Overcoming a multitude of health issues with the help of a few (thousand) stuffed teddy bears…

Kelly’s story starts back in 1992, age 17 and on an overseas exchange year after finishing high school. She began to experience debilitating GI upset symptoms that only worsened on her year away. In January 1993, aged 18, she was diagnosed with extremely aggressive Crohn’s disease.

“It had already invaded my entire gastrointestinal tract from mouth to rectum,” Kelly says. “I had severe cramps, multiple (up to 40 times day) toilet stops, fatigue, depression, and weight loss.”

As would be familiar to many readers, Kelly began medical treatment which ‘worked for a while but couldn’t get rid of it’.

She also details a worsening depression – an illness which runs in her family – which she has been battling for many years prior.

“After my diagnosis it became even more difficult and emotionally exhausting,” she says. “On top of the chronic pain and the drugs, living with severe depression was relatively normal for me. I had been in therapy for years and used the tools I was given to cope as best as I could.”

Detailing how she’s ‘never been one to give up or give into any health issue’, Kelly says, “even though I didn’t always win, I always tried.” Trialing all available medications – “there weren’t as many back then” Kelly says nothing worked and she was only getting worse.

Then in 1998, at 24 years old, she was told she had to get a permanent ileostomy or she ‘would die’.

“I was booked in for surgery, much to my disgust, and preferring to die, I went ahead with getting the bag.”

Not at all OK with the situation – and believing a bag was something ‘old people had’ – Kelly had many of the same fears that other new ostomates have.

“I wondered how I going to be attractive, confident – which I pretty much always had been – and productive with poop hanging off my belly,” she says bluntly. “But wasn’t doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and I conquered it.”

Describing how she accepted her bag whole-heartedly and even began educating others, Kelly would even flash her bag to anyone that wanted to see it!

“It was my way of having other people not think of my bag as gross, smelly or something to be afraid of,” she explains. “If I hid it, I was hiding who I was and how I became the person I am. I was loud and proud about my bag and having a positive attitude about my bag makes others less likely to think it’s gross. Instead, they think it’s awesome. People were fascinated instead of grossed out.”

As well as reducing the stigma of stomas and educating others, Kelly worked hard, studied, travelled, had boyfriends, an active social life, owned her own unit and all in all, ‘considered herself normal – which I am!’.

“My bag never really stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do,” Kelly says. “I had always been a very open person, so it was important to me to be open about having Crohn’s and a bag. I knew I had to educate people if I expected people to understand what my body was doing to itself and why I was making the decisions I was making.”

Working as a sales representative for 16 years, Kelly describes herself as very successful in the role because she loved it… Until 2013, when at 39 years old, she was diagnosed with immune rheumatoid arthritis. The disease progressed extremely quickly and within six months Kelly was selling her unit, quitting her job and moving in with family.

“It affected every joint, every movement, every breath,” Kelly says. “Everything hurt and I just couldn’t function on my own anymore.”

From the end of 2013 to March 2018 Kelly was completely bedridden, addicted to narcotics and morphine and was ‘not living, just existing’.

“The pain was unbearable, and nothing was helping,” she remembers. In 2016, she was also diagnosed with minor fibromyalgia. “With everything else, this didn’t bother me. Pain is pain is pain.”

Eventually, in 2017, Kelly found a new medication to try (her sixth) and started seeing some improvements. Happy with any little win she could get, Kelly began to think, “maybe, just maybe, I won’t be bedridden for the rest of my life.”

The following year, in March 2018, Kelly had her third major surgery to repair a parastomal hernia, the result of weight gain while bedridden. With the hernia repaired, she also had a medical tummy tuck (“very different to a cosmetic one, let me tell you”) and a slight repositioning of her ileostomy; a total of four major surgeries in one.

Then, with her new medication on board, she was even able to detox of the pain medication she had become addicted to.

“Finally, I wasn’t off my face on hardcore drugs and asleep for 20 hours a day anymore,” Kelly says bluntly.

Around six months later she described herself as doing ‘pretty well’ and, with her recovery coming to an end, she began to think: “Well what the hell am I going to do now?”

The answer? Ostomy Support Bears, of course!

Let us explain…

Although her arthritis and movement remained an issue, Kelly says she had learned to cope with the pain and had also realised she couldn’t sit ‘all day, every day, doing nothing’.

Which is exactly how, in January 2018, Kelly conceived the idea of stuffed teddy bears – and other soft toys – with a stoma and bag, just like hers! The very first bear of its kind went out in March 2018.

“It gave me a purpose again,” Kelly explains. Now, six years on and over 7,500 (!) bears later – who’ve been shipped to every corner of the globe – Kelly is immensely proud of how far her vision and her work has gone.

“[With the bears I was] putting smiles on faces, raising awareness and reducing the stigma attached to having a bag for both children and adults,” she explains. “I was helping myself and others.”

Although she still grapples with health problems which she concedes aren’t going anywhere, as Kelly says resolutely, “Neither am I”.

Even in the face of an osteoarthritis diagnosis in 2019 – “not ideal at age 45” – Kelly’s approach to life’s many obstacles is simple in that she says ‘there is nothing I can do to stop it… [but] what I was not going to do was give up.”

In September 2021 she added to her already impressive ‘medical resume’ with electrolyte issues due to a high output ostomy.

