Hey guys, there's been an issue affecting the entire site over the last several days. Most people won't be able to access veganostomy.ca or the forums, and will get an SSL certificate error.

What happened: The SSL certificate, which communicates to web browsers that the site web address does actually belong to veganostomy.ca, and not some fake website; it also ensures that data is transmitted between the browser and website securely and privately.

This certificate needs to be renewed as they expire, and this is done automatically.

Because the SSL certificate issuer is having problems, the website's certificates cannot be updated.

I've been working with my web host to resolve this issue. In the meantime, if you managed to get on the site and can read this, you know what's going on.

I'm really sorry for the inconvenience this has caused, and I thank those who have emailed me out of concern.

Hopefully, this will be sorted out soon!

Unfortunately, the last backup time was Feb 2, 2024 @ approx. 12 am, so any posts or messages between then and now are lost.

I'm sorry for any inconvenience.

Eric

Tips For Applying For Disability Tax Credit
1. The DTC is based on income. If you have no income, you will not get a credit on your tax return.
2. Read all the information, and watch all the videos pertaining to the DTC on the Canada Revenue Agency website – www.cra.gc.ca/disability before you fill out the application. This will help you understand the CRA language, which will help you fill out the application so they understand it. (Remember when you had to learn to speak medical jargon in order to make yourself understood to your doctors? Same idea here.)
3. Your doctor will need to fill out most of the forms. DO NOT let your doctor mail the application to CRA!! Pick it up when completed, and mail it yourself. This way, you can check to see if your doctor made any mistakes (more common than you think) and also, you should make a copy for yourself in case you need to appeal the CRA's decision.
4. Fill out your portion of the forms. If your surgery was more than a year ago, check the YES box in Section 3. The CRA will adjust your previous tax returns up to 10 years, if applicable.
5. Under the 'Effects of Impairment' section, write “Please see Attached”. Write your story and attach it to the forms. Do not be brief – the more detailed, the better (mine was over 2 typed pages). The CRA will make a decision based on the information you give them, so don't leave anything out. You MUST explain that your ostomy is permanent, and that you require an ostomy appliance 100% of the time. You also MUST explain why it takes you at least 3 times longer to eliminate as it does the average person. So, if you empty 8 – 15 – 20 times a day, say so. Describe what emptying means – don't hold any details back. Describe also ALL the steps required to change an ostomy appliance, and how many times per week you need to do this. Point out ANY difficulties you have, and how you deal with them – horrific leaks, excoriated and raw skin around your stoma, hernia, repeat surgeries – how has this affected your day to day living? The CRA will want to know this – if you don't tell them, they will contact your doctor. They may anyway. Make your story easy to understand, so that a person who knows nothing about ostomies can understand it. Don't use jargon (ie “pancaking”) without defining it. Define terms such as “Stoma” (the opening created by surgically attaching the colon to the outside of the abdomen for purpose of elimination), “flange”, “pouch” etc.
6. Make a copy of your story for your doctor, and ask him/her to keep it in your medical file. If the CRA contacts your doctor, he/she will have your version of how it affects your daily life.
7. IMPORTANT!! Make sure your doctor knows that if CRA sends him/her any additional forms, this is TIME LIMITED! Your doctor will have one month from the date the new forms were mailed to return them to CRA, or your application WILL BE DECLINED.
8. Call CRA (1-800-959-8281) if you have ANY questions, especially if they send you correspondence you don't understand. Always have on hand, your SIN number, and last year's tax return in order to answer any identification questions they will ask. Always make a note of the name and number of the person you speak with (ask them to repeat it if necessary) and the date and time of the call.
9. If you are approved for the DTC (YAY!!) and you are under 60 years of age, you may be eligible for the Registered Disability Savings Plan, and depending on income, for Canada Disability Savings Bonds, and Canada Disability Savings Grants. A list of participating financial institutions can be found at: www.canada.ca/en/employment-social-development/programs/disability/savings/rdsp.html
GOOD LUCK!!!

Laurie

Vice-President : Marketing: Rasmus Hannemann

Designer : Jakob Bendix

Senior Coupling Project Manager: Philip Norup Olsen

Head of Mechanical Design : Benny Matthiasen

Filter Project Manager : Lasse Albrectsen

Senior Adhesive Project Manager: Jakob Weldingh

Senior Scientist : Henrik Edvardsen

Ocassional consultants : 300 nurses, 700 users (ostomates)

The above list I compiled from interesting comercial about new improved Ostomy Pouches 

which were recently developed by COLOPLAST company.

It is 6 min. video, which was e-mailed to me from Coloplast. 

The link to this video (on YouTube) I will try to add in a next post.

