we will learn about skin. translates gill made her first trip to the hospital in 2022, so some of the faces are familiar to her like mary, who has a urostomy, which diverts urine out through a stoma on the abdomen. previously, mary was just wearing bits of cloth or whatever on her stoma to try and absorb. and it s a constant source of urine that s coming out. i mean, it s even worse than being incontinent in your underwear because at least, you can kind of put pads in that might be held there. mary, actually, she lives very far away from here. she had run out of supplies and she was wearing a sort of a seal on a tatty old string with a plastic bag attached just a normal plastic bag. and that was her stoma bag. we ve given her quite a few months supply and now, the hospital are aware that she might run out a bit quicker than others. british artist tracey emin has the same kind of stoma as mary
swimming in open water three times a week and streaming it online. welcome, everybody! this is the start of my bikini challenge. everyone should do this. it is so good for your mental health. it s just amazing. i mean, come on, man who doesn t want to do this?! it was then that she was contacted by the head of an american charity called beyond fistula, which helps kenyan women who, like gill, have had fistula surgery, many of whom end up with a stoma. i am pulling it. they re cringing! see? chuckles. i don t care! i realised during the course of that conversation they don t have stoma bags and the ones that do have are very poor quality, so i said, oh! well, we have lots of surplus in the uk that can t be given back to the hospital. they can t go anywhere other than landfill. so, ifundraised. it s absolutely insane to me to think that two years ago i was in my little garage in alnwick, in northumberland,
voice-over: this is bbc news. we ll have the headlines for you at the top of the hour, which is straight after this programme. woo hoo! yeah! joyous laughter this is kind of like my really in your face way of saying if i can swim the channel, you can go to your local pool. but really, ultimately, my other thing is to show my son that his birth didn t ruin my life. oh, my god. this was the moment she d been working towards for years. in 2023, gill castle became the first person with a stoma to swim the channel. have you got a message for sam? it was all for you, gorgeous boy. and just two months later, she was in kenya, helping women with the same condition but hardly any support to learn to live with their stomas.
so she had to have her bowel diverted out onto her abdomen, creating a permanent stoma. knowing how hard it was to come to terms with this massive life change, she wanted to let others see it couldn t stop herfrom doing anything. when i first had my stoma surgery, i was told, no, you can t do that to a lot of things. but my attitude is, well, why not? nothing ventured, nothing gained. shivers i don t want to dwell all the time on what happened in the past. i also want to show people what s possible moving forward. screams morning, everybody! here we are at ben nevis. and that s really important, to give people hope, i think. good morning, happy campers. and throughout the winter of 2020, gill did just that, taking on her bikini challenge, swimming in open water three
times a week and streaming it online. welcome, everybody! this is the start of my bikini challenge. everyone should do this. it is so good for your mental health. it s just amazing. i mean, come on, man who doesn t want to do this? it was then that she was contacted by the head of an american charity called beyond fistula, which helps kenyan women who, like gill, have had fistula surgery, many of whom end up with a stoma. i am pulling it. they re cringing! see? chuckles. i don t care! i realised during the course of that conversation they don t have stoma bags and the ones that do have are very poor quality, so i said, oh!