“Previously I had low magnesium which left me taking supplements every day,” she explains. “This time it was potassium, a whole new ball game.”

Potassium is essential for muscle movement and therefore critical for cardia function. Kelly’s low potassium levels had her in and out of hospital for ‘about a month’ in an attempt to regulate it but to no avail. By November 2021 her levels had dropped to a dangerous level and she landed back in hospital.

With all her hospital experience, Kelly jokingly admits to being a ‘hospital snob’.

“I only go to the same hospital, the same ward, every time,” she says. “The nurses know me really well and I know them. I’ve watched them get married, have kids, even their kids get married and have kids. New staff are told I’m special – and not always in a good way!”

Unfortunately, Kelly’s medical dramas don’t end there, with a particularly concerning instance lurking around the corner…

“It was night shift handover so both shifts [of nurses] were still there,” Kelly remembers. “Two of the nurses were leaving and walked past my room and thought I was crying. Thinking that was odd, they asked the nurse who was on duty to go in and check on me. He did straight away, and as he rolled me over, he realised I was going blue and in cardiac arrest – I wasn’t crying, I was trying to breathe!

Naturally, all staff sprang into action and six fractured ribs later, Kelly was in ICU but still breathing. The culprit? Low potassium.

“Even though I was on IV potassium, my level had dropped to 1.7,” she says. “At that level my doctors were amazed I had recovered from the cardiac arrest.”

Admitting she doesn’t remember anything of the following two weeks spent in ICU while her medical team tried to work out why her potassium levels dropped so quickly, Kelly remained dangerously close to death.

Eventually, they realised the culprit of her critical potassium levels… Her high-output stoma – the one she’d accepted for so many years – was to blame.

Kelly remembers it like it was yesterday.

“It was quite an ordeal with everyone checking I was still breathing, something I wasn’t really used to. I was used to gut problems, but not having people fuss over whether I was breathing or not!”

Around eight months after her cardiac arrest, Kelly was told she was suffering from the effects of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) from the sheer trauma of her cardiac arrest. As for her potassium levels, it took the better part of seven months to get them under control. Though she wasn’t in hospital for that entire time, Kelly learnt the warning signs and asked for help as soon as she needed it by getting to the hospital ASAP for treatment.

Eventually, after countless more hospital visits, Kelly’s potassium levels remained under control. The next issue? Familiar to many ostomates… it was another parastomal hernia and another surgery. Unfortunately, even with mesh, within three months the hernia was back and, understandably, Kelly says she was getting very frustrated.

“I was not coping,” she remembers frankly. “It was just one thing after another. [Then] after 27 years with my stoma, I had it relocated to my left side.”

Another hernia on that left side and more surgery unfortunately still wasn’t enough to end the apparently endless surgery story for Kelly.

“I also had shoulder surgery because of my arthritis and associated degeneration, [and] I’ve had two other minor surgeries for hernia repairs… All up, eight surgeries and a cardiac arrest in just over three years.”

Kelly openly admits there were times in those three years that she wasn’t sure she was going to wake up the next day… not because of her physical health, but because her mental health was so poor.

“I didn’t have time to have a break from any of it,” she remembers. “I used to say, when you get knocked down, you get back up. But I wasn’t even getting to my knees before I was getting knocked down again. That was difficult.”

In the grips of her depression, even her beloved ostomy bears weren’t making Kelly feel any better.

“It’s taken a long time and I’m still not back to normal mentally, but I’m getting there,” Kelly says. “[But] physically I’m doing a lot better.”

With her potassium levels completely under control for over two years, Kelly describes still being in recovery as she is only four weeks post-surgery from her last hernia repair.

“My shoulder’s going great, thank God, [but] my arthritis is still kicking me around though. It’s been difficult – but I do get to go swimming again soon!”

Kelly’s love of the water is one small mercy. Because of her arthritis, the only exercise she can do is in the pool and she can’t do that post-surgery.

“And when you’ve had seven of them [surgeries], it makes life difficult!”

Otherwise, Kelly says, she likes to swim five times a week.

“It’s fantastic. I love it – it’s my one hour of pain-free everything.”

Despite her extensive medical challenges permeating her whole adult life, Kelly says that right now, she is ‘definitely on her way back’.

“I can see the light at the end of this very dark road, and I’m getting back into my bears,” she says. “I’m so proud of what I’ve achieved and accomplished in the past 29 years.”

Not shying away of the dark reality of her lowest moments – three unsuccessful suicide attempts between the ages of 25 and 31 – Kelly says ‘besides staying alive with all my health issues’ that the bears are her greatest achievement.

“I’m doing something so important in so many ways,” she says. “It’s given me a purpose again [and] it’s giving people hope that having a bag isn’t the end of your life, it’s just a bag… who cares!”

Wanting to share the couple of sayings she has told herself to help herself across her storied life, Kelly says ‘always put one foot in front of the other, regardless of how small the step is’ and ‘the only thing to fear, is fear itself’.

Citing that having a stoma is nothing to be ashamed of or embarrassed about, she is immensely proud that her ‘little bears’ are continuing to spread a message of acceptance and positivity all over the world.

“How can you beat that?” she concludes earnestly. “I’ll keep forging ahead… It’s looking a little brighter, one bear at a time.”

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Adapted from Kelly’s own words as originally printed in our June 2025 Journal

To find out more about Kelly’s Ostomy Bears, join her private Facebook group here

December 2025