For those of us who are fully-abled, it can admittedly be pretty hard to imagine living any other way – and most of us take some of the simplest things for granted.
Like, you know, going for a wee. So people were pretty baffled after hearing the very different way this woman spends a penny.
Steph Aiello took to Instagram to explain how she now 'pees through her belly button' after a devastating car accident left her paralysed.
Yep, you read that correctly – pees through her belly button.
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The now 26-year-old was involved in a major crash back in 2010 that tragically killed one of her closest friends and left her paralysed from the waist down.
Steph uses her platform to help break the stigma around disability as she shows how she does various everyday tasks and activities as a quadriplegic.
And in one viral video, she said she knows it’s time for her to go pee because her eyes start to get ‘a little watery’ and this signals an immune reaction called autonomic dysreflexia.
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This is an excessive nervous system response to stimulation and can involve a change in heart rate, high blood pressure and muscle spasms.
It’s most common in those with a spinal cord injury and can be a sign the bladder is full.
The makeup artist said she can ‘be anywhere and everywhere I want’ when she needs to go as she showed a cylindrical blue catheter.
“When I stick it into my belly button, it’ll reach my bladder,” she explained.
Pushing it in, it then enables her to effectively pee through her belly button before she slowly pulls it out.
Showing how she closes the catheter tube back up afterwards, she adds that she can then take the catheter bag and ‘discard it in the toilet, like a normal person I guess’.
“I will say to anyone who is thinking about getting this surgery, it is extremely brutal,” she warned.
“It is a brutal surgery, the recovery is really rough. But I always tell everyone, if I had to do it again every single year, I would.”
Aiello underwent the Mitrofanoff Procedure which she says was ‘worth the pain and struggle for the independence’.
She explained how a C-section incision is created and the surgeons used her appendix to create a ‘tunnel from your bladder to your belly button’.
“I do take some form of bladder spasm medication occasionally, to prevent my bladder from spasming and having leakage,” Aiello added.
“I did in the past do Botox in my bladder to prevent my bladder from spasming, however, since my insurance has changed, it is no longer covered. As if we have to worry about another thing in our life…”
And Instagram users were amazed as they’d ‘never even heard of this’ as others thanked her for sharing and teaching her followers.
Jess Battison