The Power of Loving Your Body No Matter What
- Model Sara Levitt, 30, is preparing to compete at Miss Universe Canada in August—and she’s doing so with supreme confidence and hope to spread awareness for others living with chronic illness, as she’s been living with Crohn’s Disease since age 11, and a permanent ostomy bag since age 13, in 2008.
- A colostomy or ileostomy is a procedure where part of your intestines are hooked up through the front of your belly, and you go to the bathroom through a bag that attaches to your skin. This bag is called a stoma bag or an ostomy bag.
- Levitt’s message of loving your body no matter what it looks like is certainly a powerful one. And it’s a message that can likely resonate with many cancer survivors out there who’ve struggled with body image after treatment.
- “Body image is both the mental picture that you have of your body and the way you feel about your body when you look in a mirror,” Dr. Marianna Strongin, a New York-based licensed clinical psychologist, tells SurvivorNet. “As you allow yourself to spend more time looking at all of you, you will begin having a new relationship with your body.”
Speaking to Yahoo Canada about her goal to win Miss Universe Canada and continue spreading awareness for ostomy bags and Crohn’s disease, Levitt, who was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis at age three and Crohn’s Disease by age 11, also shared her reasoning behind sharing her story.
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She continued, “It’s all about me and Liv [the name of her ostomy bag] living our best lives and showing others not to fear ostomy life. It’s about showing people you can have dreams and having a difference can be a superpower.
“To know that I have that ability to alter and change somebody’s views and enable them to live their life completely and fully with a visible difference or a chronic illness has given me so much purpose in life. That alone is fuel to my motivation and every single thing that I do.”
Levitt first announced she was running for Miss Universe Canada last month on social media. She wrote in an Instagram post, “Honored to be stepping onto this stage not just as a delegate for Miss Universe Canada, but as a proud woman with a visible difference (LIV my Ostomy) and a chronic illness, alongside my title sponsor, and the reason I’m able to live @hollister_incorporated.
“This journey doesn’t just represent beauty, it represents resilience, confidence, and the power of embracing what makes us unique. Showing other woman our challenges do not define us, but merely give us an additional source of strength, and that there is space for us all.”
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She added, “For every ostomate, every warrior with a scar – visible or not, and every person who’s ever felt ‘different,’ let’s make this our stage too. Can’t wait to take you all along for the next 2 months of preparation leading up to a week of being completely and unapologetically me, wearing my differences proudly. And if someone asks me what’s my perfect date, it’s May 2nd, cause that’s the day I got a second chance at life.
“This is our Miss Congeniality moment #MissUniverseDelegate #VisiblyDifferent.”
Despite any criticism Levitt may receive on her road to the Miss Universe Canada stage she share a video of herself exuding confidence and calling herself a “bag bish.”
She urged that “medical device shaming should never be a thing,” further noting, “I always say that I feel ostomy stigma comes from the fact it deals with poop not a traditionally daily topic we speak about and something that can make others feel shy or embarrassed about, like couples that literally can’t let each other know when their taking a #2, but we literally all do it and we are rewriting the narrative, especially when it’s about something that allows us to live.”
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Just one day before Levitt turned 30, on September 26, 2024, the resilient pageant contestant celebrated one year of being an ostomy bag and Crohn’s disease advocate.
She captioned the post, “Closing the 29th tier of my life and opening up the 30th X 365 days of being just me tomorrow. Little me wouldn’t believe it if I told her everything we have accomplished in the past year towards normalizing Ostomies and fighting for representation.
“Words and ideas CAN change the world, so keep owning your differences and shinning cause I know me and LIV are never stoping, this is only the beginning.”
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What Is An Ostomy Bag?
An ostomy bag, also called a stoma bag, is used after someone undergoes a colostomy or ileostomy a procedure where part of your intestines are hooked up through the front of your belly.
A colostomy is when the large intestine (colon) is brought through this opening in the skin. An ileostomy, on the other hand, is when a part of the small intestine (ileum) is attached to the skin. These procedures can both be performed as a part of bowel cancer treatment, though they definitely aren’t always necessary.
The stoma bag, also called an ostomy bag, is then attached to your skin to allow you to go to the bathroom.
“Any time you have surgery on the intestine you can’t predict how well it’s going to heal,” explained SurvivorNet advisor Dr. Heather Yeo, a surgical oncologist and colorectal surgeon at New York Presbyterian Weill Cornell Medical Center.
“The majority of the time we can put patients back together, we connect one piece of the intestine back to the other. If we are able to do that successfully, they don’t need to have a colostomy bag.”
Dr. Yeo explained further, “That being said, sometimes people get blockages and need emergency surgery and those patients are more likely to need a temporary colostomy bag. Sometimes people have cancers that are too big to take out, and those people may also need a colostomy bag.”
