Rev. Dunbar-Perkins A New Normal

Rev. Dunbar-Perkins A New Normal

Chaplaincy

Many people, especially after you have a colon cancer or some other, sometimes Crohn's disease, diseases that interfere with your large intestine, your bowels. This is a hospital, this is how we talk. And you may have to have something where all of your waste material comes through this bag that's put on the side of you and you have to manage that every day. You can't do it how everybody else, you got to, that's got to be physically worked with. I've heard people being told, 'Well you oughtta be glad, this colostomy saved your life. Now that you have this, you don't have to worry about this.' But what about the woman who says, 'Oh my God, when I'm sitting in church, can people smell me?' We're talking about the most basic parts of the human body, the functions. So yeah, you feel marginalized because your life, the normal that you had, is gone.

Kevin Dowling

Religion Department (Carleton College)

2013

Sound

.mp3 (audio)

C_RevDunbarPerkinsNewNormal.mp3

Minneapolis, MN