The 2000 UOA Youth Rally was held at the campus of Miami University in Oxford, Ohio from July 8-12. This annual event brings teenagers together from all over the country who have an ostomy and/or continent procedure related to a birth defect or illness. It gives them a chance to share their experiences with one another in a campus setting, which shows them that having an ostomy doesn't need to keep them from having goals and pursuing their dreams. The Rally is completely staffed by volunteer counselors, including the ET Nurses. Many of these counselors previously attended as youth and now return year after year to volunteer. This was my first year to ever attend a Youth Rally and I did so as a Counselor. I was not aware of the Youth Rally while growing up as a teenager with a urostomy related to my being born with Bladder Exstrophy so I was very thankful for the opportunity to attend now as an adult. While I am now a nurse in pediatric home care, I am not an ET Nurse and since attending the Youth Rally in July, I realize more than ever what important work they do! It was a busy and exciting few days, as I will describe below, and while I came home exhausted (I think everyone did!), I also came home reminded of the importance of this event for so many people.

All the adult volunteer Counselors and Nurses were asked to arrive the day before the youth arrived on Saturday, July 8th. This gave those that already knew each other from previous years the chance to reunite and someone like me who was a volunteer for the first time the chance to start "soaking the whole experience in" and get to know the other volunteers I would be working with. It was really exciting once Saturday came and the first busload of youth arrived from the airport! While trying to locate the youth assigned to my group, I was kept busy helping other youth check in, finding their rooms in our dorm and getting them some lunch from a cafeteria on campus. By the time the Saturday night pizza party started, the Youth Rally was in full swing with some 120 teenagers and 60 adult volunteers. At the opening night dinner, everyone was asked to wear a t-shirt or costume that described what they liked or where they were from. This was a great way to start getting to know each other. I wore a Seattle Mariners baseball cap and Grand Valley State University t-shirt to represent where I lived the first 30 years of my life (Seattle) and where I have now lived for a year with my husband who teaches at this university in West Michigan. Along with the pizza dinner were games outside near the dorm, like a dunk tank, mini-basketball, "mock sumo-wrestling", karaoke and volleyball. Thankfully, the weather cooperated and it was a beautiful warm evening!

Sunday morning, like all the rest of the mornings, started with breakfast in the cafeteria (where most all our meals were eaten on campus), and a chance to meet briefly with our assigned groups to go over the days events. Our Sunday morning session in one of the lecture halls near our dorm was a game show style presentation put together by the ET Nurses. It helped us all learn more about the medical diagnoses represented at the Youth Rally and issues involved with taking care of ourselves. Then we broke off into small groups led by the ET Nurses, with each group corresponding to a different diagnosis. This gave the youth a chance to share similarities and differences within their conditions and connect with other teens and adults who are dealing with the same issues as themselves. After lunch we spent the afternoon at the Low ROPES Team Challenge Course located on the campus. This involved working in our groups with student leaders from Miami University who led us through various activities which challenged us mentally and physically to develop trust, communication and teamwork. It was a hot and humid day, but the activities we did helped reaffirm the importance of working together as a team and I felt I'd gotten to know everyone in my group better that day! That evening we had an outdoor barbeque on the beautiful grounds of the campus and spent the evening hanging out with each other back at the dorm with activities like pool, ping-pong, crafts and bingo (renamed S-T-O-M-A!). It was a great way for the youth to be together to share their stories and experiences with each other.

Monday morning came and we were all pretty excited about our trip after lunch to King's Island Amusement Park just outside Cincinnati, Ohio. Before that, though, we were treated to an Edutainment presentation by Mel Edwards who uses music to talk about the importance of goals and having a positive self-esteem. More than once he had us all up dancing in the lecture hall! It was a lot of fun! Then it was time for a group picture of the youth in front of the dorm before lunch. Everyone was wearing their Youth Rally t-shirts. It's my favorite picture from the rally because it shows everyone coming together and that, while it is tough to be a teenager with an ostomy, everyone in this picture is going through similar experiences and no one needs to feel alone in their journey. After lunch we all boarded onto 4 buses and 2 vans and headed for King's Island. Everyone wore their 2000 Youth Rally t-shirts so it was easy to find each other no matter where we were in the park. I even got coaxed into riding a couple very large roller coasters by some of the teenagers! We stayed until the park closed with a fireworks show. The weather even held out until the very end. I will always remember the heavy rain that drenched us all as we loaded the buses to head back to Miami University.

All of a sudden it was now Tuesday morning and the realization that it was our last full day at the Youth Rally hit me rather suddenly. After breakfast, our morning session in the lecture hall focused on dating issues by using the format of the game show The Dating Game. It helped to show that what is most important is the kind of person that you are and if someone doesn't like you because of your medical condition then they are not the kind of friend you would want to be around anyway! We spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready for the evening dance and graduation, including a room that was set up as a "beauty shop" with facials, make-up and hair styling available to the youth, thanks to some of the counselors! Other activities that afternoon also included watching videos, swimming in the campus pool and shopping in town at some of the stores. The dance that evening was a lot of fun with Mel Edwards from Monday morning returning as our D.J. It was also a very emotional evening with a large group of teenagers graduating from attending the Youth Rally as teenagers and hopefully returning in the near future as counselors! For many of us, we didn't want the evening to end because it meant that morning would soon come with many tearful goodbyes until coming together again at a future Youth Rally.

It was a very early morning for everyone on Wednesday with the first bus leaving for the airport by 6 a.m.! Many of us got very little if any sleep because of wanting to make the most of the time left to visit, exchange e-mails and addresses and pack our suitcases! It was all over too quickly and I couldn't wait to develop my 4 rolls of film once I got home to relive the memories and reaffirm that all the big events of the last days had really happened. It was an amazing experience and there are so many more people that have done this for a much longer time than myself. I write this as a first time counselor with no previous experience, but I believe it is such an important thing to be doing. I cannot end this without mentioning two people who have made this wonderful experience possible for many years now to so many people and they are the Youth Rally Co-Chairs, Gail Garvin and April Gimlen. They volunteer countless hours throughout the year to make this Rally happen every July. I would be happy to speak with anyone interested in attending the Youth Rally as a teenager or volunteer counselor and could also refer you to some people who have been involved with it a lot longer than me!

I can be reached by e-mail at BradnAlice@cs.com or by phone at (616) 647-1277.