A triumphant true story of loss, illness and recovery. How one woman turned the sow's ear of a chronic disease into the silk purse of a fulfilling life. Bag Lady is the poignant true story of a woman's struggle with the chronic, debilitating disease of ulcerative colitis. It chronicles how she coped with it before and after making the momentous decision to have an ileostomy and commit to wearing a plastic bag on her stomach for the rest of her life. Bag Lady runs deep. It is more than the story of a woman and her disease. It is the story of a life buffeted by a mindboggling series of profound downers, any one of which would defeat most of us. It is a metaphor for the physical and emotional "baggage" that encumbers every person's life. It reads like page-turning fiction, but it is all true. Bag Lady speaks to the millions of victims of ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease and colon cancer and to the families and friends who live their illnesses with them. It trades frankness and understanding for the euphemisms and misconceptions of diseases that, for too long, have been consigned to the shadows of polite discussion.