About Ostoluxe
This practice began long before it had a name.
Ostoluxe was born from both professional experience and a deeply personal journey.
Years ago, I became critically ill from complications of Crohn’s disease. What followed was a life-changing hospitalization and, ultimately, a life-saving ostomy.
I became an ostomate because I had to survive.
And I did.
But what I came to understand is that surviving the surgery and learning how to live after it are two very different things.
The hospital prepares you to go home. But going home is when an entirely new journey begins.
Suddenly, the clinicians who were just steps away are no longer down the hall. Questions come up at home. Your body changes. Your stoma changes. Pouches leak. Skin becomes sore. You worry about hydration, nutrition, medications, output, supplies—and whether what you're experiencing is normal.
And beyond all of those clinical concerns, there is something much harder to put into words:
You are learning how to recognize yourself again.
I know what it feels like to be the patient.
I know what it is like to wake up and realize your body is different.
I know the vulnerability of learning to care for a stoma.
I know the frustration of a pouch that will not cooperate, the anxiety of wondering whether something is wrong, and the hundreds of little adjustments that eventually become part of everyday life.
I also know how much it matters when the person standing beside you truly understands.
I especially remember what it meant to encounter people who could relate personally to pieces of what I was experiencing.
There was comfort in not having to explain everything.
There was hope in seeing someone on the other side of it.
And there was something incredibly powerful about being able to look at another person and think:
You understand. And you're okay. Maybe I can be okay, too.
I never forgot that feeling.
Then my story came full circle.
Years later, I obtained my doctorate degree and became a Nurse Practitioner.
My career gave me the opportunity to care for patients from an entirely different side of healthcare; developing the clinical knowledge and experience to assess, diagnose, treat, prescribe, educate, and coordinate care for patients with increasingly complex needs.
But I never stopped being an ostomate.
I never forgot what it felt like to be discharged home and realize that the hardest parts of recovery don't always happen inside a hospital.
And the further I progressed in my career, the more clearly I could see the gap I had once experienced as a patient.
There are extraordinary surgeons, gastroenterologists, IBD specialists, WOC nurses, primary care providers, oncologists, hospital teams, and other clinicians caring for people with ostomies.
Ostoluxe was never created to replace them.
It was created to stand beside them.
To help bridge what happens between appointments.
To provide specialized care after the patient goes home.
To recognize dehydration or high output before it becomes another hospitalization.
To help when a pouch suddenly will not stay on.
To manage medications, hydration, nutrition, supplies, skin complications, and the countless clinical challenges that can accompany life with an ostomy.
And sometimes, simply to be the person a patient can turn to and say:
“Something isn't right. I need help.”
That is why Ostoluxe exists.
I created Ostoluxe to become the resource I wish every person with an ostomy could have, one I wish I’d had. One I wish my family had.
A place where you don't have to choose between clinical expertise and personal understanding.
A place where concerns are taken seriously.
Where access to care doesn't disappear after discharge.
Where preventing the next emergency matters just as much as treating the last one.
Where education isn't limited to learning how to change a pouch.
And where an ostomy is understood not simply as a surgical outcome, but as something that becomes part of a person's life.
Ostoluxe provides specialized care before surgery, after discharge, during complications, and for life.
For someone preparing for an ostomy, I want to help make the unknown feel a little less frightening.
For someone newly home from the hospital, I want there to be somewhere to turn.
For someone struggling with high output, dehydration, skin breakdown, leakage, nutrition, medications, or supplies, I want specialized help to be accessible before the problem becomes a crisis.
And for the person who has lived with an ostomy for five, ten, twenty years or longer, I want them to know that they still deserve specialized ostomy care.
More than a provider. A fellow ostomate.
When you come to Ostoluxe, you will be cared for by a healthcare provider.
But you will also be cared for by someone who has stood where you are standing.
I understand the medicine.
I also understand the life.
I understand that sometimes the victory is correcting dehydration and avoiding a hospital admission.
Sometimes it's finally getting irritated skin to heal.
Sometimes it's finding a pouching system that lets someone leave the house without worrying about a leak.
And sometimes it's helping a person realize that their life is still waiting for them.
My ostomy saved my life.
Over time, I learned that surviving was only the beginning.
I learned to live again. To build a career. To become a nurse. To become a nurse practitioner. To earn my doctorate. And eventually, to take one of the most difficult chapters of my life and turn it into something that could help someone else.
That something is Ostoluxe.
From my journey to yours.
Ostoluxe exists because no one should feel that they are navigating life with an ostomy alone.
It exists to bridge the space between the hospital and home, between a question and an answer, between a developing complication and an avoidable hospitalization, and between simply surviving and truly living again.
This practice is deeply personal to me.
Every patient who I see represents a journey I respect because, in my own way, I have lived one too.
My hope is that Ostoluxe becomes more than somewhere you receive ostomy care.
I hope it becomes somewhere you feel understood.
Somewhere you feel safe asking the questions you were afraid to ask.
Somewhere you feel supported through the difficult days.
And somewhere that reminds you of something I had to learn myself:
Your life did not end when you received an ostomy.
Sometimes, it is the very thing that allows your life to begin again.
Rerouted. Survived. Together we thrive.
Rachael Kearney, DNP, FNP-C
Founder, Ostoluxe