Welcome to Richard McNairs
Home Page!

Some background to where I live

I live in Te Puke, New Zealand, which is a small town near the coastal city of Tauranga in the North Islands Bay of Plenty region. New Zealand is a country of about 104,000 square miles with a coastline of 4300 miles. Our highest mountain is Mount Cook which is 12,315 Ft and the climate is mild. We are largely a farming country with our main exports being meat, wool, dairy products, forestry products and wine. However we are working hard on converting to a technology based society and our tourist industry is growing fast and by 2010 will be larger than farming. Sports and recreational facilities abound and New Zealand has a tremendous amount to offer as a holiday destination. Our population is around 3.7 million.

Ostomy

Due to Bowel cancer I had to have an Ilieostomy in 1995 and have found that my life has just never been the same since, in fact I found that I can now do things that I could only have dreamed about in the past. I am the Secretary / Treasurer of the Western Bay of Plenty Ostomy Society Inc which is based in Tauranga and which has around 90 members.Last August at the NZ National conference of the Federation of New Zealand Ostomy Societies Inc I was also elected to the Executive committee, something which I feel very proud of. I would be most interested in hearing from other Ostomates from anywhere in the world.

An Ostomate is someone who perhaps due to bowel cancer has to wear a bag in order to collect body waste and there are up to 6500 Ostomates in New Zealand. There are three main types of Ostomies.

A/. Colostomates are people who still have some of their large intestine left.

B/. Ileostomates have no colon left at all.

C/. Urostomates wh due to urinary problems have to wear a bag.

There are a few people who are classed as double Ostomates and have to wear a Urostomy bag as well as one of the others and as people we are no different to anyone else and unless you were told you might not even notice, maybe your neighbour is one of us!!.

e-mail me at

you are the visitor to this site