Baggage handling

You know the old tip about packing for a trip...put everything you think you'll need together and then leave half of it behind? Well, the standard advice for travelling with an ostomy is...put everything you think you might need together and double it! You can't just pop into a store and buy extra surgical supplies so it makes sense being over cautious there...but you also have to plan for possible daytime wardrobe malfunctions and take a wardrobe full of clothes...and night time ones and take various kinds of bed protection...

If you have problems with your lower limbs and joints you're not going to be able to carry all this in a rucksack...if it's your arms and hands that are the problem then a suitcase on wheels is not ideal as there's always the bit where you have to get it up and down some steps (like to the front door and back if you live in an upstairs flat!) and of course, you have to avoid lifting heavy weights to cause or exacerbate a hernia!

If you suffer from all of the above but lack the personal charm or financial wherewithal to provide yourself with a porter/chauffeur you might, at this point, feel like tearing your hair out...though if you've recently rocovered from alopecia you'll probably quickly desist from that. If you have a blog you can write about it and people can think you are plucky and droll, and indeed you might be...but you still have to handle the bleeping baggage...

Anyway...I give thanks that I'm plucky and droll! And that, after Rachel persuading me I really WAS worth it, I decided to spend what seemed to me to be an absurd amount of money on the prettiest backpack I had ever seen in my life to see if this would supplement my little manageable wheelie case and assist matters both psychologically and physically... I have bigger ones and smaller ones but this is the one for Goldilocks just now...it has numerous pockets of various sizes...including an inner one for a laptop...padded straps and waterproof bottom...sounds just right for a madwoman, eh? It doesn't have those squeezy clippy things that hurt my thumbs and trap my fingers...just zips. And as the metal pulls on those are fiddly small for me I decided to do the fiddling now rather than in transit and have made some little fabric tags out of some ribbon that's been hanging about for years like the Chumba sock avoiding my frequent recycling/charity shop donations by jumping out of collection bags and hiding elsewhere... It kind of matches the waterproof bottom which pleases me greatly!

I'm grateful I've also handwashed my handmade jumper and it has survived and is drying nicely...but my body is now protesting so much I think I'm going to have to have a little lie down before I make my tea... I shall be quite grateful when I do!

Much thanks for kind comments also...again! Especially nice to hear from Juanita...I'd been wondering how you were!