“I Began to Embrace it”: How One Survivor Learned to Live with a Colostomy Bag
A stoma bag might seem like it’d be a nuisance, but many people lead an active and normal life with their bags. A plastic bag acts as a cover so it doesn’t smell, and once it’s full you can simply empty it in the bathroom.
“Once you get over sort of the psychosocial effects, you can lead a totally normal life,” Dr. Daniel Labow, the chief of the Surgical Oncology Division at Mount Sinai, previously told SurvivorNet. “It’s not painful. It’s just getting used to a different way.”
And most patients will have their ostomy reversed two or three months after their cancer operation.
“If we do [an ostomy] for colon cancer, 99 percent of the time almost it’s temporary, could be as short as six to eight weeks, let everything heal, and then reconnect them down below,” Dr. Labow said.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease & Colon Cancer Risk
Ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease are two different inflammatory bowel diseases that affect colon cancer risk differently. Colitis is a lifelong condition that causes inflammation of the lining of the colon, which can accumulate and damage the colon. Crohn’s disease is also a lifelong condition, but it can cause chronic inflammation in any part of the GI tract from the mouth to the anus. For some people, that may be the colon, but most commonly it’s the small intestine and the beginning of the large intestine. Both colitis and Crohn’s can cause intense abdominal pain and diarrhea, among other symptoms. Treatment can sometimes put these conditions into remission.
Because colitis causes inflammation in the colon, it raises colon cancer risk for everyone who has it. That risk increases the longer someone has colitis. As a part of routine care, people who have had colitis for eight years or more may get a colonoscopy to screen for colon cancer every one to three years, depending on their individual level of inflammation.
In the general population, guidelines recommend colon cancer screening once every ten years starting at age 45. Follow up screenings sooner than ten years are based on whether you have any abnormalities.
Does inflammation cause any other types of cancer? Dr. Stephen Freedland explains.
Doctors use colonoscopies to check for abnormal growths (polyps) in the colon that can be cancerous or develop into cancer. People with colitis tend to develop a different kind of polyp than other people do, and these polyps are more likely to contain atypical or pre-cancerous cells.
“So those polyps are one step closer to developing into cancer, whereas a lot of the polyps we find in the general population are benign,” Limketkai says.
Crohn’s disease is a little bit different. Because this condition can affect any part of the GI tract, Crohn’s disease only raises risk for colon cancer if the inflammation is in the colon, which varies from one person to the next.
“If it spares the colon, then we don’t have to do all the surveillance that we do in colitis,” Limketkai says. “Of course, you may need to have colonoscopies for other reasons, and while you’re doing that, you’re getting a screening anyway.”
Reducing Risk for Colon Cancer in Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Meanwhile, when it comes to inflammatory bowel disease, the major risk factor for colon cancer is untreated disease. Treatment, which may include a combination of medication, dietary changes and routine endoscopies, keeps inflammation under control. Sticking to that treatment can help keep colon cancer risk to a minimum, too.
How Sara Levitt’s Determination Can Serve as Inspiration To Others
Sara Levitt’s message of appreciating your body no matter what it looks like is a powerful one. And it’s a message that can likely resonate with many cancer survivors out there who’ve struggled with body image after treatment.
It’s importance to understand that body image problems are not unusual, especially for so many people dealing with health challenges – whether cancer or another type of illness.
You should try to work on how you view your body because it can positively impact your emotional and physical well-being as a whole.
“Every day of our lives is really filled with uncertainty” but those facing a cancer diagnosis tend to feel that uncertainty at a more extreme level, Dr. William Breitbart, the chair of the Department of Psychology and Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, previously told SurviorNet.
Dr. Breitbart also said that learning to embrace that uncertainty is a part of living, not just for those fighting cancer, but for everyone.
“What the task becomes is having the courage to live in the face of uncertainty, realizing that you cannot necessarily control the uncertainty in life, like the suffering that occurs, challenges both good and bad,” Dr. Breitbart says.
Learn to Accept Yourself A Huge Part of Living With Cancer
“You may not be able to control those but you have control over how you choose to respond.”
Meanwhile, Dr. Marianna Strongin, a New York-based licensed clinical psychologist, also has some helpful advice. She encourages people that spending time in front of the mirror can help with body image.
Although “research has found that when looking in the mirror we are more likely to focus on the parts of our body we are dissatisfied with” which can cause “a negative self-view and lower self-esteem,” it’s important to look at the parts of your body that you love and the parts of your body that you don’t.
Eventually, Dr. Strongin says, doing so can help you create a more accepting relationship with yourself.
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“Body image is both the mental picture that you have of your body and the way you feel about your body when you look in a mirror,” she said. “As you allow yourself to spend more time looking at all of you, you will begin having a new relationship with your body.”
Whether you are living with cancer or some other type of illness, it’s important to know you’re not alone if you’re having a hard time with how you view your body after receiving a diagnosis or going through treatment.
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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