65: Stoma4Life with Raphaela Reeb - Episode 6565: Stoma4Life with Raphaela Reeb - Episode 65
UK Health Radio Podcast
Registered nurse Emma Hankin shares her long, painful route from sepsis and abscess surgery to life with a colostomy, highlighting years of dismissal, failed treatments and discrimination. Raphaela and Emma talk frankly about stigma, mental health and why better education and compassion around stoma care are so urgently needed.
41:40•20 Oct 2026
Behind the Bag: Emma’s Colostomy Journey and the Hidden Stories of Stomas
Episode Overview
- Every stoma story is unique and isn’t always linked to cancer or inflammatory bowel disease.
- Dismissal and stigma from healthcare professionals can worsen both physical symptoms and mental health.
- Current nursing education and hospital practice often leave staff underprepared and hesitant to provide stoma care.
- Open conversation about leaks, odour and body image helps reduce shame for people living with a stoma.
- Better training, compassion and listening to patients’ experiences are crucial for improving care and dignity.
“Behind every stoma is a person. There’s a story and often a path that nobody else could possibly understand.”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head-on against addiction, illness and life-changing surgery? This conversation on UK Health Radio’s Stoma4Life shines a light on one such journey, as host Raphaela sits down with registered nurse and ostomate, Emma Hankin. The episode focuses on Emma’s long and painful route to a colostomy, beginning with a fall in the bath back in 2012 that spiralled into sepsis, a nine-hour operation and a massive horseshoe abscess.
From there, she faced years of misdiagnosis, worsening symptoms and dismissal from professionals who told her, astonishingly, that her problem was simply “stress” and that she should leave nursing. As Raphaela sums it up: “Behind every stoma is a person.
There’s a story and often a path that nobody else could possibly understand.” Emma explains complex issues like fistulas, faecal leakage and nerve damage in plain language, making this episode especially helpful if you’re living with a stoma or supporting someone who is. She talks through multiple failed treatments – biofeedback, Botox injections, sacral nerve stimulation and strict diets – all tried before she was finally offered a colostomy, which she credits with saving her life and sense of dignity.
You’ll also hear about the emotional toll: declining mental health, feeling like an “imposter” in the stoma community because she didn’t have cancer, and the sting of stigma and discrimination from colleagues and healthcare staff. The chat doesn’t shy away from the uncomfortable bits, but there’s warmth, humour (Emma calls her colostomy bag “Betty poop”) and a strong call for better education for nurses and more compassion for patients.
If you’ve ever assumed you knew why someone had a stoma, this episode might make you pause and rethink. Whose story might you be missing behind “just a bag”?
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