Everyone has a hospital story, whether positive or negative; whether about ourselves or the experience of a loved one.

Toronto's Julie Devaney has turned her hospital story into a play - one she's using to educate medical practitioners across the country and engage the general public in a discussion about Canada's health-care system.

My Leaky Body is a one-woman show that chronicles Devaney's experience with ulcerative colitis, a disease of the large intestine. Her ordeal began when she was 22 and had just moved to Vancouver to further her education (ironically, she was studying health policy and would go on to earn a master's degree in critical disability studies). Her medical journey ended up lasting almost six years and involved repeated hospital stays, chronic pain and a series of surgeries, including the complete removal of her colon in 2004.

Now 30 and in good health, Devaney says she wrote much of what would eventually become the finished play when she was still quite ill.

"That moment when I was right in the middle of it, I wanted to articulate what that was actually like, and not in the glossed-over ways we tend to around medical issues," she explains.

"The actual physicality of that experience from the perspective of a patient isn't something that I've seen much of. It's not what most of the dialogue around medicine is. We (patients) are having these experiences that are gross and intimate and leaky and sometimes, in certain moments, empowering and great, too. It's just not talked about."

Rest assured, all of it is talked about in My Leaky Body - from how it felt to have her colon scoped in front of strangers to the frustration of dealing with less-than-empathetic hospital staff to her fears about whether her boyfriend would still find her sexy.

"I think there's something to be said about the rawness and honesty of it," Devaney says, noting that she's frequently approached after performances by people who want to share their own experiences with the health-care system, whether as patients or service providers.

There's also something to be said about the humour of it. As serious as its subject matter is, My Leaky Body also mines Devaney's experience for laughs - a response she said came naturally to her and her now-husband.

"We were laughing all the time in the most inappropriate, dark moments. Something really gross would strike us as really funny. That's just the way we coped with life."

Devaney debuted My Leaky Body at an academic conference in 2006 and says health-care professionals continue to make up the bulk of her audiences. Still, her profile outside the medical establishment continues to grow; in addition to snagging feature stories in both the Toronto Star and Chatelaine, she just inked a deal with Key Porter Books that will see a print version of her memoir published in 2011.

Devaney is bringing her show to Winnipeg on Thursday, Oct. 29. (True to form, she'll also be presenting it to staff of the Manitoba Congress of Medical Laboratory Sciences and the Brandon Regional Health Authority.)

The public performance will take place in the basement multi-purpose room of the University of Winnipeg's Bullman Centre. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The play will begin at 7 p.m. and will be followed by a Q&A session. Admission is free, with donations to the DisAbled Women's Network of Manitoba welcomed.