Holiday times

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Just back home to Bournemouth, England on Wednesday, 8th November '23 after a 17-day holiday trip to Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka, Japan, and Bangkok, Thailand, and via Shanghai both ways for my flight stopovers, but only 4 hours each time.

Been with my stoma for nearly 30 years, called Stumpy, like a tree stump, all over the world and maybe it's just me, but I've never had any problems with any flights up to 12 hours as well, security walkthrough, carrying 30 spare bags in my carry-on bag, and eating any foods in any country… 🙂😎

Good for you. I’d love to see Thailand. 

That is amazing. Since having my ostomy, I have only ventured as far as a half day away. I went to Michigan in June. I had a freshly sprained ankle at the time, so I didn't get to hike and only went to the beach once. I love hearing people say they have traveled all over the world. It is inspiring. I have always wondered about flying and security checks. I have a book called Yes We Can; it's about traveling with an ostomy. I want to go back to Disney World since I haven't been since I got my ostomy. (Although I hear it has all changed now.) Someday, I want to go to England. If I get the courage (and money) to make a long flight like that.

Lee

@Infinity security checks can be really unpleasant for all of us. In the past years, I traveled around the world very often (more than 50 flights/year). The Netherlands was the country I found very unfriendly. Security checks often ask you to go into a private room and take off your clothes to show them the bag... No, that can ruin your day. On the other hand, most of the time I found security checks respectful of our privacy. So, at the end of the story, start your first travel trying to avoid the Netherlands and carry with you some translations so you can explain "the bag" in their own language.

Yikes, I would not like to be asked to remove my clothes in front of total strangers so they could examine my bag. I think I will refrain from traveling there; thank you for the warning. I have always wondered about things like other countries knowing what an ostomy is or how to treat it in an emergency. Like, are the hospitals as good as those in the US, and even the US ones are only fair. Well, the ones I have been to. There is only one good one that I have been to, and they were only good the second time I was there. After my initial surgery, they sent me out without any instruction on how to put on a bag or how to take care of one, or how to gauge how much Imodium I might need on a given day. The second time I went there, for my relocation surgery, they had all kinds of nurses around me and ostomy specialists, and taught me how to do things and set me up with a home health ostomy nurse, and gave me a handout on how to take Imodium, and one nurse had an ostomy herself and she was very helpful. So, that experience was much better than my initial one. But I am not sure what I would do if I was in the middle of, say, Africa, where the nearest hospital was 100 miles away. And would they even know what an ostomy was? So, that is some of my hesitation in traveling outside the US.

Lee  

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