Yes, fellow ostomates... it can be done. Here's how you do it... others may know of other ways. You simply need to use a foam mattress topper with a pocket cut out for your bag to rest in while you sleep on your tummy. It's simple, and the hardest part is making it "accident" proof.
Here's what you need:
A foam mattress pad at least 4" thick. Not a foam mattress... a foam mattress topper. You can get one to cover the whole bed or just your side... you and your spouse can fight that one out. They come in thicknesses from 1 to 8 inches. I bought a 4" foam queen size topper at Walmart last year for $70. You can find them even cheaper on sale, and Memorial Day is coming up. If your spouse won't sleep on a foam topper, then just get a single for your side of the bed.
A mattress protector cover one size bigger than your mattress or your topper (if it doesn't cover the whole mattress).
A piece of medium thickness plastic sheeting... a little thicker than your common garbage bag, but not too thick that it doesn't flex and fold.
An electric carving knife (the one you use on Thanksgiving will work just fine).
How to assemble:
Put said topper on top of your mattress. With your bag empty, lay on the topper where you want to sleep. Now you want the area under your bag to be inboard from the outside edge of the mattress for support. So if your stoma is on your right side, you want to sleep on the left side of the bed (so your stoma is toward the middle of the bed and not toward the edge of the mattress). Vice versa if your stoma is on your left.
Lay on your stomach (with your bag empty) and with a Sharpie, mark where your bag contacts the topper. Remove the topper from the mattress (or you'll screw up and cut through your mattress by mistake) and cut out the area you marked with the Sharpie with the carving knife. Cut about an inch more than the outline (see... coloring outside the lines in kindergarten is finally going to pay off). To do this, simply poke the electric carving knife all the way through the topper foam and then cut out your hole. Easy peasy.
Okay, now it's time to test your hole. Lay down on the bed with your bag in the hole and move around a little. If you need the hole to be a little bigger either left to right or up and down... now's the time to do it. Once you are satisfied with your hole, it's time to make it "accident" proof... because if your poop gets on the foam, it will be VERY hard to clean up... the damn foam is like a sponge. So you want to keep the foam clean at all costs.
There are a few ways you can do this. The easiest is to buy a mattress protector cover one size bigger than the mattress pad. This allows you to pull the cover material into the hole you cut out so there's still room for your bag. If you buy the really cheap $4 plastic covers from Walmart... use two of them... you cheap thing, you. What I did was to buy the oversize cover (yeah, I bought the cheap one, but will spring for a better one next time) and then covered the hole loosely with a piece of the medium thickness plastic sheeting, tucking the sheeting into the hole to form a second layer of protection.
I then laid my bed sheet over the whole shebang and marked where the hole was on my mattress cover. Out came my trusty antique sewing machine. I cut a hole in my sheet a little bigger than the hole in my mattress topper... and put a hem around the hole by folding the edge over and stitching... and I'm done.
Now it's gonna take a little getting used to sleeping over a hole in your mattress... but you'll adjust. And this, my friends... is how you can once again sleep on your stomach.
Now just a few notes. If you have high output (like me), you can either stop eating early (which I can't do)... or plan on getting up every couple of hours and emptying your bag. Your choice. A third option is to get one of those larger high output bags, slap that bitch on before you go nighty-night and not worry about it. Just be careful when you get up because if it's full, it will be heavy. And remember... if anyone yells FIRE!... you need to carry your bag with you.
Sweet Dreams,
bob
