Stoma surgery: How the colorectal procedure is the best thing that ever happened to me 

Following years of painful flare-ups and medication for ulcerative colitis, Ashley Hoyne underwent stoma surgery and hasn’t looked back since

Ashley Hoyne: 'I don’t feel that [the stoma bag] had a major impact on my mental health from an image point of view, I think because it gave me such relief. I look at it as such a gift.' Picture: Ferdia Mooney.

Ashley Hoyne was a typical student enjoying college life while studying to be a nurse at the University of Limerick (UL) when she began to experience serious gut issues and pain.

“I suffered with gut issues [as a child] — usually constipation and things like that,” she says. “But when I got to college, it started getting a bit more serious; more abdominal pain, very crampy, a lot of urgency running to the bathroom.”