that this convex design will do the trick. Since it applies some pressure downward on the skin around the stoma, it allows the shallow stoma to stick out a little bit more and provides better protection for it. If these work out, I will update my order with the supplier and get some of whichever one works best for me shipped out. It will be a huge relief when I get to a point where worrying about the barrier leaking is not a daily concern.