[OstomyOK.org - An Alliance of Oklahoma Ostomy Support Groups]

History of this OstomyOK.org website

This site is shared by a number of non-profit, volunteer-run ostomy support groups. The site has existed since 1996. Key events in the history of this site include:

In June 1996, this site began as the website for the United Ostomy Association’s Stillwater-Ponca City (Oklahoma) Chapter (now the Ostomy Association of North Central Oklahoma). Initially, the site didn’t have its present domain name (ostomyok.org) but was hosted in personal webspace from an ISP. At that time, the UOA national website was less than a year old and only a handful of ostomy chapters had their own websites.
In August 1998, this site was expanded to include all UOA chapters in Oklahoma (or, at least, every chapter willing to participate — we ended up with 6 of the 8 Oklahoma chapters). Initially, each chapter other than the founding Stillwater-Ponca City chapter was given a single web page displaying information provided by the chapter (which the chapter would hopefully update reasonably often).
In subsequent years, two of the chapters represented on this site, namely, the Lawton-Fort Sill and Tulsa chapters, provided their own webmasters who maintained their pages independently (those pages were linked into our site using “frames” so they displayed the same left-side menu as our other pages). Unfortunately, those groups no longer have their own webmasters. (And the Lawton-Fort Sill group later disbanded, so isn’t on the site now at all.)
By May 2001, this website had been hosted in personal webspace from two different ISPs which either went out of business or merged with other ISPs. Then we obtained the ostomyok.org domain name, thereby providing a more recognizable identity and avoiding the need for additional URL changes in the future.
In June 2005, the United Ostomy Association (UOA), which had served as the national ostomy organization since 1962, announced that it was shutting down. This caused a period of uncertainty, when the groups represented on this site began preparing for life as independent support groups without a national parent organization. During that period, we contemplated a significantly increased role for this website, possibly including taking over the discussion board that was on the UOA site. That turned out to be unnecessary when some former UOA leaders announced plans to form a new national ostomy organization called United Ostomy Associations of America (UOAA) to fill the void created by UOA's dissolution.
UOA ceased operations on Sept 30, 2005 and, to avoid any gap, the new UOAA started up officially on Oct 1, 2005. However, because UOAA was a new organization, the local UOA chapters didn’t become part of UOAA automatically, but needed to re-affiliate as “Affiliated Support Groups” (ASGs) of UOAA. In that process, only 4 of the 8 ostomy groups in Oklahoma survived to become ASGs in UOAA. Thus, after the transition to UOAA, this site represented 4 local groups: Tulsa, Oklahoma City, Lawton-Fort Sill, and the founding Stillwater-Ponca City group, which was renamed Ostomy Association of North Central Oklahoma.
The Lawton-Fort Sill group disbanded in 2017. Currently, as of early 2019, this site consists mainly of pages from the North Central Oklahoma group, but the Tulsa and Oklahoma City groups each have a page on the site. The “Ostomy 2-1-1” group, which formed several years ago and differs in many ways from a traditional ostomy support group, isn’t part of this site, but we link to them in order to provide a complete list of UOAA-affiliated groups in Oklahoma.

DISCLAIMER: The documents contained within these WWW pages are presented expressly for informational purposes only. In no way are any of the materials presented here meant to be a substitute for professional medical care or attention by a qualified practitioner, nor should they be construed as such. ALWAYS check with your doctor if you have any questions or concerns about your condition, or before starting a new program of treatment. The operators of this website are not responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for ANY form of damages whatsoever resulting from the use (or misuse) of information contained in or implied by these documents.

This page last revised 2019-01-01

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History of this OstomyOK.org website