Regards, 

polgyver

That left the forum and a large portion of the site inaccessible to anyone, including me. 

My apologies for any inconvenience. 

One of the changes I'll be implementing during the site refresh (in the next week or so) is to disable the randomly generated avatars on the forums. 

While I really do love the cute characters and uniqueness of the random avatars, they are generated by a third-party (Gravatar) and this runs opposite to the privacy-first approach I'll be taking with the site moving forward.

If you've already uploaded a profile picture, then there's nothing you need to do on your end. 

If you are using one of the generated avatars (many of you are!) then you have three options:

1. Do nothing, and at some point it will default to a generic avatar (which everyone else who doesn't update their avatar will have).
2. Upload your own personal avatar by following these instructions.
3. Saving your currently assigned avatar and upload that, so you can keep it forever. 

To do the third option, simply go into your forum profile and either right click or long press the avatar (if you are on a phone) and you should have the option to save that image (see the screenshot below). Then follow these instructions to upload them to your profile again. 

All uploaded avatars will live on the VeganOstomy server without any third-party being linked to them 😁

Thanks 

Tony (in Ireland)

I'm in the process of moving VeganOstomy's email provider to a more private provider.

This transition may cause interruptions in forum notification emails and any of the @veganostomy.ca emails (Gmail is still working, as it's totally separate).

Once things are set up, the goal is to move away from Gmail and Amazon SES to a private service under my own domain. 

Thank you for your understanding. 

Any video or interview of Edward Snowden will be eye-opening from a data privacy perspective.

So in case anyone is puzzled why the VeganOstomy Instagram and Facebook pages are no longer available, it's because I've left both platforms (both owned by Facebook). The short answer: The Facebook company is evil, and both platforms are too toxic for my time and attention.

The long answer:

When I joined Facebook way back in 2004, it was a totally different place. I was able to connect with family and old friends, and it was pretty cool.

Then it became a tool to help connect with IBD and ostomy advocates as I began to develop my own form of advocacy through Facebook. Things were great! So many people found me through Facebook, and when I started using Instagram, I had the same positive results.

But as the years went on, social media changed. We began to see ads every 15th post, then every 10ty, then 5th, then every third post. There were way more "Promoted Content" that littered our feeds and then some of the advocates I followed began taking on sponsors to promote their stuff - every post, in effect, was either an ad or a post hiding an ad.

Needless to say, this significantly lowered the quality of the content I was seeing and produced a lot of noise in my feed, so the platforms became less useful for me.

But in recent years I've seen both platforms use and abuse their user's private data, even worse, they're using that data against us to promote more ads and to sell that personal data to anyone who was willing to pay.

I didn't want to support either platform personally, but having the VeganOstomy pages really kept me entrenched in the Facebook/Meta ecosystem.

As an example, you need a personal Facebook account to manage a "Page", which means that Facebook will still be tracking and collecting as much data as possible from me personally, even if I'm just logging in to reply to a private message sent to VeganOstomy.

For context, I take privacy and privacy rights very seriously in my personal life, so I'm always using an adblocker, tracker blocker, and VPN when necessary. Even with those in place, my Facebook data export lists hundreds of advertisers who used my personal data to target me.

But that's the point. Facebook and similar platforms monetize off of your private data and your preferences. You become the product, no matter how they want to spin it.

Several years ago, I when I wanted to create a safe space for people to connect and ask questions, I began to explore the possibility of starting a Facebook Group, since so many people were on the platform.

But in both my research and questionnaire to my followers, it became really clear that Facebook would not be a good place to share your private medical experiences, even in a "closed" group.

Our data is on those platforms is not protected, and Facebook Groups become a honey pot of data collection for Facebook to sell to someone else (or use it against you).

That's when I decided to start the VeganOstomy Community Forum, which is not linked to any social media platforms and allows you to use completely anonymous login/account details to you can interact. Of course, unlike Facebook, you don't need an account to view the posts on the forum.

So where does that leave VeganOstomy? Won't it be hard for people to find my content?

Yes and no, but mostly no.

While Facebook has driven traffic to the site through shared posts, search engines and other websites direct far more visitors to the site.

The difference is that Facebook forces users to see the posts, while search engines allow people the option to visit the site or not.

Freedom of choice is far better than being forced to see things that may or may not be relevant to your life. Plus, I'm always accessible directly through email or the VeganOstomy forums.

What I'm planning for VeganOstomy.

I've already started making privacy-related improvements to the VeganOstomy site, and I'm also in the process of moving some of my services over to more private-first solutions to protect both my visitors and myself from vultures like Facebook.

In my personal life, I've already transitioned nearly all of my Google services over to non-google, privacy-respecting services (including, self-hosting). Yes, Google is no better than Facebook in many regards.

While I've already removed Google Analytics from the site, and I do plan to move VeganOstomy's Gmail account over to a different service, it will be difficult to move away from YouTube at this time.

I simply don't see any other alternatives for YouTube which could provide the same reach and benefits to my audience.

But that doesn't mean I can't protect my visitors from Google's prying eyes :)

If you visit an article that has a YouTube video in it, you'll see a thumbnail without any of Google's tracking scripts or cookies loaded in. Once you click on the thumbnail, it will proceed to load the actual YouTube video (a disclosure is at the bottom of each video).

More is coming, and it's all to benefit my visitors.

Leaving social media will also free up more time and mental energy to actually work on getting more content done. I'm looking forward to a bright future for VeganOstomy.

What you can do.

Have patience while this transition takes place.

I'm still just one guy, running all of VeganOstomy on top of a full-time job and busy family life. In the next few weeks, if you see something "broken" on the site, no need to worry, it's being worked on :)

If you've donated to the site, thank you.

Your generosity has enabled me to invest in services that provide value to everyone who visits the site, without relying on ads and sponsored content.

Quit social media. Really.

There's nothing wrong with the idea of social media, but the direction that current social media companies have taken society is so off track that it will take more people to leave those platforms in order to course correct.

Mental health has been in decline and anxiety disorders have been on the rise, especially for young people, and social media use is often strongly correlated.

These platforms are engineered to steal your attention and have been purposely used to manipulate voters, promote hate, target minorities, and to be addictive. You don't have to be a part of that system.

If you'd like to learn more about the problem and what you can do about it, I encourage you to view these videos and tap into various resources which promote privacy as a fundamental human right. The data privacy community is huge and growing every day.

The Social Dilemma (on Netflix)

Cal Newport (his video interviews are great, but his books are also wonderful)

The Great Hack (on Netflix)

Electronic Frontier Foundation (nonprofit defending digital privacy; they offer practical tools and advice)

Any video or interview of Edward Snowden will be eye-opening from a data privacy perspective.

Over the last several weeks/months, I've been doing a ton of data cleanup in my personal life, this includes deleting old accounts, removing personal information from e-commerce sites, and replacing apps that don't respect privacy with ones that do. 

The whole process got me thinking about how I could improve the privacy of this website for users like you.

That's not to say that it was lacking before - in fact, I've always prided myself on not playing fast and loose with user data. 

Selling email lists or tracking users so they can be targeted with ads, is pretty much the norm these days when it comes to data. For most companies, selling user data can generate the same or MORE revenue than selling products and services. To be clear, I never have and never will sell private user data. 

If you live in Europe, you've got some protection, but even those won't allow you to escape the privacy abuse from companies like Facebook (or it is "Meta"?) and Google. 

If you want to be shocked, request your personal data from Facebook, Google. Fitbit, Samsung, Apple, or Amazon. It's easy to do but be warned that it will likely send you off on a digital privacy adventure. :-D  

But now I'm going off on a tangent. 

Here are some changes I've made to the back-end (no pun intended!), which you likely won't notice, but if some issues come up, please let me know.  Some of this may be a little techie, especially if you aren't familiar with website development, but I figure I'd explain what's going on. 

• Analytics. I've disabled all previous analytics on the site, including Google Analytics, Cloudflare analytics, and WordPress analytics. While these services have offered tremendous value to me, I can't trust what they do with the data collected. Instead, I'm testing an option that allows for privacy-focused analytics that will not collect user-identifiable data, does not track users across multiple websites, or sells user data.  It's not free, but I think it's worth it and the site should load better without the added tracking scripts.  FYI, if your browser has a "do not track" setting, this site will respect that (many websites will not).
• "Cookies". Not necessarily a bad thing, but many websites use and abuse cookies to track their users. While I can't fully eliminate all cookies on the site, I've reduced the number of cookies used by more than 75%, and the only remaining cookies are kept on your browser and used only for things like the forum and comment posting (i.e so the site knows that you're logged in and stuff like that). 
• Disabled Google Fonts. Previously, fonts would be fetched from Google, loaded in your browser, and used to display the content of the site. Not anymore. I've completely disabled Google fonts for two reasons: It cuts Google off from another way to track users and it improves page speeds by relying on your local/system font.  One potential side-effect is that pages may not look 100% as I intended if your system font is ugly. LOL

I'll be testing these changes over the next few weeks, and I plan to implement more to improve privacy on the site.

Once everything is said and done, I'll update the site's Privacy Policy.